One more hymn I must add, however, for I am afraid if I do not, I shall be accused of having misrepresented the character of the Veda, as reflecting only the simplest thoughts of shepherds and cultivators of the land. I have remarked several times before that the Rig-Veda contains some very striking philosophical passages, and how far some of the Vedic poets must have been carried by purely metaphysical speculations may be seen by a hymn which I translated for the first time in my “History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature,” 1859. In putting it into a metrical form I was helped at the time by my departed friend, the late Archbishop of York, then Mr. Thomson, and I am glad to say I find little to alter in his translation even now. Hymn X, 129. Nor aught nor naught existed; yon bright sky Was not, nor heaven’s broad woof outstretched above; What covered all? what sheltered? what concealed? Was it the waters’ fathomless abyss? There was not death, hence was there naught immortal, There was no light of night, no light of day, The only One breathed breathless in itself, Other than it there nothing since has been. Darkness there was, and all at first was veiled In gloom profound, an ocean without light; The germ that still lay covered in the husk, Burst forth, one nature, from the fervent heat. Then first came Love upon it, the new germ, Of mind; yea, poets in their hearts discerned Pondering this bond between created things And uncreated. Came this ray from earth Piercing and all-pervading, or from heaven? Then seeds were sown, and mighty powers arose, Nature below, and Power and Will above; Who knows the secret? who proclaimed it here, Whence, whence this manifold creation sprang? The gods themselves came later into being, Who knows from whence this great creation sprang? He from whom all this great creation came, Whether his will created or was mute, The most high Seer that is in highest heaven, He knows it—or perchance e’en He knows not. This hymn is important, not only by what it says, but by what it presupposes. Whatever date we may ascribe to it as incorporated in the Rig-Veda, many generations of thinkers must have passed before such questions could have been asked or could have been answered. As yet we see the Vedic age only as through a glass darkly. The first generation of Vedic scholars is passing away. It has done its work bravely, though well aware of its limits. Let the next generation dig deeper and deeper. What is wanted is patient, but independent and original work. There is so much new ground still to be broken, that the time has hardly come as yet for going again and again over the same ploughed field.