Page:The Religion of the Veda.djvu/97

upon the economic motives, or the all-around personal character of its authors as upon the extent and quality of their mental vision. To treat sacrificial themes in the high poetic way seems to most of us hollow mockery. But we must not forget that such performances, to some extent, continue the pious ways of the fathers; that the acts in part symbolise real religious feeling; and that most religions have a trick of throwing a poetic and sentimental glamor around practices that are trivial intrinsically. Then the difference of standards in a semi-barbarous time, such as the time of the Rig-Veda, must count for something. After all that I have said to forefend what may be called a padded or swollen estimate of Rig-Veda poetry and religion, both the poetry and the religion are of singular interest and importance. In its essence the Rig-Veda is not liturgy but mythology. Its priest-poets, in their heart of hearts, are not mere technicians, but tense observers of the great facts and acts of nature, and worshippers of the powers whom they fancy at work in nature. In fact they are both poets and philosophers. There is in this matter some real cause for surprise. We must not forget the long, almost indefinite past of Hindu mythology and religion. I shall endeavor to make this clear in the next lecture when we come to deal with the reconstructions