osophy in India is V e d a n t a, that is,
the end, the goal, the highest object of the Veda.

Let us return once more to that ancient theologian who lived in the
fifth century B.C., and who told us that, even before his time, all
the gods had been discovered to be but three gods, the gods of the
_Earth_, the gods of the _Air_, and the gods of the _Sky_, invoked
under various names. The same writer tells us that in reality there is
but _one_ God, but he does not call him the Lord, or the Highest God,
the Creator, Ruler, and Preserver of all things, but he calls him
A t m a n, THE SELF. The one Atman or Self, he says, is praised in many
ways owing to the greatness of the godhead. And then he goes on to
say: "The other gods are but so many members of the one Atman, Self,
and thus it has been said that the poets compose their praises
according to the multiplicity of the natures of the beings whom they
praise."

It is true, no doubt, that this is the language of a philosophical
theologian, not of an ancient poet. Yet these philosophical
reflections belong to the fifth century before our era, if not to an
earlier date; and the first germs of such thoughts may be discovered
in some of the Vedic hymns also. I have quoted already from the hymns
such passages as[338]--"They speak of Mitra, Varu_n_a, Agni; then he
is the heavenly bird Garutmat; _that which is and is one_ the poets
call in various ways; they speak of Yama, Agni, Matari_s_van."

In another hymn, in which the sun is likened to a bird, we read: "Wise
poets represent by their words the bird who is one, in many
ways."[339]

All this is still tinged with mythology; but there are other passages
from which a purer light beams upon us, as when one poet asks:[340]

"Who saw him when he was first born, when he who has no bones
bore him who has bones? Where was the breath, the blood, the
Self of the world? Who went to ask this from any that knew
it?"

Here, too, the expression is still helpless, but though the flesh is
weak, the spirit is very willing. The expression, "He who has bones"
is meant for that which has assumed consistency and form, the Visible,
as opposed to that which has no bones, no body, no form, the
Invisible, while "breath, blood, and self of the world" are but so
many attempts at finding names and concepts for what is by necessity
inconceivable, and therefore unnamable.

In the second period of Vedic literature, in the so-called
Br