In later hymns these objects are generally of sacrificial nature, and the stones with which _soma_ is pressed are divine like the plant.

Yet often there is no sacrificial observance to cause this veneration.
Hymns are addressed to weapons, to the war-car, as to divine beings.
Sorcery and incantation is not looked upon favorably, but nevertheless it is found.
Another class of divinities includes abstractions, generally female, such as Infinity, Piety, Abundance, with the barely-mentioned Gung[=u], R[=a]k[=a], etc.

(which may be moon-phases).

The most important of these abstractions[22] is 'the lord of strength,' a priestly interpretation of Indra, interpreted as religious strength or prayer, to whom are accredited all of Indra's special acts.
Hillebrandt interprets this god, Brahmanaspati or Brihaspati, as the moon; Mueller, somewhat doubtfully, as fire; while Roth will not allow that Brihaspati has anything to do with natural phenomena, but considers him to have been from the beginning 'lord of prayer.' With this view we partly concur, but we would make the important modification that the god was lord of prayer only as priestly abstraction Indra in his higher development.

It is from this god is come probably the head of the later trinity, Brahm[=a], through personified _brahma_, power; prayer, with its philosophical development into the Absolute.