Character of Rigvedic Poetry.

...and the darkly hinted secrets were formed by the frequent comparisons These are similes or analogies used by the Vedic poets to link the divine and natural worlds. that touch upon every sphere of human and natural life. The glowing sun and the star-adorned canopy of heaven, the tireless wind and the river with the surge of its waters rushing to the depths; the shepherd driving his flock and the deceitful gambler; the maiden going to a rendezvous or adorning herself for her wedding, and the blameless wife loved by her husband; the father’s care and the son clutching the hem of his father’s garment: these are, for the most part, frequently recurring themes in these short comparisons, full of fresh, vivid life. Their concise simplicity, however, is still a far cry from the rich poetic development of those parables The author distinguishes between the brief similes of the early Vedas and the more elaborate, allegorical parables found in later Indian literature. that later adorned the spiritual discourses and writings of the Buddhists.

+

The poetry of the sacrificial songs described here essentially reaches its end around the close of the Rigvedic era. Even in the youngest parts of the great collection of songs itself, it is no longer fully alive in the old way¹); the liturgical technique—which was becoming more firmly established and, one might say, increasingly rigid—prescribed specific inherited hymns for every point in the great sacrificial ritual The author refers to the Shrauta rituals, which became so standardized that new compositions were no longer required or permitted.. This left neither significant room nor any need for the continuation of this type of poetic production²). In its place, the poetry of philosophical and, especially, cosmogonic speculation Cosmogonic: Relating to the origin of the universe; these hymns (like the famous Purusha Sukta) ask how the world was created. begins to stir. There is also a growth in the number of narrative pieces, mixed from prose and poetic elements according to an ancient model³). A number of smaller ritual acts,

¹) See my "Hymns of the Rigveda" I, 267.
²) Compare my remarks in the Z. D. M. G. original: "Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft," the Journal of the German Oriental Society. XLII, 216, and Geldner in Vedic Studies II, 151.
³) Of these, only the metrical elements are preserved in the Rigveda: