e read of 'the oldest or greatest Brahman which rules
everything that has been or will be.' Heaven is said to belong to
Brahman alone (Atharva-veda X. 8, 1). In the Brahma_n_as, this Brahman
is called the first-born, the self-existing, the best of the gods, and
heaven and earth are said to have been established by it. Even the
vital spirits are identified with it (_S_atapatha-brahma_n_a VIII. 4,
9, 3).

In other passages, again, this same Brahman is represented as existing
in man (Atharva-veda X. 7, 17), and in this very passage we can watch
the transition from the neutral Brahman into Brahman, conceived of as
a masculine:

Ye purushe brahma vidus te vidu_h_ paramesh_t_hina_m_,
Yo veda paramesh_t_hina_m_, ya_s_ _k_a veda pra_g_apatim,
_G_yesh_t_ha_m_ ye brahma_n_a_m_ vidus, te skambham anu sa_m_vidu_h_.

'They who know Brahman in man, they know the Highest,
He who knows the Highest, and he who knows Pra_g_apati (the lord of
creatures),
And they who know the oldest Brahma_n_a, they know the Ground.'

The word Brahma_n_a which is here used, is a derivative form of
Brahman; but what is most important in these lines is the mixing of
neuter and masculine words, of impersonal and personal deities. This
process is brought to perfection by changing Brahman, the neuter, even
grammatically into Brahman, a masculine,--a change which has taken
place in the Ara_n_yakas, where we find Brahman used as the name of a
male deity. It is this Brahman, with the accent on the first, not, as
has been supposed, brahman, the priest, that appears again in the
later literature as one of the divine triad, Brahman, Vish_n_u,
_S_iva.

The word brahman, as a neuter, is used in the Rig-veda in the sense of
prayer also, originally what bursts forth from the soul, and, in one
sense, what is revealed. Hence in later times brahman is used
collectively for the Veda, the sacred word.

Another word, with the accent on the last syllable, is brahman, the
man who prays, who utters prayers, the priest, and gradually the
Brahman by profession. In this sense it is frequently used in the
Rig-veda (I. 108, 7), but not yet in the sense of Brahman by birth or
caste.]

In the Veda, then, we can study a theogony of which that of Hesiod is
but the last chapter. We can study man's natural growth, and the
results to which it may lead under the most favourable conditions. All
was given him that nature can bestow. We see him blest wi