100 The Religion of the Veda

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HE treatment: of India’s prehistoric gods takes on of itself the: outer form of a chapter of Com- parativc Mythology. We havc soon in the past that the cvcnts which prcccdccl the: migration of tho Aryas into India bclong to two vcry difforont pro-w historic pcriods.’ Onc- of those is the period whom the Hindu and Iranian (I’crsian) pooplos, the so... called Aryas, wore still one: people, a period which does not lie so very far bchind tho Veda itself, just behind the curtain which separates the cariicst his- torical records of both India and Iran from the very long past which preceded both of thorn. This is the Indoeranian, or Aryan period... The second is tho still rcmoter period of Indo~Europcan unity; the languages, institutions, and religions of this great group of peoples permit us to assume that thorn was once upon a time one Indouliuropoan people, and that this pcoplc possessed religious ideas which worc not altogether obliterated from the minds of their descendants, tho Indofluropcans of historical times (Hindus, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Colts, Toutons, Slavs, etc).

It is my painful duty to report that there has been of recent years a great “ slump” in the stock of this subject. In fact, some scholars. critics, and pub- licists have formally declared bankruptcy against the

1See above, 13, 13.

Ann.“ mu bani—bri—