Page:The Religion of the Veda.djvu/135

 Wilt—h-

The Prehistoric Gods [I9

and must be discarded in order to release from. existence.

But these two religions began at approximately the same point, and they continue with enough of the same materials to make the study of each in some measure dependent upon the other. We are here concerned with the Vedic side only. A very con- siderable number of important Vedic divinities, religious conceptions, and sacred institutions belong to this common Aryan period}E Their sphere is en- larged, their meaning better deﬁned, and their chrou nology shifted across long periods of time, if we keep our eye on the Avesta. Of course we must not negu lect to allow for the process of recoining which these ideas have passed through in India. In a certain sense every prehistoric religious idea that has mam aged to survive and to emerge in India has become Hindu; not the least fascinating part of these re- searches is to show just how the spirit of India na~ tionalises or individualises the ideas that were born

on a different soil. Two spheres of Vedic ideas and practices concern

us here in a particular degree. The ﬁrst is the sphere of the great Vedic god Varuna, his dual partner

I See. Spiegel Die Arirr/ie Prriadr;Da.rmestetter, Sacred Boo/ts of his East, iv... 13. 1vi,ﬁ; Oldenberg, Dir Religion dc: Veda, pp. 26f, 341 f; IIillebrandt, Rituelliz‘z‘emz‘mr, p. II, and the bibliographic notes there given; Macdonell, Vrdz'r Myz‘ﬁalogy, p. 7