Difficulties of the study--Development of clan-gods--
Departmental gods-Divine patronage of morality--Immorality
mythically attributed to gods--Indra--His love of Soma--
Scandal about Indra--Attempts to explain Indra as an
elemental god--Varuna--Ushas--The Asvins--Their legend and
theories about it--Tvashtri--The Maruts--Conclusions arrived
at.
Nothing in all mythology is more difficult than the attempt to get
a clear view of the gods of Vedic India. The perplexed nature of the
evidence has already been explained, and may be briefly recapitulated.
The obscure documents on which we have to rely, the Vedas and the
Brahmanaa, contain in solution the opinions of many different ages and
of many different minds. Old and comparatively modern conceptions of the
deities, pious efforts to veil or to explain away what seemed crude
or profane, the puerilities of ritual, half-conscious strivings in the
direction of monotheism or pantheism, clan or family prejudices, rough
etymological guesses, and many other elements of doubt combine to
confuse what can never have been clear. Savage legends, philosophic
conjectures, individual predilections are all blended into the
collection of hymns called the _Rig- Veda_. Who can bring order into
such a chaos?
An attempt to unravel the tangled threads of Indian faith must be made.
The gods of the Vedas are, on the whole, of the usual polytheistic type,
though their forms mix into each other like shadows cast by a flickering
fire. The ideas which may be gathered about them from the ancient hymns
have, as usual, no consistency and no strict orthodoxy. As each bard
of each bardic family celebrates a god, he is apt to make him for the
occasion the pre-eminent deity of all.* This way of conceiving of
the gods leads naturally (as thought advances) in the direction of a
pantheistic monotheism, a hospitable theology which accepts each divine
being as a form or manifestation of the supreme universal spirit. It
is easy, however, to detect certain attributes more or less peculiar to
each god. As among races far less forward in civilisation, each of
the greater powers has his own special department, however much his
worshippers may be inclined to regard him as really supreme sovereign.
Thus Indra is mainly concerned with thunder and other atmospheric
phenomena: these are his department; but Vayu is the wind or the god
of the wind, and Agni as fire or the god of fire is necessarily not
unconnected with the lightning. The Maruts, again, are the storm-winds,
or gods of the storm-winds; Mitra and Varuna preside over day and night;
Ushas is the dawn or the goddess of dawn, and Tvashtri is the mechanic
among the deities, corresponding more or less closely to the Greek
Hephaestus.
* Muir, v. 125. Compare Muir, i. 348, on the word _Kusikas_,
implying, according to Benfey, that Indra "is designated as
the sole or chief deity of this tribe ". Cf, also Hang,
Ait. Br., ii. 384.
Though many of these beings are still in Vedic poetry departmental
powers with provinces of their own in external Nature, they are also
supposed to be interested not only in the worldly, but in the moral
welfare of mankind, and are imagined to "make for righteousness ". It is
true that the myths by no means always agree in representing the gods as
themselves moral. Incest and other hideous offences are imputed to them,
and it is common to explain these myths as the result of the forgotten
meanings of sayings which originally were only intended to describe
processes of nature, especially of the atmosphere. Supposing, for the
sake of argument, that this explanation is correct, we can scarcely
be expected to think highly of the national taste which preferred
to describe pure phenomena like dawn and sunset in language which is
appropriate to the worst crimes in the human calendar. It is certain
that the Indians, when they came to reflect and philosophise on their
own religion (and they had reached this point before the Veda was
compiled), were themselves horrified by the immoralities of some of
their gods. Yet in Vedic times these gods were already acknowledged
as beings endowed with strong moral attributes and interested in the
conduct of men. As an example of this high ethical view, we may quote
Mr. Max Muller's translation of part of a hymn addressed to Varuna.*
* Rig-Veda, ii. 28; _Hibbert Lectures_, p. 284.
