ond-rate power,
to whom are ascribed magic (and madness, later). He has virtually no
cult except in _soma_-hymns, and shows clearly the first Aryan
conception of the moon as a demoniac power, potent over women, and
associated with waters.

Mountains, and especially rivers, are holy, and of course are deified.
Primitive belief generally deifies rivers. But in the great river-hymn
in the Rig Veda there is probably as much pure poetry as prayer. The
Vedic poet half believed in the rivers' divinity, and sings how they
'rush forth like armies,' but it will not do to inquire too strictly
in regard to his belief.

He was a poet, and did not expect to be catechized. Of female
divinities there are several of which the nature is doubtful. As Dawn
or Storm have been interpreted Saram[=a] and Sarany[=u], both meaning
'runner.' The former is Indra's dog, and her litter is the dogs of
Yama. One little poem, rather than hymn, celebrates the 'wood-goddess'
in pretty verses of playful and descriptive character.

Long before there was any formal recognition of the dogma that all
gods are one, various gods had been identified by the Vedic poets.
Especially, as most naturally, was this the case when diverse gods
having different names were similar in any way, such as Indra and
Agni, whose glory is fire; or Varuna and Mitra, whose seat is the sky.
From this casual union of like pairs comes the peculiar custom of
invoking two gods as one. But even in the case of gods not so
radically connected, if their functions were mutually approximate,
each in turn became credited with his neighbor's acts. If the traits
were similar which characterized each, if the circles of activity
overlapped at all, then those divinities that originally were tangent
to each other gradually became concentric, and eventually were united.
And so the lines between the gods were wiped out, as it were, by their
conceptions crowding upon one another. There was another factor,
however, in the development of this unconscious, or, at least,
unacknowledged, pantheism. Aided by the likeness or identity of
attributes in Indra, Savitar, Agni, Mitra, and other gods, many of
which were virtually the same under a different designation, the
priests, ever prone to extravagance of word, soon began to attribute,
regardless of strict propriety, every power to every god. With the
exception of some of the older divinities, whose forms, as they are
less complex, retain throughout the sim