[284] In the Avesta many of these things are done by Ahura-Mazda with the help of the Fravashis.
[285] See Satapatha Brâhmana I. 9, 3, 10; VI. 5, 4, 8.
[286] Rig-Veda VIII. 48, 3: "We drank Soma, we became immortal, we went to the light, we found the gods;" VIII. 48, 12.
[287] Rig-Veda IX. 97, 39.
[288] L. c. X. 14, 6.
[289] L. c. X. 16, 10.
[290] A translation considerably differing from my own is given by Sarvâdhikâri in his "Tagore Lectures for 1880," p. 34.
[291] Cf. Max Müller, Rig-Veda, transl. vol. i. p. 24.
[292] In a previous note will be found the statement by Professor De Coulanges, of Strasburg, that in India, as in other countries, a belief in the ancestral spirits came first, and a belief in divinities afterward. Professor Müller cites other arguments which might be employed in support of such a theory. The name of the oldest and greatest among the Devas, for instance, is not simply Dyaus, but Dyaush-pitâ, Heaven-Father; and there are several names of the same character, not only in Sanskrit, but in Greek and Latin also. Jupiter and Zeus Pater are forms of the appellation mentioned, and mean the Father in Heaven. It does certainly look as though Dyaus, the sky, had become personal and worshipped only after he had been raised to the category of a Pitri, a father; and that this predicate of Father must have been elaborated first before it could have been used, to comprehend Dyaus, the sky, Varuna, and other Devas. Professor Müller, however, denies that this is the whole truth in the case. The Vedic poets, he remarks, believed in Devas—gods, if we must so call them—literally, the bright ones; Pitris, fathers; and Manushyas, men, mortals. (Atharva-Veda, X. 6, 32.) Who came first and who came after it is difficult to say; but as soon as the three were placed side by side, the Devas certainly stood the highest, then followed the Pitris, and last came the mortals. Ancient thought did not comprehend the three under one concept, but it paved the way to it. The mortals after passing through death became Fathers, and the Fathers became the companions of the Devas.
In Manu there is an advance beyond this point. The world, all that moves and rests, we are told (Manu III., 201), has been made by the Devas; but the Devas and Danavas were born of the Pitris, and the Pitris of the Rishis. Originally the Rishis were the poets of the Vedas, seven in number; and we are not told how they came to be placed above the Devas and Pitris. It does not, however, appear utterly beyond the power to solve. The Vedas were the production of the Rishis, and the Pitris, being perpetuated thus to human memory, became by a figure of speech their offspring. The Devas sprung from the Pitris, because it was usual to apotheosize the dead. "Our ancestors desired," says Cicero, "that the men who had quitted this life should be counted in the number of gods." Again, the conception of patrons or Pitris to each family and tribe naturally led to the idea of a Providence over all; and so the Pitri begat the Deva. This religion preceded and has outlasted the other.—A. W.