are always gracious and beneficent, wherein they differ widely from most other gods. They are invariably mild, helpful, merciful. They are the great Physicians, who heal the sick, make the lame to walk, the blind to see. But their patients are always the same: the Old Sun, who reaches the goal of his long day's journey weary and sick unto death -when the foe he has fought and vanquished, grim Darkness, at last overcomes and blinds him—and who is made young again and vigorous, and seeing, by the returning light which the Ashvins-the morning twilight-conquer and bring; or else it is the Old Dawn-the evening gloaming-who runs the same dangers, undergoes the same infirmities and decay, and is led forth, rejuvenated and radiant, by her ever youthful brothers. They are best men at weddings, protectors of love and marriage, because they bring the Dawn-bride before the face of her Sunlover, or reunite the separated lovers. On one occasion, indeed, Ushas is said to have mounted on the Ashvins' car-(was it not on the memorable occasion when her own was shattered by the ungallant Indra?)-and to have chosen them for her husbands. They are rescuers from stormy waters, because night is a dark and stormy waste of waters, full of dangers and monsters, into which the wornout Sun fatally sinks, and in which he might perish, did not the ever helpful heralds of Light take him into their swiftly flying ship and carry him safely across to the other—the bright-shore, from which he rises aloft, in fully restored vigor and splendor.— And will not those who do all these kindly offices,

who work these miracles for gods, do the same for suppliant men? We know that every myth ends by coming down to earth and being humanized. It will strike every one how many and varied stories could and must have been spun out of this peculiarly attractive and prolific myth of the Ashvins.

37. We cannot close the gallery of the Vedic Beings of Light without devoting a few lines to one who, though holding a rather modest rank, shares in their honors, and is always affectionately and reverently remembered. We mean PÛSHAN, pre-eminently a friend of men, and whose career is one of almost homely usefulness. The great French Vedic scholar, A. Bergaigne, sums it up in one brief page, so lucid and comprehensive, that we cannot do better than reproduce it:

"Pûshan is, first of all, a pastoral and agricultural deity. He is requested to direct the furrow; his hand is armed with the ox-goad; he is principally the guardian of cattle, who prevents them from straying, and finds them again when they get lost. He is, therefore, prayed to follow the cows, to look after them, to keep them from harm, to bring them home safe and sound. His care extends to all sorts of property, which he guards or finds again when lost. He is also the finder of hidden treasure, -cows first on the list, always. Lastly, Pûshan guides men, not only in their search for lost or hidden things, but on all their ways generally. In a word, he is the god of wayfarers as well as of husbandmen and herdsmen. He is called 'Lord of the Path,' he is prayed to lay out the roads,' to remove from them foes and hindrances, to guide his worshippers by the safest roads, as 'knowing all the abodes.'

A very human field of action-almost a picture of rural life. But all the foregoing pages have been written to little purpose, if it does not strike the

reader at once that it is a reflection of the usual heavenly pastoral,—itself, of course, originally copied from the earthly model. We are, by this time, sufficiently familiar with the aërial pastures and roads, along which the heavenly cattle-whether CloudKine or Kine of Light—roam and stray, get stolen or lost, and are found again. So do we know who they are that guard, and follow, and find them, and bring them back. But not these alone are heaven's "hidden treasure." Agni lies hidden and is found, and so is Soma, whom Pûshan is expressly said to have brought back "like a strayed ox"; and immediately: "Pûshan, abounding in rays, found the king, who lay hidden, and who now shines forth on the sacrificial grass." This at once establishes Pûshan's claim to a place in the highest heavens, at the very source of light itself. It is there that he is the lover of his sister Sûryâ, the Sun-maiden, and sails his golden ships across the aërial ocean.

So much for this gentle deity's naturalistic aspects. His loftier symbolical character will become apparent in connection with a different-and later developed-order of ideas.'

1 See A. Bergaigne, La Religion Védique, vol. ii., pp. 420–430.

I. CLASSIFICATION, on the whole, is unsatisfactory. The worst of it is, the things classified won't dovetail nicely, but are sure to overlap both ways or to fall short. Yet, when one has on hand an overwhelming mass of material, and is, moreover, limited to a scant selection from it, one would flounder helplessly without the assistance of such a guide, even though it be lame and to some extent misleading. This is a disadvantage under which all great subjects labor. And of all great subjects there is none both vaster and more complex than the Rig-Veda; none that grows and expands more bewilderingly under handling; none that more elusively resists classification and-to use a very modern yet already somewhat trite expressionpopularization. For popularization means: presenting the results of the work of specialists in an untechnical form, intelligible and attractive to the large mass of average, general readers. And how are "results" to be presented where so very few have been finally established? in a branch of learn

ing which is in the very fervor of research, discovery, comparing theories, correcting errors or hasty conclusions, so that it is a current saying among brethren of the craft that no book on Ancient India can reach its last chapter without the first ones being rewritten.' Method, therefore, is, after all, the best safeguard, and careful sorting and sifting-classifying in short; under reservation and with frequent qualifying of one's own definitions.

2. To begin with the title of this chapter. It should be well understood that the adjectives "lesser and later" are not meant to apply to one and the same deities, or at least not always. The more a divine person goes into abstraction, and the farther it becomes removed from the natural phenomenon which it originally represented, or the more it accentuates certain details of that phenomenon, the later, as a rule, we can place it. Thus the high moral conception of the Sky-god Váruna cannot but have been evolved out of that of the primeval Dyâus, the material visible sky. Again, when we meet three goddesses (very subordinate and rarely mentioned in the hymns), representing the three phases of the moon-the growing, the full, and the waning,-we may be very sure that the worship of the moon itself preceded them. Though of course it is never possible even to suggest a particular time for such

1 The truth of this saying the author can vouch for from experience. Such scholars as may glance at the present volume and be inclined to fault-finding, will therefore please consider that, with the best-meant efforts to 'keep up to date," a book, to be a book, must be printed some time, and by that fact, in the present case, of neces

sity fall behind.