people of dark skin, with flat heads, industrious and wealthy; they
called these aborigines Dasyous (the enemy). They made war on them for
centuries and ended by exterminating or subjecting them; they then
gradually took possession of all the Indus valley (the region of the
five rivers).[23] They then called themselves Hindoos.

=The Vedas.=--These people were accustomed in their ceremonies to
chant hymns (vedas) in honor of their gods. These chants constituted
a vast compilation which has been preserved to the present time. They
were collected, perhaps, about the fourteenth century B.C. when the
Aryans had not yet passed the Indus. The hymns present to us the
oldest religion of the Hindoos.

=The Gods.=--The Hindoo calls his gods devas (the resplendent).
Everything that shines is a divinity--the heavens, the dawn, the
clouds, the stars--but especially the sun (Indra) and fire (Agni).

=Indra.=--The sun, Indra, the mighty one, "king of the world and
master of creatures," bright and warm, traverses the heavens on a car
drawn by azure steeds; he it is who hurls the thunderbolt, sends the
rain, and banishes the clouds. India is a country of violent tempests;
the Hindoo struck with this phenomenon explained it in his own
fashion. He conceived the black cloud as an envelope in which were
contained the waters of heaven; these beneficent waters he called the
gleaming cows of Indra. When the storm is gathering, an evil genius,
Vritra, a three-headed serpent, has driven away the cows and enclosed
them in the black cavern whence their bellowings are heard (the
far-away rumblings of thunder). Indra applies himself to the task of
finding them; he strikes the cavern with his club, the strokes of
which are heard (the thunderbolt), and the forked tongue of the