Page:The Religion of the Veda.djvu/150

 I 34 The Religion of Veda

in astronomical knowledge to observe the interrelaw tions of sun, moon, and the planets.

The Adityas and the Amesha Spents have been compared often, perhaps ovenmnﬁdently. It is not necessary, in order to feel unconvinced by Professor Oldenberg’s chain of consequences, to deny a certain nebulous cluster of ancillary or subsidiary divinities which hovered about the persons of the supreme Indo-Iranian twingods Ahura-Mithra, Varunau Mitra. As a matter of fact the Arnesha Spents are not the Adityas. I do not believe that the Adityas, indeﬁnite in number and gradual in their dev010p~ ment in India, represent that cluster, or even its very gradual Hindu substitutes. Several Adityas, notably Mitra, Bhaga, and Aryaman recur in the Avesta, but are not listed as Amesha Spents. Either Macdonell’s or my own hytnotllesis’l as to the origin of the Adityas presupposes that their origin as a Class of gods is gradual and secondary. The Amesha Spents, on the other hand, are sheer abstractions. I Confess that there is not in me the faith to see in them anything as concrete as personiﬁed planets. The more names of the “Immortal Holy Ones ” show what I mean. They are: Vohu Manah, “ Good Mind ”; Asha Vahishta, “Best Righteousness ”; Khshathra Vairya, “Wished-for Kingdom,” or

1 See above, 1). 13L