ad a clear
insight that it was so.

Only let us be careful in the use of that phrase "it is a mere name."
No name is a mere name. Every name was originally meant for something;
only it often failed to express what it was meant to express, and then
became a weak or an empty name, or what we then call "a mere name." So
it was with these names of the Vedic gods. They were all meant to
express the _Beyond_, the Invisible behind the Visible, the Infinite
within the Finite, the Supernatural above the Natural, the Divine,
omnipresent, and omnipotent. They failed in expressing what, by its
very nature, must always remain inexpressible. But that Inexpressible
itself remained, and in spite of all these failures, it never
succumbed, or vanished from the mind of the ancient thinkers and
poets, but always called for new and better names, nay calls for them
even now, and will call for them to the very end of man's existence
upon earth.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 221: Muir, iv. p. 209]

[Footnote 222: Muir, iv. p. 214.]

[Footnote 223: Hibbert Lectures, p. 307.]

[Footnote 224: X. 168, 3, 4.]

[Footnote 225: See Kaegi, Rig-Veda, p. 61.]

[Footnote 226: Rig-Veda II. 13, 12; IV. 19, 6.]

[Footnote 227: Joshua x. 13.]

[Footnote 228: Rig-Veda IV. 30, 3; X. 138, 3.]

[Footnote 229: L. c. VIII. 37, 3.]

[Footnote 230: L. c. VIII. 78, 5.]

[Footnote 231: I am very strongly inclined to regard these names as
Kushite or Semitic; Hermes, from [Hebrew: Cherem], the sun; Dionysos,
from _dyan_, the judge, and _nisi_, mankind; Orpheus, from _Orfa_, the
Arabic name of Edessa; Prometheus, from _pro_ and _manthano_, to
learn.--A. W.]

[Footnote 232: Muir, iv. p. 23.]

[Footnote 233: Ibid. p. 142. An excellent paper on Par_g_anya was
published by Buehler in 1862, "Orient und Occident," vol. i. p. 214.]

[Footnote 234: Rig-Veda VII. 101, 6.]

[Footnote 235: Rig-Veda V. 63, 3-6.]

[Footnote 236: L. c. I. 38, 9.]

[Footnote 237: L. c. I. 164, 51.]

[Footnote 238: L. c. X. 98, 1.]

[Footnote 239: Rig-Veda V. 83. See Buehler, "Orient und Occident," vol.
i. p. 214; Zimmer, "Altindisches Leben," p. 43.]

[Footnote 240: Both Buehler ("Orient und Occident," vol. i, p. 224) and
Zimmer (Z. f. D. A. vii. p. 169) say that the lightning is represented
as the son of Par_g_anya in Rig-Veda VII. 101, 1. This seems
doubtful.]

[Footnote 241: Rig-Veda VII. 102, 1.]

[Footnote 242: L. c. VIII. 6, 1.]

[Footnote 243: See Max Mueller, Sanskri