Encyclopaedia of Aryan Mythology

Although India is a large country of diverse languages, castes and creeds, still the Vedas and Sastras, from which the creeds have sprung like so many rivers from the same Himalayas, and the Puranas and the classics, which are held in common esteem, have been exercising a unifying influence, despite differences, so far as the Hindus are concerned. As regards the other religionists that form part of the world, the enlightened spirit of the present time in which a comparative study of all religions is most zealously carried on is trying to show that all of them, in whatever lands risen, are flowing into One Ocean. The intention of the author in compiling this work of general reference on the mythology of the Indo-Aryans has been of arranging the matter in such a way that anyone without much labour might gain a good idea of the names, character, and actions of the principal gods and deities of the Indo-Aryans. The task in creating this pioneering work of reference has been to collect and arrange translations spread across a score of books, manuals and treatises of the Indian, European and American scholars. It has been the author’s endeavour to give a fair and impartial account of these deities, as far as possible in the very words of the sacred books. The author has striven to keep his mind free from prejudice and theological bias, and wishing to let the sacred books speak for themselves, and has refrained from commenting on the passages quoted, excepting in cases where some explanation seemed necessary. The reader will not fail to see that the subject here treated, and the manner in which it has been treated, is an effort to provide an integrated account of the formation of a composite religious history of the Indo-Aryans.