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78 The Religion of tho Votla

Lani-L

ous priest families: for this important oztcriﬁco Tho mum drink is pressed three times daily: mooning, noon, and evening. Tho gods of tho Vodic Panthch are all interested in titer-1o corcmonios; t‘ﬂCll has; a fairly clofinito show in thom, Indra, tho god who ﬁgures more frequently than {my other, 11.11:; part in all thrco proasings; but the mid—clay prooﬁng holontgs to him oxclusivoly. Uslms, tho Muitlon Down, and Agni, God Firo, ploy, to; we 1th: soon, :2. wry important part in tho morning... Tho Atlityztﬁ ‘ and Ribhus, the latter a. sort of clovormlmmlocl olvcs-z, appear upon the scono in the owning, A. hoot of hymns arc addressed to pairs of divinitios; whose coupling is not always based upon any spocial natural afﬁnity between them, but: upon purcly liturgic association: Indra and Agni, Indra and Varuna, Agni and Soma, and so on.

One important class of hymns, tho somallcd ziﬁri‘u hymns, that is, “songs of invitation,” consist of individual stanzas which invoke cortain divinitics and personiﬁcations of acts and utensils, prolimini any to the sacriﬁce of cattle at the some: rites.” God

Fire (Agni) is especially callediupon under difforcnt,

1 See below, p. 129.

9 See Max Mﬁller, History of Ancient Eamon“! ﬂitcmlmta, p, 463 j”; Roth, Yixka’: Nimém, p. xxntvi ﬂ ; Weber, Imz'aixcxie Studz‘m, x. 891?" ; Grassmann, Tramlatim of Me Riga Veda, vol. i., p. 6; Borgaigne, journall-nim‘igm, I879, 1). I7.

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