METHODS OF INTERPRETATION.

At the outset of his undertaking a double problem presents itself to one that would give, even in compact form, a view of Hindu religions.  This problem consists in explaining, and, in so far as is possible, reconciling opposed opinions in regard not only to the nature of these religions but also to the method of interpreting the Vedic hymns.

That the Vedic religion was naturalistic and mytho-poetic is doubted by few.  The Vedic hymns laud the powers of nature and natural phenomena as personified gods, or even as impersonal phenomena.  They praise also as distinct powers the departed fathers.  In the Rig Veda I. 168, occur some verses in honor of the storm-gods called Maruts:  “Self-yoked are they come lightly from the sky.  The immortals urge themselves on with the goad.  Dustless, born of power, with shining spears the Maruts overthrow the strongholds.  Who is it, O Maruts, ye that have lightning-spears, that impels you within? ...  The streams roar from the tires, when they send out their cloud-voices,” etc.  Nothing would seem more justifiable, in view of this hymn and of many like it, than to assume with Mueller and other Indologians, that the Marut-gods are personifications of natural phenomena.  As clearly do Indra and the Dawn appear to be natural phenomena.  But no less an authority than Herbert Spencer has attacked this view:  “Facts imply that the conception of the dawn as a person results from the giving of dawn as a birth-name."[9] And again:  “If, then, Dawn [in New Zealand and elsewhere] is an actual name for a person, if where there prevails this mode of distinguishing children, it has probably often been given to those born early in the morning; the traditions concerning one of such who became noted, would, in the mind of the uncritical savage ... lead to identification with the dawn."[10] In another passage:  “The primitive god is the superior man ... propitiated during his life and still more after his death."[11] Summing up, Spencer thus concludes:  “Instead of seeing in the common character of so-called myths, that they describe combats of beings using weapons, evidence that they arose out of human transactions; mythologists assume that the order of Nature presents itself to the undeveloped mind in terms of victories and defeats."[12] Moreover (a posteriori), “It is not true that the primitive man looks at the powers of Nature with awe.  It is not true that he speculates about their characters and causes."[13] If Spencer had not included in his criticism the mythologists that have written on Vedic religion, there would be no occasion to take his opinion into consideration.  But since he claims by the light of his comparative studies to have shown that in the Rig Veda the “so-called nature gods,"[14] were not the oldest, and explains Dawn here exactly as he does in New Zealand, it becomes necessary to point out, that apart from the question