CHAPTER III
THE MYTHOLOGY OF THE BRĀHMAṆAS
WITHOUT exception the Brāhmaṇas presuppose the existence of a Ṛgveda Saṁhitā, in all probability similar in essentials to the current text, and it is more than likely that the other Saṁhitās—the Sāmaveda, the two schools of the Yajurveda, and the Atharvaveda—were composed after the formation of the Saṁhitā of the Ṛgveda. Nor can there be much doubt that, while the Ṛgveda shows many traces of being the product of an age which was far from primitive, the later Saṁhitās, in those portions which do not accord with texts already found in the Ṛgveda, stand generally on precisely the same level as the leading Brāhmaṇas, or at least the oldest of these texts. The most essential characteristic of them all from the point of view of mythology is that the old polytheism is no longer as real as in the Ṛgveda. It is true that there is no question of the actuality of the numerous gods of the pantheon, to whom others are indeed added, but the texts themselves show plain tendencies to create divinities of more imposing and more universal power than any Vedic deity. There are three figures in the pantheon who display the results of this endeavour, those of Prajāpati, Viṣṇu, and Rudra. Of these the first is distinguished from the other two by the essential fact that he is a creation not so much of popular mythology as of priestly speculation, and the result, as was inevitable, is that his permanence as a great god is not assured; while the two other divinities, being clearly popular deities in their essence, have survived to be the great gods of India throughout the
