Agni, the personification of fire, was worshipped as the destroyer of forests, as useful in the sacri fice and in the household.
'When generated from the rubbing of sticks, the radiant Agui bursts forth from the wood like a fleet courser.
When excited by the wind, lie rushes amongst the trees like a bull, and consumes the forest as a raja destroys his enemies.
Such as thou art, Agni, men preserve thee constantly kindled in their dwellings, and offer upon thee abundant food.' • (Rig Veda, i. 73.) Varuna was the Vedic god of the waters, and god of the ocean, but the name was sometimes applied to the sun and sometimes used as a per sonification' of day. As with other gods, when addressed, lie was regarded as supreme, and capable of forgiving sin, ` Let me not yet, 0 Varuna, enter the house of clay ; have mercy, Almighty, have mercy ! If I go along trembling, like a cloud driven by the wind ; have mercy, Almighty, have mercy ! Thirst came upon the worshipper, though he stood in the midst of waters ; have mercy, Almighty, have Mercy.' Surya, or the sun, called also Savitra, Mitra, Aryaman, and other names, was a Vedic god, who continues to be worshipped down to the present day, by Brahmans and Zoroastrians. The Solar race of Kshatriya, who appear in the Rama yana, derive their origin from the sun ; hut, in the higher spirit, the sun is regarded as divine, as pervading all things, as the soul of the world and supporter of the universe. In it verse of the Rig Veda (iii. 62, v. 10) this idea is supposed to be indicated. It is O'm ! 1311firbhuviissuvithii, O'm ! Tatsa yit'hrn varennyilm, 13'hargo devassfi dhimalti dhiyo yonaha pmcho drifith; O'in! earth, air, heaven, 0'1111 Let us meditate on the supreme splendour of the divine Sun ; may he illuminate our minds.' And, at the present day, the en lightened Brahmans regard this verse as an invocation to the several deities who are implored by the worshipper to aid his intellect in the appre hension and adoration of God.
In connection with the sun are the 12 Aditya, sons of Aditi, the universe. In the latter Vedic age, they were identified with the 12 signs of the _zodiac, or the sun in its 12 successive signs.
Sonia, also Chandra, tho moon, is chiefly ode brated in the Vedas in connection with the soma plant; hut in the Mahabharata, Soma is the mythical progenitor of the great Lunar race of 1311nrata.
The Amelia, apparently a personification of light and moisture as sons of the sun, also as the sun's rays, and noticed as the physicians of the gods. They are described as young and hand some, and riding on horses.
litytt, or the air, and the Marnts as winds, are personified and invoked. The Maruts and depicted as roaring amongst the forests, and compared to youthful warriors bearing lances on their shoulders, delighting in the soma juice, like Inds, and, like him, the bestowers of benefits on their worshippers.
Ushas, or the dawn, the early morning, the first pale flush of light. Ushas is compared to a mother awakening her children; to a lovely maiden awakening a sleeping world ; to a young married maiden, 'like a youthful bride before her husband, thou uncoverest thy bosom with a smile.' As a goddess, she is styled (Rig Veda, i. 23, v. 2) the mighty, the giver of light ; from on high she beholds all things ; ever youthful, ever reviving, she comes first to the invocation.' Perhaps the most wonderful circumstance of all connected with the ancient Hindu literature, is time completeness with which its effects have passed away from the people of the land. The Veda, in modern Hinduism, is a mere name,—a name of high authority, and highly reverenced,—but its language is unintelligible, and its gods and rites are things of the past. The modern system is quite at variance with the Vedic writings out of which it grew, and the descendant bears but few marks of resemblance to its remote ancestor. The key to this modern Hinduism is to be found in the literature of the Puranas ; but before this litera ture began to assume a definite shape, the point had been already reached which marked the com plete divergence of Hindu from European thought. We have to go back to the genuine Vedic ages for conceptions of visible and invisible things analogous to those which determined thb course of Greek thought, and, through this, of the thought of the whole western world. Of history, in the true sense, it possesses next to nothing. Of the old poets, philosophers, grammarians, and astronomers, many were beyond doubt men of great genius, and some were possessed of powers as remark able as any which the world has seen in her most gifted children ; hut the incidents of their lives can be related generally in a few lines, and not much space is needed to give a tolerably adequate outline of their philosophical systems.—lVilliauts' Story of Nala ; Cole. Myth. Hind.; Calcutta Re view ; Ins, of Menu; Wilson's Hindu Theatre ; Rig Veda, v. 10; Bunsen ; Sir W. Jones; Moo•'s Pantheon ; Ilymn to Indra; Jacob Grimm, Mytho logy ; Dourson s Classical Dictionary; Lubbock's Origin of Civil. • Milner's Seven Churches of