[Sidenote:  Human sacrifice.] Human sacrifice was not unknown, though there are very few allusions to it in the earlier hymns.

[Sidenote:  Sacrifice deemed of very high importance.] Even from the first, however, the rite of sacrifice occupies a very high place, and allusions to it are exceedingly frequent.  The observances connected with it are said to be the “first religious rites.”  Sacrifice was early believed to be expiatory; it removed sin.  It was substitutionary; the victim stood in place of the offerer.  All order in the universe depends upon it; it is “the nave of the world-wheel.”  Sometimes Vishnu is said to be the sacrifice; sometimes even the Supreme Being himself is so.  Elaborated ideas and a complex ritual, which we could have expected to grow up only in the course of ages, appear from very early times.  We seem compelled to draw the inference that sacrifice formed an essential and very important part of the pre-Vedic faith.[8]

In the Veda worship is a kind of barter.  In exchange for praises and offerings the deity is asked to bestow favors.  Temporal blessings are implored, such as food, wealth, life, children, cows, horses, success in battle, the destruction of enemies, and so forth.  Not much is said regarding sin and the need of forgiveness.  A distinguished scholar[9] has said that “the religious notion of sin is wanting altogether;” but this affirmation is decidedly too sweeping.

[Sidenote:  No image-worship.  No public worship.] The worship exemplified in the Veda is not image-worship.  Images of the fire, or the winds, or the waters could hardly be required, and while the original nature-worship lasted, idols must have been nearly unknown.  Yet the description of various deities is so precise and full that it seems to be probably drawn from visible representations of them.  Worship was personal and domestic, not in any way public.  Indeed, two men praying at the same time had to pray quite apart, so that neither might disturb the other.  Each dealt with heaven, so to speak, solely on his own behalf.

[Sidenote:  No temples.] We hear of no places set apart as temples in Vedic times.

[Sidenote:  The treatises on ritual.] A Veda consists of two parts called Mantra or Sanhita, and Brahmana.  The first is composed of hymns.  The second is a statement of ritual, and is generally in prose.  The existing Brahmanas are several centuries later than the great body of the hymns, and were probably composed when the Hindus had crossed the Indus, and were advancing along the Gangetic valley.  The oldest may be about the date of 800 or 700 B.C.