Descrizione

About The Book : Two things have attracted the author to the study of the Rigveda; first, the living interest which has lured him on ever since he began the study of Vedic in 1889 with Prof. Weber of Berlin, after previously reading Sanskrit with Prof. Macdonell of Oxford; and secondly, the fact that he has had the advantage of living nearly thirty years in the Punjab, the very habitat of the Vedic Indians. The religion of the Rigveda in the form in which it was professed and practised is, of course, dead, and yet, in a sense, it still lives. As the Old Testament has fulfilled itself in three monotheisms, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, so the Rigveda has fulfilled itself in the popular polytheism, the philosophic pantheism and the occasional monotheism of India. If it is impossible to understand present-day Hinduism without a knowledge of the Rigveda, the reverse is also true that it is impossible to understand the Rigveda without a knowledge of modern Hinduism; for very many of the doctrines and rites of Hinduism point back to the Rigveda as their fountain-head and as such are survivals of that ancient time. While it is true that the Rigvedic gods have passed into the twilight, yet the Rigveda itself abides as a permanent source of material for the reconstruction of the ancient religion.