The Veda 27

language of the Veda. It is based upon a very old popular dialect, into which the poets, to serve their own needs, have introduced many new words and speech-forms. So, for instance, the great liking of the hicratic language for verbs derived from nouns, the so-called denominative or denominal verbs, surrounds the style of the Rig-Vcda with an air of turgidity and stiltcclncss which is far from being archaic. A hie ‘atic poet prefers to say “ give battle “(frzfrzndfym‘z1 pflmzyaz'z'), rather than “ fight”; “cultivate the gods" (dL’ZIIZjWZ‘i), rather than “ be pious ”; “Show a kind disposition” (szmmmzsyefic),rather than “be friendly,” etc.

A little over Iooo hymns, containing about 10,000 stanzas, equal in bulk to Homer’s poems, are divided into ten mmzdniczs, “ circles,” or, as we should say, books. Inside of these books the hymns are arranged according to a regular scheme: first, in the order of the number of hymns addressed to a particular god, beginning with the largest number and continuing in a descending scale. Next, each god’s hymns are arranged according to the length of each single hymn, again in a descending scale. Six of these ten books (iiwvii), the so~called “family~books,” form the nucleus of the collection. Each of these is supposed to have been composed by a different Rishi, poet or seer, or rather by some family of poets who would