Page:The Religion of the Veda.djvu/190
religious conceptions, even if we adopt no higher standard than the Rig-Veda. To the growingly finer religious thought of the later Veda Indra contributes nothing positive. Negatively, the coarse grain and the fleshliness of his character which, taken all in all, are foreign to the gods of the Vedic Pantheon, arrest very unfavorable attention. Indra is so grossly anthropomorphic, that is, he embodies so completely the human qualities of brag and bluster, gluttony, drunkenness, and lust, as to make him the peg upon which to hang scepticism. In that way he contributes negatively to the advance of Hindu thought. Of this later on.
This god has remained opaque to the eye of Vedic study. He is not wanting in superlative cosmic qualities. In fact the poets never, unless except perhaps in the case of Varuna, come nearer biting off more than they can chew, than when engaged in lauding Indra. He has no counterpart among those born or to be born. No one, celestial or terrestrial, has been born, or shall be born, like unto him. All the gods yield to him in might and strength.[1] He supports earth and sky, or spreads out the earth.[2] More particularly, he is the Hindu Hercules and demiurge, the doer of great deeds for the people.