Jnana-Yoga : - 1-3.

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CHAPTER  : I - THE NECESSITY OF RELIGION-3.

On the other hand, there are scholars who from the ancient Aryan literature show that religion originated in nature worship.

Although in India we find proofs of ancestor worship everywhere, yet in the oldest records there is no trace of it whatsoever.

In the Rig-Veda Samhitâ, the most ancient record of the Aryan race, we do not find any trace of it.

Modern scholars think, it is the worship of nature that they find there.

The human mind seems to struggle to get a peep behind the scenes.

The dawn, the evening, the hurricane, the stupendous and gigantic forces of nature, its beauties, these have exercised the human mind, and it aspires to go beyond, to understand something about them.

In the struggle they endow these phenomena with personal attributes, giving them souls and bodies, sometimes beautiful, sometimes transcendent.

Every attempt ends by these phenomena becoming abstractions whether personalised or not.

So also it is found with the ancient Greeks; their whole mythology is simply this abstracted nature worship.

So also with the ancient Germans, the Scandinavians, and all the other Aryan races.

Thus, on this side, too, a very strong case has been made out, that religion has its origin in the personification of the powers of nature.

Swami Vivekananda
To be continued  ...


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