Page:The Religion of the Veda.djvu/218

then is the state of mind that approaches genuine and lasting religious feeling in the Rig-Veda; belief in the beauty and fitness of those glittering, rhythmical, and assonant stanzas; genuine rapture over the excited, throbbing mind, while the glow of composition is upon the poet. The poet calls himself vipra, "inspired"; calls his compositions vipaḥ, "inspirations"; and when he composes, vepate matī, "he is inspired in his mind." In the poet's pride of exquisite workmanship and the gods' unresisting admiration, the Rig-Veda makes us forget at times that unpleasant economic foundation of the performance, namely flattery and cajolery of the gods – for what there is in it.^[1] Soon both gods and men are engaged fraternally in promoting devotion and its best possible expression in hymns, as things of intrinsic worth, as beautiful elevated cosmic potencies. And so we finally find at the summit of this thought, the captivating and important prayer of the poet of the Sāvitrī stanza,^[2] that the god himself shall inspire his devotion.

I have used the word "master-singers." We may take this word quite stringently and seriously. The hymns often allude to the songs of old that were com-

1. ↑ Rig-Veda 8. 21. 6 puts this baldly to god Indra: "We cite you hither with this prayer; don't bethink yourself a minute. We have wishes, you have gifts. Here we are with our songs."
2. ↑ See above p 86.