THE is^ ARE AD A VALLEY". 53 



regular priesthood, and no systematic mythology. They 

 had only inchoate gods, without a history, and numerous 

 as the natural objects whose forces they represented. 

 And when the tribes accepted the Hindu priest and his 

 ceremonial, the priest found no difficulty in admitting to 

 his accommodating pantheon a sufficient number of these 

 to satisfy the conscience of the aboriginal Pantheist. 

 The leading deities in the existing Hindu pantheon, 

 Siva and Vishnii, were wholly unknown to the early 

 Aryans ; and even they themselves are at the present 

 day scarcely worshipped at all, in their radical forms, by 

 the great body of the people, but only in the form of 

 mythological consorts and sons, and incarnations in 

 many forms, most of which are probably adaptations of 

 the gods and heroes of the races thus absorbed within 

 the accommodating pale of Hinduism. Nor is this all. 

 Even such secondary forms of the regular gods of the 

 Brahmans receive but little of the real devotion of the 

 people, which is paid rather to tribal and village deities, 

 unheard of in recognised mythology, and to the Lares 

 and Penates of the householder. And these, the Brah- 

 man priest, who is paid for his services, has no scruple 

 in recognising as orthodox. Superj&cial inquirers have 

 quoted Hinduism as a faith which cannot admit of a 

 proselyte ; but nothing could be more completely the 

 reverse of the truth. Anything in the way of new gods 

 may be brought by new worshippers within the pale of 

 orthodoxy, provided only that they agree to accept the 

 dominion of the Brahman priest, together with the caste 

 rules and ceremonial by means of which he exercises his 

 power. 



It was, then, with a race thus already modified, and 

 with a social and religious system which had thus 



