prudishness of the Vedic age has omitted the vital part of the union of the pair. The curious hymn, iv. 18, which tells of Indra’s unnatural birth becomes a drama by the assumption that of thirteen verses seven are ascribed to the poet himself. We are in fact in every case presented with a bare possibility, which sometimes involves absurdities, and in all cases does nothing whatever to help us in interpreting the hymns. There is nothing, it is true, inconceivable in the view that the hymn of Saramā and the Paṇis was actually recited by two different parties, and thus was a ritual drama in nuce; what is certain is that the later Vedic period knew nothing whatever of such a practice; the only hymn in dialogue form for which it finds a use (x. 86) is assigned an employment in which there is nothing dramatic whatever. The absurdity of the whole process reaches perhaps its fullest exhibition in the dissertation on the hymn regarding Agastya and Lopāmudrā (i. 179), for it becomes a fertility rite performed after the corn has been cut; Lopāmudrā becomes ‘that which has the seal of disappearance upon it’, a feat which is impossible in the Vedic language; the hymn itself suits far better the obvious alternative [14] of ‘one who enjoys love at the cost of breaking her marital vows’. To explain the hymns of Indra and the Maruts (i. 170, 171, and 165) we are to hold that we have three scenes of a dramatic performance, which takes place at a Soma sacrifice to celebrate the victory of Indra over the serpent Vṛtra, ending with a dance of the Maruts, represented by youths fully armed. This weapon dance is a relic of old vegetation ritual, the driving out of the old year, winter, or death, which is the foundation of the dances of the Roman Salii, the Greek Kouretes, the Phrygian Korybantes, and the German sword dancers. How can it be justifiable to spin theories thus in order to explain hymns which are taken by themselves without serious difficulty save in detail?