We claim that it is not historical, it is not judicious from a literary point of view, to fling indiscriminately together the hymns that are evidently ritualistic and those of other value; for, finally, it is a sober literary judgment that is the court of appeals in regard to whether poetry be poetry or not.

Now let one take a hymn containing, to make it an unexceptionable example, nothing very profound or very beautiful.

It is this well-known HYMN TO THE SUN (_Rig Veda_, I.50).
Aloft this all-wise[22] shining god His beams of light are bearing now, That every one the sun may see.
Apart, as were they thieves, yon stars, Together with the night[23], withdraw Before the sun, who seeth all.
His beams of light have been beheld Afar, among [all] creatures; rays Splendid as were they [blazing] fires, Impetuous-swift, beheld of all, Of light the maker, thou, O Sun, Thou all the gleaming [sky] illum'st.
Before the folk of shining gods Thou risest up, and men before, 'Fore all--to be as light beheld; [To be] thine eye, O pure bright Heaven, Wherewith amid [all] creatures born Thou gazest down on busy [man].
Thou goest across the sky's broad place, Meting with rays, O Sun, the days, And watching generations pass.
The steeds are seven that at thy car Bear up the god whose hair is flame O shining god, O Sun far-seen! Yoked hath he now his seven fair steeds, The daughters of the sun-god's car, Yoked but by him[24]; with these he comes.
For some thousands of years these verses have been the daily prayer of the Hindu.

They have been incorporated into the ritual in this form.
They are rubricated, and the nine stanzas form part of a prescribed service.

But, surely, it were a literary hysteron-proteron to conclude for this reason that they were made only to fill a part in an established ceremony.
The praise is neither perfunctory nor lacking in a really religious tone.