Page:The Religion of the Veda.djvu/44
fondly derive their descent from such a Rishi. The hymns themselves state this repeatedly – such and such a poet has seen[1] such and such a hymn –: the exact value of this claim is not easily estimated. The names of these traditional Rishis have a good ring in India at all times. They are in the order of Books ii-vii, Gṛtsamada, Viçvāmitra, Vāmadeva, Atri, Bharadvāja, and Vasishtha. The eighth book and the first fifty hymns of the first book are ascribed to the family of Kanva; they are marked off even superficially from the rest, because they are arranged strophically in groups of two or three stanzas. These form the bulk of those stanzas which, set to music, reappear in the Sāma-Veda. The ninth book, a kind of Bacchic collection or text-book, is addressed to the deified plant soma, and the liquor pressed from it.[2] This soma drink furnishes by far the most precious libation to the gods. They are supposed to intoxicate themselves with it unto great deeds of valor. The remainder of the first book and the entire tenth book are more miscellaneous in character and problematic as to intention and arrangement. To some extent, though by no means entirely, they are of later origin and from a different sphere, in part of distinctly popular character, very