As an example of the philological method with a Vedic god, take Indra. I
do not think that science is ever likely to find out the whole origins of
any god. Even if his name mean 'sky,' Dyaus, Zeus, we must ask what mode
of conceiving 'sky' is original. Was 'sky' thought of as a person, and,
if so, as a savage or as a civilised person; as a god, sans phrase; as
the inanimate visible vault of heaven; as a totem, or how? Indra, like
other gods, is apt to evade our observation, in his origins. Mr. Max
Muller asks, 'what should we gain if we called Indra . . . a totem?' Who
does? If we derive his name from the same root as 'ind-u,' _raindrop_,
then 'his starting-point was the rain' (i. 131). Roth preferred 'idh,'
'indh,' _to kindle_; and later, his taste and fancy led him to 'ir,' or
'irv,' _to have power over_. He is variously regarded as god of 'bright
firmament,' of air, of thunderstorm personified, and so forth. {110} His
name is not detected among other Aryan gods, and his birth may be _after_
the 'Aryan Separation' (ii. 752). But surely his name, even so, might
have been carried to the Greeks? This, at least, should not astonish Mr.
Max Muller. One had supposed that Dyaus and Zeus were separately
developed, by peoples of India and Greece, from a common, pre-separation,
Aryan root. One had not imagined that the Greeks _borrowed_ divine names
from Sanskrit and from India. But this, too, might happen! (ii. 506).
Mr. Max Muller asks, 'Why should not a cloud or air goddess _of India_,
whether called Svara or Urvasi, have supplied the first germs from which
[Greek] descended?' Why not, indeed, if prehistoric Greeks were in touch
with India? I do not say they were not. Why should not a Vedic or
Sanskrit goddess of India supply the first germs of a Greek goddess? (ii.
p. 506). Why, because 'Greek gods have never been Vedic gods, but both
Greek and Vedic gods have started from the same germs' (ii. 429). Our
author has answered his own question, but he seems at intervals to
suppose, contrary to his own principles, as I understand them, that Greek
_may_ be 'derived from' Vedic divine names, or, at least, divine names in
Sanskrit. All this is rather confusing.