Page:The Religion of the Veda.djvu/125

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The Prehistoric Gods
109

"shine," shows that the word came from the luminous manifestations of nature by day and night, and determines authoritatively the source from which the Indo-Europeans derived their first and most pervasive conception of divine power. On more limited Indo-European territory appears another general term, Slavic bogŭ, Old Persian baga Avestan bagha "god," Sanskrit bhaga "god of fortune."[1] The word is again of clear origin: it means spender of goods, or blessings." It contains the abstract conception of a good god, embodying an eternal and never slumbering wish of mankind. The same eastern region of the Indo-European territory has in common another sacred word, used as an attribute of divinity, namely, Avestan (Persian) spenta, Lithuanian szventas, Old Slavic svȩtŭ "pure" or "holy." This secures for prehistoric religion an important spiritual concept. Two important conceptions expressing sentiment towards the gods, that of reverence (Sanskrit yaj, Avestan yaz, Greek άγ in ἅζομαι, "revere"), and that of belief (Sanskrit çraddha, Latin credo, Celtic cretim, "believe") come from old times, though they need not necessarily have been in vogue in every part of the territory

  1. ↑ The "Phrygian" Zeus Bagaios reported by the Greek glossographer Hesychios is nothing but the Persian Baga; see the author in Transactions of the American Philological Association, vol. xxxv., p. xxxi.
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