The constellations are never named as objects of worship, and although the moon appears to be occasionally intended under the name Soma, particularly when spoken of as scattering darkness, yet the name and the adoration are in a much less equivocal manner applied to tho Sonia-plant. (Wilson, R'igveda,' i, p. xxvi) The great gulf which lies between this elementary worship of the R'igveda and the later mythology need not be pointed out ; but it will not be without interest to observe that we already meet in its poetry with some of those names which assume so different a character in the epic poems and the Pumn'as. Thus Rudra, the father of the Winds, becomes in the later mythology another name for Siva, who is un known to the Vaidik hymns. Their Vishn'u, a name of the Sun, and one of the Adityas, is the second person of the later Hindu triad; and his epithet Trivikrama, or " he who takes three steps," which means, as we have seen, the sun in its three stages, gives rise to the myth of the fourth Avatara of Vishn'u, when, as a dwarf, be strides over the three worlds—earth, intermediate apace, and heaven—and compels Bali, who threatened the sovereignty of Indra, to seek refuge in Tartarus.
From the nature of this worship, and from the desire for food, cattle, and the like, so frequently expressed in the hymns, it has some times been inferred that the condition of life as depicted in these hymns was that of a nomadic and pastoral people. There can be nothing more erroneous, if we look upon the actual collection of the hymns as a whole ; as we did—and in the present state of Sanskrit philology are compelled to do—when drawing the previous sketch of the ancient Hindu belief. This collection, on the contrary, gives abundant proof that the Hindus of the R'igveda were settled in villages and towns, that they were a manufacturing people ; for weaving, the melting of metallic substances, tho fabrication of golden and iron mails, of ornaments, and the like, are not unfroquently alluded to. It is remarkable Mao that they were a seafaring and a mercantile people. Even a naval expedition against a foreign island is mentioned in a hymn (i. 116, 3). Tugra, a friend of the As'wins, we are told, "sent (his son) Bhujyu to sea, as a dying man parts with his riches ; but you (As'wins) brought him back in vessels of your own, floating over the ocean, and keeping out the waters. Three nights and three days, Nasatyar, have you conveyed Bhujyu in three rapid revolving cars, having a hundred wheels, and drawn by six horses, along the watery bed of the ocean to the shore of the sea. This exploit you achieved, Mewing, in the ocean, where there is nothing to give support, nothing to rest upon, nothing to cling to, that you brought Bhujyu, sailing in a hundred-oared ship, to his father's house." We find them in pos session of musical instruments, practising medicine, computing the division of time to a minute extent; and there is sufficient evidence in the hymns to show that they had not merely laws of buying and selling, but even such complicated laws of inheritance as we meet with in the most advanced period of Hindu life. According to the latter, for instance, a son is the heir of the paternal property, to the exclusion of a daughter, as she transfers her property, by way of dower, to another family. But in default of a direct male heir, the
son of a daughter may perform the funeral rites, or, what is equi valent, inherit the paternal property, provided that the daughter be appointed for such a purpose when given in marriage. (See Cole brooke's ` Digest,' 3. 161, and various authorities quoted in Gold stficker's Sanskrit Dictionary,' s.v. • Aputrika.') The same law is laid down in the following verses of Rigv. 31. 1. 2. (Wilson's lation):—" The sonless father regulating (the contract) refers to his grandson (the son) of his daughter, and relying on the efficiency of the rite, honours his (son-in-law) with valuable gifts ; the father, trust ing to the impregnation of the daughter, supports himself with a tranquil mind. (A son) born of the body, not transfer (paternal) wealth to a sister; he has made (her) the receptacle of the embryo of the husband; if the parents procreate children (of either sex), one is the performer of holy acts, the other is to be enriched (with flifia)." That so advanced a state of social life could not remain without its evils and vices is obvious • we find hymns which describe gambling, which speak of robbers thieves, of secret birthe, of youths asso ciating with courtesans.
This sketch of the religious and social condition of ancient India rests, as mentioned, on the supposition of the R'igveda-Sanhitit having always been that which it is now—in fact, on the native theory of the eternity of the Veda. In the beginning we quoted some passages from the Puran'sa ' which show that these late productions of Hindu religion look upon all the Vedas as created by Brahma ; but we also pointed out that the poets of the hymns are held even by the oldest authorities to be inspired seers, who received them from the deities. Mr. Muir, in one of the most interesting and elaborate works of Sans krit philology, the ` Original Sanskrit Texts,' has given other and very copious proof that the doctrine of the eternity of the Veda pervaded the poetry and the philosophical reasoning of ancient and medieval India; and we must content ourselves with referring for further detail to the third volume of this excellent record of the ' Original Texts.' It may suffice therefore to add that even the differences which exist between the various editions of the sacred texts were explained away by an ingenious theory. It says that " the Vaidik texts got lost iu the several Pralayas, or destructions of the worlds; and since each Man wantara had its own revelation, which differed only in the expression, not in the sense of the Vaidik texts, the various versions represent these successive revelations, which were remembered through their excessive accomplishments by the R'ishis," (` Orig. Sansk. Texts, iii. p. 231, 232.) In short, though according to this theory, a succession of revelations is admitted by the Hindu divines, they are oonceived of as a reproduction of the first revelation, which comprised the whole bulk of the sacred text.