ginning there arose the Golden Child. As soon as he was born he alone
was the lord of all that is. He established the earth and this heaven."
The hymn consists of ten stanzas, in which the Deity is celebrated as
the maker of the snowy mountains, the sea and the distant river, who
made fast the awful heaven, He who alone is God above all gods, before
whom heaven and earth stand trembling in their mind. Each stanza
concludes with the refrain, "Who is the God to whom we shall offer
sacrifice?"

We have in this hymn a most sublime conception of the Supreme Being, and
while there are many Vedic hymns whose tone is pantheistic and seems to
imply that the wild forces of nature are Gods who rule the world, this
hymn to the Unknown God is as purely monotheistic as a psalm of David,
and shows a spirit of religious awe as profound as any we find in the
Hebrew Scriptures.

It is very difficult to arrive at the true date of the Vedas. The word
Veda means knowledge, and is applied to unwritten literature. The Vedas
are therefore the oldest Sanscrit writings which exist, and stand in the
same class with regard to Hindoo literature as Homer does with regard to
Greek literature. Probably the earliest Vedas were recited a thousand
years before Christ, while the more recent of the hymns date about five
hundred before Christ. We must therefore consider them to be the most
primitive form of Aryan poetry in existence.

There is in the West a misunderstanding as to the exact meaning of
"Vedic" and "Sanscrit"; for the latter is often used as if it were
synonymous with Indian; whereas, only the later Indian literature can be
classed under that head, and "Vedic" is often used to indicate only the
Vedic Hymns, whereas it really denotes Hymns, Brahmanas, Upanishads, and
Sutras; in fact, all literature which orthodox Hindoos regard as sacred.
The correct distinction then between the Vedic and the Sanscrit writings
is that of holy writ and profane literature.

E.W.

VEDIC HYMNS

TO THE UNKNOWN GOD

In the beginning there arose the Golden Child. As soon as born, he alone
was the lord of all that is. He established the earth and this
heaven:--Who is the God to whom we shall offer sacrifice?

He who gives breath, he who gives strength, whose command all the bright
gods revere, whose shadow is immortality, whose shadow is death:--Who is
the God to whom we shall offer sacrifice?

He who through his might became the sole king of the bre