Note 4 — Chapter I · THE GODLINGS OF NATURE.

It is part of the object of the following pages to show that in India the history of religious belief has been developed on similar lines. Everywhere we find that the great primal gods of Hinduism have suffered grievous degradation. Throughout the length and breadth of the Indian peninsula Brahma, the Creator, has hardly more than a couple of shrines specially dedicated to him.4 Indra has, as we shall see, become a vague weather deity, who rules the choirs of fairies in his heaven Indra-loka: Varuna, as Barun, has also become a degraded weather godling, and sailors worship their boat as his fetish when they commence a voyage. The worship of Agni survives in the fire sacrifice which has been specialized by the Agnihotri Brâhmans. Of Pûshan and Ushas, Vâyu and the Maruts, hardly even the names survive, except among the small philosophical class of reformers who aim at restoring Vedism, a faith which is as dead as Jupiter or Aphrodite.