Page:The Religion of the Veda.djvu/80

 * 64 The Religion of the Veda of different priestly families on the same or similar occasions, or in connection with the same or similar sacrifices. The Vedic hymns are not quite described even if we designate them as sacrificial poetry. It is a little more than that I cannot express it better than by saying, it is the sacrifice-to the gods of course-treated poctically. In other words these poems are incidental to the sacrifice. The Vedic poet rises in the early morning to a sacrificial day. The very first natural phenomenon he sees with his own eyes, the glorious maiden Dawn, is at once 'pressed into service. She trumpets forth, so to say, to the world that this is going to be a day of sacri- fice which shall result in wealth and comforts. The day goes on, being a mere scaffolding, or ladder upon whose rungs are placed offerings to the gods. Morn- ing, noon, and evening, tolerably definite gods get their regular allowance of offerings, and a very admi- rable kind of hymnal praise, namely the hymns of the Rig-Veda. As the gods come on, one after another, or in pairs, or in groups, they enter upon a stage. The stage is the sacrificial day. They are figures in a drama, more important collectively than singly. Take them singly, and I venture to say that even the Rig-Veda, as does the later ritual, begins to show most of them in the state of a sort of supernumera- ries on the stage of the sacrifice. India is nothing if $