[Footnote 142:  Recent scholars are disposed to fix the appearance of Zoroaster between the middle of the seventh century and the earlier half of the sixth century B.C.  But this date offers many difficulties.  It makes it hard to explain the resemblances between the Gathas and the Rig Veda and how is it that respectable classical authorities of the fourth century B.C. quoted by Pliny attribute a high antiquity to Zoroaster?]

[Footnote 143:  This applies chiefly to the three Samhitas or collections of hymns and prayers.  On the other hand there was no feeling against the composition of new Upanishads or the interpolation and amplification of the Epics.]

[Footnote 144:  The Hotri recites prayers while other priests perform the act of sacrifice.  But there are several poems in the Rig Veda for which even Indian ingenuity has not been able to find a liturgical use.]

[Footnote 145:  Thus the Pali Pitakas speak of the Tevijja or threefold knowledge of the Brahmans.]

[Footnote 146:  Or it may be that the ancestors of the Persians were also in the Panjab and retired westwards.]

[Footnote 147:  R.V. v. 3. 1.]

[Footnote 148:  See the Ganesatharvasirsha Upan. and Gopinatha Rao. Hindu Iconography, vol.  I. pp. 35-67.]

[Footnote 149:  See R.V.  III. 34. 9. i. 130. 8; iv. 26. 2. vi. 18. 3; iv. 16. 13.]

[Footnote 150:  In one singular hymn (R.V. x. 119) Indra describes his sensations after drinking freely, and in the Satapatha Brahmana (V. 5. 4. 9 and XII. 7. 1. 11) he seems to be represented as suffering from his excesses and having to be cured by a special ceremony.]

[Footnote 151:  In some passages of the Upanishads he is identified with the atman (e.g. Kaushitaki Up.  III. 8), but then all persons, whether divine or human, are really the atman if they only knew it.]

[Footnote 152:  A.V.  IV. 16. 2.]

[Footnote 153:  The Indian alphabets are admittedly Semitic in origin.]

[Footnote 154:  See Mahabhar.  I. xvii-xviii and other accounts in the Ramayana and Puranas.]

[Footnote 155:  It has also been conjectured that Sk.  Asura=Ashur, the God of Assyria, and that Sumeru or Sineru (Meru)=Sumer or Shinar, see J.R.A.S. 1916, pp. 364-5.]

[Footnote 156:  Rig V. I. 164. 46.]

[Footnote 157:  For instance chap.  III. of the Chandogya Upanishad, which compares the solar system to a beehive in which the bees are Vedic hymns, is little less than stupendous, though singular and hard for European thought to follow.]

[Footnote 158:  I presume that the strong opinion expressed in Caland and Henri’s Agnishloma p. 484 that the sacrifice is merely a do ut des operation refers only to the earliest Vedic period and not to the time of the Brahmanas.]

[Footnote 159:  Thus both the Vedas and the Tantras devote considerable space to rites which have for object the formation of a new body for the sacrificer.  Compare for instance the Aitareya Brahmana (I. 18-21:  II. 35-38:  III. 2 and VI. 27-31) with Avalon’s account of Nyasa, in his introduction to the Mahanirvana Tantra pages cvii-cxi.]