[2] Bergaigne, in his able treatise, _La Religion Vedique_, insists earnestly on what he calls the "liturgical contamination of the myths." See vol. iii, p. 320. [3] R.V., ix, 42, 4. [4] R.V., ix, 97, 24. [5] The religion of the Indo-European race, while still united, "recognized a supreme God; an organizing God; almighty, omniscient, moral.... This conception was a heritage of the past.... The supreme God was originally the God of heaven." So Darmesteter, _Contemporary Review_, October, 1879. Roth had previously written with much learning and acuteness to the same effect. [6] Muir's _Sanskrit Texts_, v, 412. [7] R.V., iii, 62, 10. [8] The rites, says Haug, "must have existed from times immemorial."--_Aitareya Brahmana_, pp. 7, 9. [9] Weber, _History of Indian Literature_, p. 38. [10] Max Mueller, _Ancient Sanskrit Literature_, p. 389. [11] "The haughty Indra takes precedence of all gods." R.V., 1, 55. [12] "These two personages [Indra and Varuna] sum up the two conceptions of divinity, between which the religious consciousness of the Vedic Aryans seems to oscillate."--Bergaigne, _La Religion Vedique_, vol. iii, p. 149. [13] The meaning of the term is not quite certain. _Sessions_, or _Instructions_, may perhaps be the rendering. So Monier Williams. [14] For example, Wordsworth: "Thou, Thou alone Art everlasting, and the blessed Spirits Which Thou includest, as the sea her waves." --_Excursion_, book iv. [15] Or, the thing that really is--the [Greek: ontos on]. [16] _Ekamadvitiyam._ [17] This illustration is in the mouth of every Hindu disputant at the present day. [18] Barth, p. 75. [19] _Ekamadvitiyam._ [20] Volui tibi suaviloquenti Carmine Pierio rationem exponere nostram Et quasi Musaeo dulci contingere melle. [21] Dr. J. Muir, in _North British Review_, No. xlix, p. 224. [22] _Miscellaneous Writings_ (Macmillan, 1861), vol. i, p. 77. [23] But the truth is that every man is accounted a good Hindu who keeps the rules of caste and pays due respect to the Brahmans. What he believes, or disbelieves, is of little or no consequence. [24] Yaska, probably in the fifth century B.C. [25] Weber thinks that Christian elements may have been introduced, in course of time, into the representation. [26] His Ramayana was written in Hindi verse in the sixteenth century. [27] When Jhansi was captured in the times of the great mutiny English officers were disgusted to see the walls of the queen's palace covered with what they described as "grossly obscene" pictures. There is little or no doubt that these were simply representations of the acts of Krishna. Therefore to the Hindu queen they were religious pictures. When questioned about such things the Brahmans reply that deeds which would be wicked in men were quite right in Krishna, who, being God, could do whatever he pleased. [28] Born probably in 1649.