Who slew the dragon, loosed the rivers seven,
  And drove from Vala’s hiding place the cattle;[3]
  Who fire between the two stones[4] hath engendered,
  Conqueror in conflicts; he, ye folk, is Indra.

  Who all things here, things changeable, created;
  Who lowered and put to naught the barbarous color,[5]
  And, like victorious gambler, took as winnings
  His foe’s prosperity; he, ye folk, is Indra.

  Whom, awful, they (yet) ask about:  ‘where is he?’
  And speak thus of him, saying, ’he exists not’—­
  He makes like dice[6] his foe’s prosperity vanish;
  Believe on him; and he, ye folk, is Indra.

  In whose direction horses are and cattle;
  In whose, the hosts (of war) and all the chariots;
  Who hath both S[=u]rya and the Dawn engendered,
  The Waters’ leader; he, ye folk, is Indra.

  Both heaven and earth do bow themselves before him,
  And at his breath the mountains are affrighted;
  Who bolt in arms is seen, the soma-drinker,
  And bolt in hand; (’tis) he, ye folk, is Indra.

  Who helps the soma-presser, (soma)-cooker,
  The praiser (helps), and him that active serveth;
  Of whom the increase brahma is and soma,
  And his this offering; he, ye folk, is Indra.

Here brahma, which word already in the Yajur Veda has taken to itself the later philosophical signification, is merely prayer, the meaning which in the Rig Veda is universal.

The note struck in this hymn is not unique: 

  (THE POET.)

  Eager for booty proffer your laudation
  To Indra; truth (is he),[7] if truth existeth;
  ‘Indra is not,’ so speaketh this and that one;
  ‘Who him hath seen?  To whom shall we give praises?’

  (THE GOD.)

  I am, O singer, he; look here upon me;
  All creatures born do I surpass in greatness. 
  Me well-directed sacrifices nourish,
  Destructive I destroy existent beings.[8]

These are not pleas in behalf of a new god.  It is not the mere god of physical phenomena who is here doubted and defended.  It is the god that in the last stage of the Rig Veda is become the Creator and Destroyer, and, in the light of a completed pantheism, is grown too great to retain his personality.  With such a protest begins the great revolt that is the sign of an inner evolution extending through the Br[=a]hmanas and Upanishads.  Indra, like other gods,[9] is held by the rite; to the vulgar he is still the great god;[10] to the philosopher, a name.  The populace respect him, and sacerdotalism conserves him, that same crafty, priestly power, which already at the close of the Rig Vedic period dares to say that only the king who is subject to the priest is sure of himself, and a little later that killing a priest is the only real murder.  We have shown above how the real divinity of the gods was diminished