cates, in Aufrecht, Ludwig and Roth. More important difficulties
of interpretation are illustrated by the attitude of M. Bergaigne in
La Religion Vedique, and his controversy with the great German
lexicographers. The study of mythology at one time made the Vedas its
starting-point. But perhaps it would be wise to begin from something
more intelligible, something less perplexed by difficulties of language
and diversities of interpretation.

(1) Muir, v. 217.

In attempting to criticise the various Aryan myths, we shall be guided,
on the whole, by the character of the myths themselves. Pure and
elevated conceptions we shall be inclined to assign to a pure and
elevated condition of thought (though such conceptions do, recognisably,
occur in the lowest known religious strata), and we shall make no
difficulty about believing that Rishis and singers capable of noble
conceptions existed in an age very remote in time, in a society which
had many of the features of a lofty and simple civilisation. But we
shall not, therefore, assume that the hymns of these Rishis are in any
sense "primitive," or throw much light on the infancy of the human mind,
or on the "origin" of religious and heroic myths. Impure, childish
and barbaric conceptions, on the other hand, we shall be inclined to
attribute to an impure, childish, and barbaric condition of thought; and
we shall again make no difficulty about believing that ideas originally
conceived when that stage of thought was general have been retained and
handed down to a far later period. This view of the possible, or rather
probable, antiquity of many of the myths preserved in the Brahmanas
is strengthened, if it needed strengthening, by the opinion of Dr.
Weber.(1) "We must indeed assume generally with regard to many of those
legends (in the Brahmanas of the Rig-Veda) that they had already gained
a rounded independent shape in tradition before they were incorporated
into the Brahmanas; and of this we have frequent evidence in the
DISTINCTLY ARCHAIC CHARACTER OF THEIR LANGUAGE, compared with that of
the rest of the text."

(1) History of Indian Literature, English trans., p. 47.

We have now briefly stated the nature and probable relative antiquity of
the evidence which is at the disposal of Vedic mythologists. The chief
lesson we would enforce is the necessity of suspending the judgment when
the Vedas are represented as examples of primitive and comparatively
pure and simple na