generally-received opinion, one that is on the whole correct, that
Yama in the early period is a kindly sovereign, and in later times
becomes the dread king of horrible hells. Despite some testimony to
the contrary, part of which is late interpolation in the epic, this is
the antithesis which exists in the works of the respective periods.

The most important gods of the era of the Rig Veda we now have
reviewed. But before passing on to the next period it should be
noticed that no small number of beings remains who are of the air,
devilish, or of the earth, earthy. Like the demons that injure man by
restraining the rain in the clouds, so there are _bh[=u]ts_, ghosts,
spooks, and other lower powers, some malevolent, some good-natured,
who inhabit earth; whence demonology. There is, furthermore, a certain
chrematheism, as we have elsewhere[20] ventured to call it, which
pervades the Rig Veda, the worship of more or less personified things,
differing from pantheism in this,[21] that whereas pantheism assumes a
like divinity in all things, this kind of theism assumes that
everything (or anything) has a separate divinity, usually that which
is useful to the worshipper, as, the plough, the furrow, etc. In later
hymns these objects are generally of sacrificial nature, and the
stones with which _soma_ is pressed are divine like the plant. Yet
often there is no sacrificial observance to cause this veneration.
Hymns are addressed to weapons, to the war-car, as to divine beings.
Sorcery and incantation is not looked upon favorably, but nevertheless
it is found.

Another class of divinities includes abstractions, generally female,
such as Infinity, Piety, Abundance, with the barely-mentioned
Gung[=u], R[=a]k[=a], etc. (which may be moon-phases). The
most important of these abstractions[22] is 'the lord of strength,' a
priestly interpretation of Indra, interpreted as religious strength or
prayer, to whom are accredited all of Indra's special acts.
Hillebrandt interprets this god, Brahmanaspati or Brihaspati, as the
moon; Mueller, somewhat doubtfully, as fire; while Roth will not allow
that Brihaspati has anything to do with natural phenomena, but
considers him to have been from the beginning 'lord of prayer.' With
this view we partly concur, but we would make the important
modification that the god was lord of prayer only as priestly
abstraction Indra in his higher development. It is from this god is
come probably the head of the l