"Take from me my sin like a fetter, and we shall increase, O Varuna, the
spring of thy law. Let not the thread be cut while I weave my song! Let
not the form of the workman break before the time.... Like as a rope
from a calf, remove from me my sin, for away from thee I am not
master even of the twinkling of an eye.... Move far away from me all
self-committed guilt, and may I not, O king, suffer for what others have
committed. Many dawns have not yet dawned; grant me to live in them, O
Varuna." What follows is not on the same level of thought, and the
next verse contains an appeal to Varuna to save his worshipper from the
effect of magic spells. "Whether it be my companion or a friend who,
while I was asleep and trembling, uttered fearful spells against me,
whether it be a thief or a wolf who wishes to hurt me, protect us
against them, O Varuna."* Agni, again, the god of fire, seems to have
no original connection with righteousness. Yet even Agni** is prayed to
forgive whatever sin the worshipper may have committed through folly,
and to make him guiltless towards Aditi.*** The goddess Aditi once more,
whether her name (rendered the "boundless") be or be not "one of
the oldest names of the dawn,"**** is repeatedly called on by her
worshippers to "make them sinless". In the same way sun, dawn, heaven,
soma, and earth are implored to pardon sin.
* An opposite view is expressed in Weber's Hist, of Sansk.
Literature.
** Rig- Veda, iv. 12, 4; viii. 93, 7.
*** For divergent opinions about Aditi, compare _Revue de
l'Histoire des Religions_, xii. 1, pp. 40-42; Muir, v. 218.
**** Max Mueller, _Hibbert Lectures_, p. 228.
Though the subject might be dwelt on at very great length, it is perhaps
already apparent that the gods of the Vedic poetry are not only potent
over regions of the natural world, but are also conceived of, at times,
as being powers with ethical tendencies and punishers of mortal guilt.
It would be difficult to overstate the ethical nobility of certain Vedic
hymns, which even now affect us with a sense of the "hunger and thirst
after righteousness" so passionately felt by the Hebrew psalmists. How
this emotion, which seems naturally directed to a single god, came to be
distributed among a score, it is hard to conjecture. But all this aspect
of the Vedic deities is essentially the province of the science of
religion rather than of mythology. Man's consciousness of sin, his sense
of being imperfect in the sight of "larger other eyes than ours," is
a topic of the deepest interest, but it comes but by accident into the
realm of mythological science. That science asks, not with what feelings
of awe and gratitude the worshipper approaches his gods, but what myths,
what stories, are told to or told by the worshipper concerning the
origin, personal characteristics and personal adventures of his deities.
As a rule, these stories are a mere _chronique scandaleuse_, full of the
most absurd and offensive anecdotes, and of the crudest fictions. The
deities of the Vedic poems, so imposing when regarded as vast natural
forces, or as the spiritual beings that master vast natural forces, so
sympathetic when looked on as merciful gods conscious of, yet lenient
towards, the sins of perishing mortals, have also their mythological
aspect and their _chronique scandaleuse_.*
* Here we must remind the reader that the Vedas do not offer
us all these tales, nor the worst of them. As M. Barth says,
"Le sentiment religieux a ecarte la plupart de ces mythes
ainsi que beaucoup d'autres qui le choquaient, mais il ne
les a pas ecartes tous" (_Religions de l'Inde_, p. 14).
It is, of course, in their anthropomorphic aspect that the Vedic deities
share or exceed the infirmities of mortals. The gods are not by any
means always regarded as practically equal in supremacy. There were
great and small, young and old gods,* though this statement, with the
habitual inconsistency of a religion without creeds and articles, is
elsewhere controverted. "None of you, O gods, is small or young; you are
all great."** As to the immortality and the origin of the gods,
opinions are equally divided among the Vedic poets and in the traditions
collected in the Brahmanas. Several myths of the origin of the gods have
already been discussed in the chapter on "Aryan Myths of the Creation of
the World and of Man". It was there demonstrated that many of the Aryan
myths were on a level with those current among contemporary savages all
over the world, and it was inferred that they originally sprang from the
same source, the savage imagination.
