DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.636#0019
CHAPTER I.
Vedism.
So much has been of late years written and spoken about
the Veda, that to go minutely into this subject would be,
according to a Hindu saying,' to grind ground corn.'
When the Indian branch of the Aryan family settled down
in the land of the seven rivers (Sanskrit Sapta Sindhu, Zend
. Hapta Hendii), now the Panjab, about the fifteenth century
B. C, their religion was still nature-worship. It was still
adoration of the forces which were everywhere in operation
around them for production, destruction, and reproduction.
But it was physiolatry developing itself more distinctly into
forms of Theism, Polytheism, Anthropomorphism, and Pan-
theism. The phenomena of nature were thought of as some-
thing more than radiant beings, and something more than
powerful forces. To the generality of worshippers they were
more distinctly concrete personalities, and had more personal
attributes. They were addressed as kings, fathers, guardians,
friends, benefactors, guests. They were invoked in formal
hymns and prayers [mantras), in set metres {thandas).
These hymns were composed in an early form of the
Sanskrit language, at different times—perhaps during several
centuries, from the fifteenth to the tenth B.C.—by men of light
and leading (Rishis) among the Indo-Aryan immigrants, who
were afterwards held in the highest veneration as patriarchal
saints. Eventually the hymns were believed to have been
directly revealed to, rather than composed by, these Rishis,
and were then called divine knowledge (Veda), or the eternal
word heard (sruli), and transmitted by them.
Vedism.
So much has been of late years written and spoken about
the Veda, that to go minutely into this subject would be,
according to a Hindu saying,' to grind ground corn.'
When the Indian branch of the Aryan family settled down
in the land of the seven rivers (Sanskrit Sapta Sindhu, Zend
. Hapta Hendii), now the Panjab, about the fifteenth century
B. C, their religion was still nature-worship. It was still
adoration of the forces which were everywhere in operation
around them for production, destruction, and reproduction.
But it was physiolatry developing itself more distinctly into
forms of Theism, Polytheism, Anthropomorphism, and Pan-
theism. The phenomena of nature were thought of as some-
thing more than radiant beings, and something more than
powerful forces. To the generality of worshippers they were
more distinctly concrete personalities, and had more personal
attributes. They were addressed as kings, fathers, guardians,
friends, benefactors, guests. They were invoked in formal
hymns and prayers [mantras), in set metres {thandas).
These hymns were composed in an early form of the
Sanskrit language, at different times—perhaps during several
centuries, from the fifteenth to the tenth B.C.—by men of light
and leading (Rishis) among the Indo-Aryan immigrants, who
were afterwards held in the highest veneration as patriarchal
saints. Eventually the hymns were believed to have been
directly revealed to, rather than composed by, these Rishis,
and were then called divine knowledge (Veda), or the eternal
word heard (sruli), and transmitted by them.