A new approach to the Vedas : an essay in translation and exegesis

A NEW APPROACH TO THE VEDAS

Kausitaki Bry., VIII, 3; and Indra as Glory (yasas) and Lord of Existences (bhutanam-adhipati), Aitareya Aranyaka, U1, 3, 7.

131 That soma drops may stand for individualities is suggested in the Parcavimsa Brahmana, V1, 9, 19.

132 Cf. Avalon, Garland of Letters, Ch. XIII. Eckhart, I, 464, “ the boundary line between united and separated creatures... . There her aught abides, graven in a point.’ With “ boundary line”’; cf. again Islamic jidaviyya, the “‘ murity ’’ of the Outwardness contrasted with the Inwardness, see Nicholson, Studies... p. 95.

On the “ point,” cf. also Dante, Paradiso, XVII, 18, and XXVIII, 16 and 41-42, ‘‘1l punto, a cui tuiti li tempt son presenti. .. . Un punto vidi che vaggiava lume . . . Da qual punto depende il cielo, e tutti.

133 It may be suggested that pre-Zoroastrian Magianism was faced by the possibility of a decay, similar to that which actually took place in Greece, by a humanisation and concomitant devitalisation of the older elemental, not “immortal ’’ powers of the Year. Was Orphism a movement in Greece comparable to the Zoroastrian in Persia, or related to the Zoroastrian (cf. Harrison, Themis, 1927, pp. 465, 466), but which failed to avert an actual Olympian victory ? In this case, the derogation of the daevas (even at the cost of introducing an appearance of duality, which in Manichaeism was still further developed) must be thought as Zoroaster’s supreme achievement, and the main cause of the survival of Zoroastrianism as a living religion to-day. Olympian victory in Greece sealed the fate of Greek religion: Jesus repeated later what Zoroaster had accomplished in Persia, and Christianity has survived until now, when once more western religion stands in danger of rationalisation and replacement by a moral code (modern comparisons of Christianity and Stoicism are not without good reason).

In India it is true that the older designation “ Asura’’ (Titan) gradually acquires an ill-omened sense, and that “‘ Deva” (Olympian) takes its place as the preferred designation of the bright powers: but those who are thus made “‘ Devas”’ (cf. Brown, W. N., Proselytising the Asuras, J.A.0.S., vol. 39, 1919) become Olympians only in name (except in the case of Indra), in fact they are the Titans of old. Thus, the Olympian victory is merely nominal; that the conquerors are really defeated by the conquered, corresponds to the defeat of “‘ Aryan ”’ by “indigenous” culture, again in all but name. It is true that Indra, who had been in Vedic times a power ranking with and competing with Varuna and Agni, is relegated, together with the once elemental Gandharvas and Apsarases, to an Olympian heaven of lasting pleasures : but Indra’s spiritual importance, never comparable with that of Varuna, steadily decreases until in Buddhist and other post-Vedic literature he is hardly more than a literary figure and deus ex machina. Thus in India the danger of Olympianism seems to have passed without a definite crisis. The post-Vedic development is devotional rather than rationalistic. Wisnu and Siva, though now somewhat more personally conceived, inherit directly from their Vedic prototypes. Siva’s drinking of the venom produced at the Churning of the Ocean and his iconography alone suffice to reveal him as a living God: and if Laksmi Is sometimes little more than a figure of rhetoric, that is never true of Durga. If Visnu was ever in danger, that was precluded by the doctrine of his incarnations and passions, above all by his avatarana as Krsna.

134 The notion of phthonos (see next note) first appears in Brhadavanyaka Up., I, 4, 10. 106

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