PROCEEDINGS 
OF THE 
ROYAL SOCIETY OF EDINBURGH. 
VOL. V. 1863-64. No. 64. 
Monday, 1th March 1864. 
Professor KELLAND, Vice-President, in the Chair. 
The following Communications were read : — 
1. On the Gods of the Kigveda. By John Muir, D.C.L., LL.D. 
After some preliminary remarks on the common origin of the 
Indians, Greeks, and Eomans, — on the expectation thereby raised 
that we should find in the earliest literatures of these nations some 
remains of the primeval mythology which their ancestors must origi- 
nally have possessed in common, — on the partial fulfilment of this 
expectation by an examination of these literatures,— and on the 
greater light thrown by the Eigveda than by any other monument 
of ancient poetry on the genesis of mythology, — the author adverts 
to the various theories of creation which would naturally be formed 
by simple men in the earlier ages of the world, to the manner in 
which the various great phenomena of nature would come to be 
ascribed to different deities, and to the diverse aspects in which 
the grander objects of creation, such as heaven and earth, were 
viewed, sometimes as inanimate, sometimes as animated and divine. 
The chief deities mentioned in the Eigveda are then passed under 
review, and their most remarkable characteristics are described ; — 
viz, Dyaus and Prithivt (Heaven and Earth), Aditi and the Adityaa, 
Varuna and Mitra, Indra, Vdyu, the Maruts, Rudra, Vishnu, 
Tvashtri, Agni, the Asvins, Soma, Yama, and the various goddesses, 
2 B 
roL. V. 
