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The Beginnings of Hindu Theosophy 233

these thought movements. As a matter of fact we are at the beginning of higher Hindu thought con- fronted with its most important and most permanent idea. Some poets of the Vedic time, writing, not badly, in Vcdic metre, see more or less clearly that the idea of God, in so far as it can be conceived at all, presupposes the idea of absolute unity. It is a thought both independent and of leonine boldness. Independent, because there is no suspicion of foreign thinkers, or foreign literature. Bold, because it will soon lead to the conclusion that there is but one real thing, one “That,” one drag are sick, which ex... ists both in the universe and in man, and that all else is illusion. Whatever else we may say of this con- ception, a bolder conception has not emanated from the brain of man; a holder conception cannot, per- haps, come from the brain of man. We have become acquainted with one expression of this unity in the hymn of Dirghatamas‘ : “ They call it Indra, Mitra, Varuna, and Agni, or the heavenly bird Garutmant (the sun). The sages call the one being in many ways ; they call it Agni, Yama, Matarigvan." Professor

1

.Deussen, in his History of Philosophy,“ remarks that

no more epoch—marking word has been uttered in India until we come to the famous for team are,

1 Rig-Veda I.164.46. 5* Afgramaine Gama/m £176? Philoraﬁlzie, vol. i., part i, p. 106.