Who are they, the gods of the Rigveda? Ancient and yet ever youthful powers, full of joy, help and light, shining ones with whose presence the regions of earth and the hearts of men were illuminated, Angels and Deputies of the mysterious unknown God, worshipped in India, worshipped in Mesopotamia & Central Asia fifteen hundred years before the Christian era, worshipped by the wild Scythians,—for the name of Bhaga is still the Russian name for God,—worshipped in Iran before Ahuramazda replaced them,—for Ahriman, the dark spirit of the Persians, preserves the name of the strong Vedic deity,— worshipped at some time by Greek & Roman & Celt and Scandinavian, they have long given way even in India to the direct adoration of their Master whom they revealed, the Deva Adhiyajna whom through them the ancient masters of the sacrifice so persistently sought and finally attained.
What were they, then?— vain imaginations of men? personifications of material realities? the idea of God behind phenomena? or even—for we know too little of the worlds, are still, as Newton was, children picking up pebbles on the shore of the infinite ocean of knowledge,— were there and are there—behind the names men give them— real personalities who stand in spirit behind the functions of man and of Nature, hidden masters, now unworshipped gods? If they were nothing, wherefore did the fire of the sacrifice flame up to them so persistently from the hearts and the hearths of men? —from what vague primeval terror and need of propitiation or supernatural assistance,—or if something, from what higher knowledge of the secrets of force that lie behind these outward movements of the machinery of the world?
Wherefore did they yoke the bright flaming coursers to their chariots of bliss and hasten down so swiftly to rejoice in the fires of the Aryan altar and drain the outpourings of the Soma-wine?
Sri Aurobindo - Vedic & Philological Studies.