Page:The Religion of the Veda.djvu/211

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Religious Conceptions and Feeling
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to him his ishṭāpūrta (that is, the merit which he has accumulated through sacrifice and liberality to the priests)!" (Taittirīya Samhitā 5. 7. 7. 1.)


And so another poet, in a better vein, says in a verse that has become famous in India:


"The highest step of Vishnu (that is the solar paradise) is ever seen by the liberal giver: it is fixed like an eye in the heavens." (Rig-Veda 1. 22. 20.)


At a later time when the Hindus in their highest mood turn the ordinary gods into supernumeraries, when metempsychosis takes the place of a journey to heaven, when they have sloughed off priests, sacrifice fire, spoon, and ghee, all that is changed. The degraded Çraddhā or Faith is replaced by Bhakti, "Devotion," that is, devotion to the Eternal True, Only Being that is at the root of all things. The ishṭāpūrta, piled up in the savings-bank of heaven, where Yama and the Fathers are engaged in ever-lasting feasts, is replaced by karma, the accumulated deeds of a given lifetime and the attendant evolution which these deeds have worked upon the spirit. This so definitely shapes character as to determine the nature of the next rebirth, until a perfect life shall free the mortal from the toils of all existence,

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