z:\ ambedkar\vol 04\vol4 03.indd MK SJ YS 21 9 2013/YS 8 11 2013 82
82 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
He is felt, at the time, as a real divinity, as supreme and absolute, in spite of the necessary limitations which, to our mind, a plurality of gods must entail on every single god. All the rest disappear for a moment from the vision of the poet, and he only, who is to fulfil their desires stands in full light before the eyes of the worshippers.”
“Nowhere is any of the Gods represented as the slave of others”.
This is of course true only for a time. A change seems to have come in the old angle of vision towards the Gods. For one finds numerous hymns of the Veda in which some gods are represented as supreme and absolute.
In the first hymn of the second Mandala, Agni is called the ruler of the Universe, the Lord of men, the wise king, the father, the brother, the son, the friend of men ; nay, all the powers and names of the others are distinctly ascribed to Agni.
Then a second god came to be elevated above Agni. He is Indra. Indra is spoken of as the strongest god in the hymns as well as in the Brahmanas, and the burden of one of the songs of the Tenth Book is : Visvasmad Indra Uttarah ‘Indra is greater than all’.
Then a third god is raised to the highest level. He is Soma. Of Soma, it is said that he was born great and that he conquers every one. He is called the king of the world, he has the power to prolong the life of men, and in one verse he is called the maker of heaven, and earth, of Agni, of Surya, of Indra and of Vishnu. Then Soma was forgotten and a fourth God was elevated. He is Varuna. Varuna was made the highest of all Gods. For what more could human language do than to express the idea of a divine and supreme power, than what the Vedic poet says of Varuna ; ‘Thou art Lord of all, of heaven, and earth’ or, as is said in another hymn (ii. 27, 10), Thou art the king of all ; of those who are gods, and of those who are men.”
From this evidence it is clear that out of the 33 Vedic Gods four Gods, Agni, Indra, Soma and Varuna had emerged as the principal Gods. Not that other gods had ceased to be gods. But these four had become elevated above the rest. At a later stage a change seems to have taken place at the time of the Satapatha Brahmana in the relative position of the different gods. Soma and Varuna had lost their places as the principal gods while Agni and Indra had retained their positions. A new god has emerged. He is Surya. The result is that instead of Agni, Indra, Soma and Varuna ; Agni, Indra and Surya became the principal gods. This is evident from the Satapatha Brahmana which says :