to the end that no god may be omitted in laudations that would embrace all the gods.  The later priests attempt to identify these gods with the clans, ’the All-gods are the clans’ (Cat.  Br. v. 5. 1.10), on the basis of a theological pun, the clans, vicas, being equated with the word for all, vicve.  Some modern scholars follow these later priests, but without reason.  Had these been special clan-gods, they would have had special names, and would not have appeared in a group alone.

The later epic has a good deal to say about some lovely nymphs called the Apsarasas, of whom it mentions six as chief (Urvac[=i], Menak[=a], etc.).[24] They fall somewhat in the epic from their Vedic estate, but they are never more than secondary figures, love-goddesses, beloved of the Gandharvas who later are the singing guardians of the moon, and, like the lunar stations, twenty-seven in number.  The Rik knows at first but one Gandharva (an inferior genius, mentioned in but one family-book), who guards Soma’s path, and, when Soma becomes the moon, is identified with him, ix. 86. 36.  As in the Avesta, Gandharva is (the moon as) an evil spirit also; but always as a second-rate power, to whom are ascribed magic (and madness, later).  He has virtually no cult except in soma-hymns, and shows clearly the first Aryan conception of the moon as a demoniac power, potent over women, and associated with waters.

Mountains, and especially rivers, are holy, and of course are deified.  Primitive belief generally deifies rivers.  But in the great river-hymn in the Rig Veda there is probably as much pure poetry as prayer.  The Vedic poet half believed in the rivers’ divinity, and sings how they ‘rush forth like armies,’ but it will not do to inquire too strictly in regard to his belief.

He was a poet, and did not expect to be catechized.  Of female divinities there are several of which the nature is doubtful.  As Dawn or Storm have been interpreted Saram[=a] and Sarany[=u], both meaning ‘runner.’  The former is Indra’s dog, and her litter is the dogs of Yama.  One little poem, rather than hymn, celebrates the ‘wood-goddess’ in pretty verses of playful and descriptive character.

Long before there was any formal recognition of the dogma that all gods are one, various gods had been identified by the Vedic poets.  Especially, as most naturally, was this the case when diverse gods having different names were similar in any way, such as Indra and Agni, whose glory is fire; or Varuna and Mitra, whose seat is the sky.  From this casual union of like pairs comes the peculiar custom of invoking two gods as one.  But even in the case of gods not so radically connected, if their functions were mutually approximate, each in turn became credited with his neighbor’s acts.  If the traits were similar which characterized each, if the circles of activity overlapped at all, then those divinities that originally were tangent to each other gradually