Page:The Religion of the Veda.djvu/217

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Religious Conceptions and Feeling
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Occasionally a start is made towards a warmly glowing relation of love and confidence; the singer in need of help trusts that the god will help him. But there is no permanent, clarified, unselfish love of the gods such as overrides the experience of their instability, such as lives down the melancholy fact that they do not always help. And we have seen what faith is in the Veda: it is the faith that manifests itself in works. The Vedic poets are trained "master-singers." Such poets are not likely to penetrate far into the soul of man. There is no real warmth or depth, no passionate indistinct feeling, no unsatisfied longing which can be made hopefully endurable, or even pleasurable and exalting, through the mystery of a relationship with perfect beings, understood by each individual soul in its own way. Anything like a contemplative, trustful joy in the perfection of the gods comes much later: it is of the Bhagavadgītā, rather than the Rig-Veda.

But these master-singers do believe in their own art; in their wonderful poetry, and in the exaltation of mind which goes with its composition. The gods accept both the poetry and the devout mind at the value put upon them by the poets; the poets are serenely certain that the gods are well satisfied.[1] This

  1. ↑ "Like (a cow) her calf so do the poets lick (the gods) with their prayers," says Rig-Veda 10. 123. 1.
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