Page:The Religion of the Veda.djvu/167

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Transparent and Opaque Gods
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of real sentiment towards the gods – Poetic inspiration the true religious feeling – The complacent master-singers – The poets' own estimate of their work – The divine quality of devotion.


FOR my part I always come to this theme in the spirit of scientific elation. You know from preceding statements what I mean by transparent gods. They are the gods who are at one and the same time nature object and person. In other words, they are mythic formations whose personification is arrested by the continued action and the vivid memory of the very qualities which lead to personification. Figuratively speaking, just when the chemical is about to precipitate or to crystalise into something unrecognisable, and far removed from its elements, it is shaken and dissolved anew. We are spared the labor of a qualitative and quantitative analysis. In the midst of the uncertainties and intricacies of this subject as a whole the assurance that these processes be renews the courage of the investigator. There is hope that out of the Babel of discordant opinions, many of them grown on the soil of just scepticism, the gods and the beliefs of ethnic religions will reveal their origins. I believe that, next to the Science of Language, the Science of Religion, is the clearest of mental or historical sciences, for the very reason that it is possible to

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