ual application," or of being "liturgical from the very start."

To INDRA _(Rig Veda_, I.11).

'Tis Indra all (our) songs extol,
Him huge as ocean in extent;
Of warriors chiefest warrior he,
Lord, truest lord for booty's gain.

In friendship, Indra, strong as thine
Naught will we fear, O lord of strength;
To thee we our laudations sing,
The conqueror unconquered.[25]

The gifts of Indra many are,
And inexhaustible his help
Whene'er to them that praise he gives
The gift of booty rich in kine.

A fortress-render, youthful, wise,
Immeasurably strong was born
Indra, the doer of every deed,
The lightning-holder, far renowned.

'Twas thou, Bolt-holder, rent'st the cave
Of Val, who held the (heavenly) kine;[26]
Thee helped the (shining) gods, when roused
(To courage) by the fearless one.[27]

Indra, who lords it by his strength,
Our praises now have loud proclaimed;
His generous gifts a thousand are,
Aye, even more than this are they.

This is poetry. Not great poetry perhaps, but certainly not ground out
to order, as some of the hymns appear to have been. Yet, it may be
said, why could not a poetic hymn have been written in a ritualistic
environment? But it is on the hymns themselves that one is forced to
depend for the belief in the existence of ritualism, and we claim that
such hymns as these, which we have translated as literally as
possible, show rather that they were composed without reference to
ritual application. It must not be forgotten that the ritual, as it is
known in the Br[=a]hmanas, without the slightest doubt, from the point
of view of language, social conditions, and theology, represents an
age that is very different to that illustrated by the mass of the
hymns. Such hymns, therefore, and only such as can be proved to have a
ritualistic setting can be referred to a ritualistic age. There is no
convincing reason why one should not take the fully justified view
that some of the hymns represent a freer and more natural (less
priest-bound) age, as they represent a spirit freer and less
mechanical than that of other hymns. As to the question which hymns,
early or late, be due to poetic feeling, and which to ritualistic
mechanism or servile imitation, this can indeed be decided by a
judgment based only on the literary quality, never on the accident of
subsequent rubrication.

We hold, therefore, in this regard, that the new school, valuable and
s