The Rig Veda Later and Lesser Gods.
Drawbacks and advantages of Classification
CLASSIFICATION, on the whole, is unsatisfactory. The worst of it is, the things classified wonтАЩt dovetail nicely, but are sure to overlap both ways or to fall short. Yet, when one has on hand an overwhelming mass of material, and is, moreover, limited to a scant selection from it, one would flounder helplessly without the assistance of such a guide, even though it be lame and to some extent misleading. This is a disadvantage under which all great subjects labor. And of all great subjects there is none both vaster and more complex than the Rig-Veda; none that grows and expands more bewilderingly under handling; none that more elusively resists classification andтАФto use a very modern yet already somewhat trite expressionтАФpopularization. For popularization means : presenting the results of the work of specialists in an un-technical form, intelligible and attractive to the large mass of average, general readers. And how are тАЬ results тАЭ to be presented where so very few have been finally established ? in a branch of learning which is in the very fervor of research, discovery, comparing theories, correcting errors or hasty conclusions,so that it is a current saying among brethren of the craft that no book on Ancient India can reach its last chapter without the first ones being rewritten. Method, therefore, is, after all, the best safeguard, and careful sorting and siftingтАФclassifying in short ; under reservation and with frequent qualifying of oneтАЩs own definitions.
Later gods to qualify the expression.
To begin with the title of this chapter. It should be well understood that the adjectives тАЬ lesser and later тАЭ are not meant to apply to one and the same deities, or at least not always. The more a divine person goes into abstraction, and the farther it becomes removed from the natural phenomenon which it originally represented, or the more it accentuates certain details of that phenomenon, the later, as a rule, we can place it. Thus the high moral conception of the Sky-god Varuna cannot but have been evolved out of that of the primeval Dyaus, the material visible sky. Again, when we meet three goddesses (very subordinate and rarely mentioned in the hymns), representing the three phases of the moonтАФthe growing, the full, and the waning,тАФwe may be very sure that the worship of the moon itself preceded them. Though of course it is never possible even to suggest a particular time for such evolution where there is absolutely no chronology or at least the nearest approach we can make to one is to conclude, from internal evidence alone, that such or such parts of the Rig-Veda, such or such hymns, deities, conceptions, are тАЬ very early,тАЭ тАЬearly,тАЭ тАЬlater,тАЭ тАЬvery late,тАЭ within the period unknown to us with any precision, but certainly embracing several, probably many, centuriesтАФcovered by the collection. Superlatives, like тАЬ earliest and latest,тАЭ are out of the question where the limit escapes us at either end.
Vagueness about the rank of gods
As to the designation, тАЬ lesser gods,тАЭ it requires to be qualified even more. In the first place, by what standards do we know the lesser from the greater? We have only one, a very simple one: the place each occupies in the Rig-VedaтАФthe number of hymns addressed to each, the frequency with which a given deity is mentioned in hymns addressed to others. It seems a crude standard ; yet on the whole it is not deceptive. Judged by it, Indra, Agni, Soma, at once stand out as the three kings of the Vedic PantheonтАФand so they are. It would seem as though the tone of the hymnsтАФthe degree of fervor in the invocations and praise, the qualities and power ascribed to the different deities, should go for something in deciding such a question ; but they hardly do, on account of the way the old Rishis have, as already noticed, of exalting the god they address, for the moment, above all the others, and ascribing to all in turn the same greater cosmical functions, such as spreading out the heavens, supporting the universe, keeping apart heaven, earth, etc., even to creating other gods, or, at all events, being first among them. The other standard, therefore, is the safest. But it stands only for the time, whatever that was, when the selection of the hymns was made, andтАФto borrow a word from other theologiesтАФthe canon of the Rig-Veda was established. That time was preceded by a past which we have no means of fathoming, and followed by a future as vast, in which the religion of the Rig-Veda was to pass through all the evolutions of Brahmanism and Hinduism. Some of the persons and myths of the Vedic Pantheon, therefore, are very old, while some again are just beginning to assert themselves. To the former class, probably, belong among others Parjanya and Rudra. If so, the greatness of Rudra, as we saw, is in abeyance in the Rig- Veda, but it was to rise again and reach a higher climax than ever, when he became the dread Shiva the DestroyerтАФof the great Brahmanic Triad.
Vishnu
