Page:The Religion of the Veda.djvu/99

 1 The Hieratic Religion We can realise this to some extent by calling up another mythology, that of the Greeks. This is also based upon nature, but nature is soon forgotten, or, if not entirely forgotten, much obscured by after-born movements. Owing to a curious slip, fortunate from the artistic side, unfortunate from the religious and mythical side, Greek mythology fell too completely into the hands of the people. Poets, artists, and even philosophers handle it, each in their own way. But there is a notable absence of those Rishis of the Veda who, with all their too human sordidness and all their Hindu fancifulness see the great realities of the world with their eyes 1 wide open, and work their way slowly but with secure touch from the single and separate manifesta- tions of nature in the Rig-Veda to the absolute One Being which is nature as a whole, that is the idea of unity as finally settled in the Upanishads. The finest flower of Greek mythology, great Zeus, of whom Hesiod says, návra idor opfaluos nat návra vonas, "The eye of Zeus which sees all and knows all," or of whom the old Orphic hymn sings, Zevs apxń, Zevs µéooα, Aròs d'έu návra tétvutai, "Zeus is the beginning, Zeus is the middle, on Zeus all is founded," is at the same time the flippant, breezy Jove to whom the poets ascribe foibles and vices barely excusable in a modern bon-vivant 83