The changing shimmer like that floats upon the stream,
So Agni's rays gleam over bright and never cease."

[Footnote ref 1] R.V.I. 143. 3.

They would describe the wind (Vâta) and adore him and say

"In what place was he born, and from whence comes he?
The vital breath of gods, the world's great offspring,
The God where'er he will moves at his pleasure:
His rushing sound we hear--what his appearance, no one."

[Footnote ref 2] R.V.X. 168. 3, 4.

It was the forces of nature and her manifestations, on earth
here, the atmosphere around and above us, or in the Heaven
beyond the vault of the sky that excited the devotion and
imagination of the Vedic poets. Thus with the exception of a
few abstract gods of whom we shall presently speak and some
dual divinities, the gods may be roughly classified as the
terrestrial, atmospheric, and celestial.


Polytheism, Henotheism and Monotheism.

The plurality of the Vedic gods may lead a superficial enquirer
to think the faith of the Vedic people polytheistic. But an intelligent
reader will find here neither polytheism nor monotheism but a simple
primitive stage of belief to which both of these may be said to owe
their origin. The gods here do not preserve their proper places as in