The Character of the Ancient Indian People.

1*

Clear traces of this spiritual languor The author uses "geistigen Erschlaffens" to suggest a loss of vigor or a state of relaxation common in 19th-century environmental theories about India., which rapidly became
more and more prevalent, are already stamped upon the oldest
document of Indian literature and religion, the songs of the Ṛgveda:
the sacrificial songs and litanies with which the priests of the
Vedic Aryans Vedic Aryans: the ancient Indo-European speaking tribes who composed the Vedas invoked their gods at temple-less
sacrificial sites, by the sacrificial fires scattered across the grass—
barbarian priests calling to barbarian gods original: "Barbarenpriester die Barbarengötter." This reflects the 19th-century scholarly habit of labeling early ritualistic cultures as "barbaric" or "primitive.", who came driving
through the heavens and the atmosphere with horses and chariots
to feast on sacrificial cakes, butter, and meat, and to drink
courage and divine strength from the intoxicating Soma juice
Soma: a sacred, ritual drink made from a now-disputed plant, central to Vedic sacrifice.

We must here, where our first task is to survey the
sources for the knowledge of the ancient Indian religion,
above all gain an insight into the particular nature of
Ṛgvedic poetry.

The singers of the Ṛgveda, composing in an inherited manner
for the grand and magnificent sacrifice performed with the
complicated apparatus of the three holy fires—especially for
the Soma sacrifice—do not wish to tell stories of the god
whom they celebrate; rather, they wish to praise this god.
They are not dealing with human listeners; their listener
is, above all others, the god himself, whom they invite to
graciously accept the sacrifice. Thus, they heap upon him
all the glorifying epithets available to the flattering yet
heavy-handed loquacity of an imagination that loves the
bright and the gaudy. Here, there is no god at whose wink
and the shaking of whose ambrosial locks upon his immortal
head the heights of Olympus original: "Olympos." The author contrasts the vivid, human-like imagery of Greek gods with the more abstract, epithet-heavy Vedic gods. tremble; instead, there is
a long series of gods, among whom each is as good as
the next. When the singer addresses him, he is called very
great or the greatest, very brilliant, very powerful, very
beautiful to behold, and very generous to the pious: he
annihilates all enemies, breaks all the fortresses of the enemies;
with his strength, he has fixed the ends of the earth, the
heavens