u roar, and thunder, and give fruitfulness! Fly
around us with thy chariot full of water! Draw forth thy
water-skin, when it has been opened and turned downward, and
let the high and the low places become level!

8. "Draw up the large bucket, and pour it out; let the
streams pour forth freely! Soak heaven and earth with
fatness! and let there be a good draught for the cows!

9. "O Par_g_anya, when roaring and thundering thou killest
the evil-doers, then everything rejoices, whatever lives on
earth.

10. "Thou hast sent rain, stop now! Thou hast made the
deserts passable, thou hast made plants grow for food, and
thou hast obtained praise from men."

This is a Vedic hymn, and a very fair specimen of what these ancient
hymns are. There is nothing very grand and poetical about them, and
yet, I say, take thousands and thousands of people living in our
villages, and depending on rain for their very life, and not many of
them will be able to compose such a prayer for rain, even though three
thousand years have passed over our heads since Par_g_anya was first
invoked in India. Nor are these verses entirely without poetical
conceptions and descriptions. Whoever has watched a real thunderstorm
in a hot climate will recognize the truth of those quick sentences:
"the winds blow, the lightnings fly, plants spring up, the hoofed
cattle are scattered." Nor is the idea without a certain drastic
reality, that Par_g_anya draws a bucket of water from his well in
heaven, and pours out skin after skin (in which water was then
carried) down upon the earth.

There is even a moral sentiment perceptible in this hymn. "When the
storms roar, and the lightnings flash and the rain pours down, even
the guiltless trembles, and evil-doers are struck down." Here we
clearly see that the poet did not look upon the storm simply as an
outbreak of the violence of nature, but that he had a presentiment of
a higher will and power which even the guiltless fears; for who, he
seems to say, is entirely free from guilt?

If now we ask again, Who is Par_g_anya? or What is Par_g_anya? we can
answer that par_g_anya was meant originally for the cloud, so far as
it gives rain; but as soon as the idea of a giver arose, the visible
cloud became the outward appearance only, or the body of that giver,
and the giver himself was somewhere else, we know not where. In some
verses Par_g_anya seems to step into