Another group of hymns has the person of the king as its centre. They contain charms to be used at a royal election or consecration, for the restoration of an exiled king, for the attainment of lustre and glory, and in particular for victory in battle. The following is a specimen of spells intended to strike terror into the enemy:-- Arise and arm, ye spectral forms, Followed by meteoric flames; Ye serpents, spirits of the deep, Demons of night, pursue the foe! (xi. 10, 1). Here is a stanza from a hymn (v. 21, 6) to the battle-drum meant to serve the same purpose:-- As birds start back affrighted at the eagle's cry, As day and night they tremble at the lion's roar: So thou, O drum, shout out against our enemies, Scare them away in terror and confound their minds. Among the cosmogonic and theosophic hymns the finest is a long one of sixty-three stanzas addressed to the earth (xii. 1). I translate a few lines to give some idea of its style and contents:-- The earth, on whom, with clamour loud, Men that are mortal sing and dance, On whom they fight in battle fierce: This earth shall drive away from us our foemen, And she shall make us free from all our rivals. In secret places holding treasure manifold, The earth shall riches give, and gems and gold to me: Granting wealth lavishly, the kindly goddess Shall goods abundantly bestow upon us. The four hymns of Book XIII. are devoted to the praise of Rohita, the "Red" Sun, as a cosmogonic power. In another (xi. 5) the sun is glorified as a primeval principle under the guise of a Brahman disciple (brahmacharin). In others Prana or Breath (xi. 4), Kama or Love (ix. 2), and Kala or Time (xix. 53-54), are personified as primordial powers. There is one hymn (xi. 7) in which even Ucchishta (the remnant of the sacrifice) is deified as the Supreme Being; except for its metrical form it belongs to the Brahmana type of literature. In concluding this survey of the Atharva-veda, I would draw attention to a hymn to Varuna (iv. 16); which, though its last two stanzas are ordinary Atharvan spells for binding enemies with the fetters of that deity, in its remaining verses exalts divine omniscience in a strain unequalled in any other Vedic poem. The following three stanzas are perhaps the best:-- This earth is all King Varuna's dominion, And that broad sky whose boundaries are distant. The loins of Varuna are these two oceans, Yet in this drop of water he is hidden. He that should flee afar beyond the heaven Would not escape King Varuna's attention: His spies come hither, from the sky descending, With all their thousand eyes the earth surveying. King Varuna discerns all that's existent Between the earth and sky, and all beyond them; The winkings of men's eyes by him are counted; As gamesters dice, so he lays down his statutes. CHAPTER VIII THE BRAHMANAS (Circa 800-500 B.C.)