ORIGINAL SANSKRIT TEXTS ON THE ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF THE PEOPLE OF INDIA, THEIR RELIGION AND INSTITUTIONS. COLLECTED, TRANSLATED, AND ILLUSTRATED BY J. MUIR, D.C.L., LL.D., PH.D. VOLUME FIFTH. CONTRIBUTIONS TO A KNOWLEDGE OF THE COSMOGONY, MYTHOLOGY, RELIGIOUS LONDON: TRÜBNER & CO., 8 AND 60, PATERNOSTER ROW. Οὐ γὰρ οὖν οὐδὲ ἄψυχον ἀνθρώποις ὁ θεὸς ὑποχείριον· ἀπὸ τούτων δὲ τοὺς χρωμένους αὐτοις καὶ δωρουμένους ἡμῖν καὶ παρέχοντας ἀένναα καὶ διαρκῆ θεοὺς ἐνομίσαμεν, οὐχ ἑτέρους παρ' ἑτέροις οὐδὲ βαρβάρους καὶ Ἕλληνας οὐδὲ νοτίους καὶ βορείους· ἀλλ ̓ ὥσπερ ἥλιος καὶ σελήνη καὶ οὐρανὸς καὶ γῆ καὶ θάλασσα κοινὰ πᾶσιν, ὀνομάζεται δὲ ἄλλως ὑπ ̓ ἄλλων, οὕτως ἑνὸς λόγου τοῦ ταυτα κοσμοῦντος καὶ μιᾶς προνοίας ἐπιτροπευούσης, καὶ δυνάμεων ὑπουργῶν ἐπὶ πάντας τεταγμένων, ἕτεραι παρ' ἑτέροις κατὰ νόμους γεγόνασι τιμαὶ καὶ προσηγορίαι· καὶ συμβόλοις χρῶνται, καθιερώμενοι μὲν ἀμυδροῖς, δι δε τρανωτέροις, ἐπὶ τὰ θεῖα τὴν νόησιν ὁδηγοῦντες οὐκ ἀκινδύνως. Ενιοι γὰρ ἀποσφαλέντες παντάπασιν εἰς δεισιδαιμονίαν ὤλισθον· οἱ δε φεύγοντες ὥσπερ ἕλος τὴν δεισιδαιμονίαν, ἔλαθον αὖθις ὥσπερ εἰς κρημνὸν ἐμπεσόντες τὴν ἀθεότητα.—Plutarch, de Iside et Osiride, section 67. [In opposition to those who represented Dionysos, the wine-god, as meaning merely wine, Hephaistos fire, Demeter corn, etc., Plutarch urges] : "For the god is not a lifeless thing, subject to human handling and control. But from the fact that they dispose of, and bestow upon us, these objects, and preserve them to us perpetual and constant, we have considered them to be gods. And these gods are not different among different peoples, they are not Barbarian, or Hellenic, not southern or northern ; but just as the sun, and the moon, and the heaven, and the earth, and the sea are common to all-though they receive different names from different races-so too, while there is but one reason that orders, and one providence that superintends, this universe, and administrative powers are set over all, different honours and appellations have been assigned to these divine beings by the laws of different nations. And symbols too are employed, some of an obscure character, by initiated persons, and others of a plainer description by others, with the view of guiding men's conceptions of divine things. But this practice is not free from danger; for some persons, deviating from the truth, have slipped into superstition, while others, seeking to avoid the marsh of superstition, have fallen into atheism as over a precipice." HERTFORD: PRINTED BY STEPHEN AUSTIN, PREFACE. In the present volume I have reprinted, with the addition of some new materials, subsequently collected, and of the texts on which they are founded, a series of papers on the theogony, mythology, and religious ideas of the Vedic poets, and other subjects, which originally appeared in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland for 1864, and the two following years: and I have appended a new section, on life and manners during the Vedic age. I have not thought it necessary to translate all the texts to which I have referred in proof of the representations I have made. To have done so would have extended the work to an unnecessary length, as numerous verses are cited for the sake of a single epithet. Some of the texts are rendered in full; but in many, perhaps most, cases I have contented myself with giving the substance of several passages of similar or identical purport. Nor have I considered it necessary to supply here any summary of the contents of the volume, such as was given in the prefaces to the third and fourth volumes, and in that to the second edition of the first volume. The summary given in the Table of Contents seems sufficiently ample to afford the reader the means of readily |