w his seven fair steeds,
The daughters of the sun-god's car,
Yoked but by him[24]; with these he comes.

For some thousands of years these verses have been the daily prayer of
the Hindu. They have been incorporated into the ritual in this form.
They are rubricated, and the nine stanzas form part of a prescribed
service. But, surely, it were a literary hysteron-proteron to conclude
for this reason that they were made only to fill a part in an
established ceremony.

The praise is neither perfunctory nor lacking in a really religious
tone. It has a directness and a simplicity, without affectation, which
would incline one to believe that it was not made mechanically, but
composed with a devotional spirit that gave voice to genuine feeling.

We will now translate another poem (carefully preserving all the
tautological phraseology), a hymn

To DAWN _(Rig Veda_ VI. 64).

Aloft the lights of Dawn, for beauty gleaming,
Have risen resplendent, like to waves of water;
She makes fair paths, (makes) all accessible;
And good is she, munificent and kindly.

Thou lovely lookest, through wide spaces shin'st thou,
Up fly thy fiery shining beams to heaven;
Thy bosom thou reveals't, thyself adorning,
Aurora, goddess gleaming bright in greatness.

The ruddy kine (the clouds) resplendent bear her,
The blessed One, who far and wide extendeth.
As routs his foes a hero armed with arrows,
As driver swift, so she compels the darkness.

Thy ways are fair; thy paths, upon the mountains;
In calm, self-shining one, thou cross'st the waters.
O thou whose paths are wide, to us, thou lofty
Daughter of Heaven, bring wealth for our subsistence.

Bring (wealth), thou Dawn, who, with the kine, untroubled
Dost bring us good commensurate with pleasure,
Daughter of Heaven, who, though thou art a goddess,
Didst aye at morning-call come bright and early.

Aloft the birds fly ever from their dwelling,
And men, who seek for food, at thy clear dawning.
E'en though a mortal stay at home and serve thee,
Much joy to him, Dawn, goddess (bright), thou bringest.

The "morning call" might, indeed, suggest the ritual, but it proves
only a morning prayer or offering. Is this poem of a "singularly
refined character," or "preeminently sacerdotal" in appearance? One
other example (in still a different metre) may be examined, to see if
it bear on its face evidence of having been made with "reference to
rit