DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.638#0033
INTRODUCTION xxxi
Like the Alpine and Mongoloid peoples, the Vedic
Aryans were a patriarchal people, mainly pastoral but
with some knowledge of agriculture. They worshipped
gods chiefly: their goddesses were vague and shadowy:
their earth goddess Prithivi was not a Great Mother in
the Egyptian and early European sense; her husband was
the sky-god Dyaus.
In Egypt the sky was symbolized as the goddess Nut,
and the earth as the god Seb, but the Libyans had an
earth-goddess Neith. The " Queen of Heaven " was a
Babylonian and Assyrian deity. If the Brown race pre-
dominated in the Aryan blend during the Vedic Age, we
should have found the Great Mother more in prominence.
The principal Aryan deities were Indra, god of
thunder, and Agni, god of fire, to whom the greater
number of hymns were addressed. From the earliest
times, however, Aryan religion was of complex char-
acter. We can trace at least two sources of cultural
influence from the earlier Iranian period.1 The hymns
bear evidence of the declining splendour of the sublime
deities Varuna and Mitra (Mithra). It is possible that
the conflicts to which references are made in some of the
hymns were not unconnected with racial or tribal religious
rivalries.
Indra, as we show (Chapter I), bears resemblances to
other "hammer gods". He is the Indian Thor, the
angry giant-killer, the god of war and conquests. That
his name even did not originate in India is made evident
by an inscription at Boghaz Koi, in Asia Minor, referring
to a peace treaty between the kings of the Hittites and
Mitanni. Professor Hugo Winckler has deciphered from
this important survival of antiquity "In-da-ra" as a Mi-
1A convenient term to refer to the unknown area occupied by the Vedic Aryans
before they invaded India.
Like the Alpine and Mongoloid peoples, the Vedic
Aryans were a patriarchal people, mainly pastoral but
with some knowledge of agriculture. They worshipped
gods chiefly: their goddesses were vague and shadowy:
their earth goddess Prithivi was not a Great Mother in
the Egyptian and early European sense; her husband was
the sky-god Dyaus.
In Egypt the sky was symbolized as the goddess Nut,
and the earth as the god Seb, but the Libyans had an
earth-goddess Neith. The " Queen of Heaven " was a
Babylonian and Assyrian deity. If the Brown race pre-
dominated in the Aryan blend during the Vedic Age, we
should have found the Great Mother more in prominence.
The principal Aryan deities were Indra, god of
thunder, and Agni, god of fire, to whom the greater
number of hymns were addressed. From the earliest
times, however, Aryan religion was of complex char-
acter. We can trace at least two sources of cultural
influence from the earlier Iranian period.1 The hymns
bear evidence of the declining splendour of the sublime
deities Varuna and Mitra (Mithra). It is possible that
the conflicts to which references are made in some of the
hymns were not unconnected with racial or tribal religious
rivalries.
Indra, as we show (Chapter I), bears resemblances to
other "hammer gods". He is the Indian Thor, the
angry giant-killer, the god of war and conquests. That
his name even did not originate in India is made evident
by an inscription at Boghaz Koi, in Asia Minor, referring
to a peace treaty between the kings of the Hittites and
Mitanni. Professor Hugo Winckler has deciphered from
this important survival of antiquity "In-da-ra" as a Mi-
1A convenient term to refer to the unknown area occupied by the Vedic Aryans
before they invaded India.