In this place, while examining the wilder divine myths, we need only
repeat that, in one legend, heaven and earth, conceived of as two
sentient living beings of human parts and passions, produced the Aryan
gods, as they did the gods of the New Zealanders and of other races.
Again, the gods were represented in the children of Aditi, and this
might be taken either in a high and refined sense, as if Aditi were the
infinite region from which the solar deities rise,*** or we may hold
that Aditi is the eternal which sustains and is sustained by the
gods,**** or the Indian imagination could sink to the vulgar and
half-magical conception of Aditi as a female, who, being desirous of
sons, cooked a Brahmandana oblation for the gods, the Sadhyas.*****
* Rig-Veda, i. 27,13.
** Ibid., viii. 30; Muir, v. 12.
*** Max Mueller, _Hibbert Lectures_, p. 230.
**** Roth, in Muir, iv. 56.
***** _Taittirya Brahmana_, i. 1, 9, 1; Muir, v. 55, 1, 27.
Various other gods and supernatural beings are credited with having
created or generated the gods. Indra's father and mother are constantly
spoken of, and both he and other gods are often said to have been
originally mortal, and to have reached the heavens by dint of that
"austere fervour," that magical asceticism, which could do much more
than move mountains. The gods are thus by no means always credited
in Aryan mythology with inherent immortality. Like most of the other
deities whose history we have been studying, they had struggles for
pre-eminence with powers of a titanic character, the Asuras. "Asura,
'living,' was originally an epithet of certain powers of Nature,
particularly of the sky," says Mr. Max Mueller.** As the gods also are
recognised as powers of Nature, particularly of the sky, there does not
seem to be much original difference between Devas and Asuras.*** The
opposition between them may be "secondary," as Mr. Max Mueller says, but
in any case it too strongly resembles the other wars in heaven of other
mythologies to be quite omitted. Unluckily, the most consecutive account
of the strife is to be found, not in the hymns of the Vedas, but in
the collected body of mythical and other traditions called the
Brahmanas.****
** Hibbert Lectures, p. 318.
*** In the _Atharva Veda_ it is said that a female Asura
once drew Indra from among the gods (Muir, v. 82). Thus gods
and Asuras are capable of amorous relations.
**** _Satapatha Br_.
The story in the Brahmana begins by saying that throughout. See the
Oxford translation. Prajapati (the producer of things, whose acquaintance
we have made in the chapter on cosmogonic myths) was half mortal and
half immortal. After creating things endowed with life, he created
Death, the devourer. With that part of him which was mortal he was
afraid of Death, and the gods were also "afraid of this ender, Death".
The gods in this tradition are regarded as mortals. Compare the _Black
Yajur Veda_:* "_The gods were formerly just like men_. They desired to
overcome want, misery, death, and to go to the divine assembly.
They saw, took and sacrificed with this Chaturvimsatiratra, and in
consequence overcame want, misery and death, and reached the divine
assembly." In the same Veda we are told that the gods and Asuras
contended together; the gods were less numerous, but, as politicians
make men peers, they added to their number by placing some bricks in
the proper position to receive the sacrificial fire. They then used
incantations: "Thou art a multiplier"; and so the bricks became
animated, and joined the party of the gods, and made numbers more
equal.**
* _Taittirya Sanhita_; Muir, v. 15, note 22.
** According to a later legend, or a legend which we have
received in a later form, the gods derived immortality from
drinking of the churned ocean of milk. They churned it with
Mount Mandara for a staff and the serpent Hasuki for a cord.
The _Ramayana and Mahabharata_ ascribe this churning to the
desire of the gods to become immortal. According to the
_Mahabharata_, a Daitya named Rahu insinuated himself among
the gods, and drank some of the draught of immortality.
Vishnu beheaded him before the draught reached lower than
his throat; his _head_ was thus immortal, and is now a
constellation. He pursues the sun and moon, who had spied
him among the gods, and causes their eclipses by his
ferocity. All this is on a level with Australian mythology.
To return to the gods in the _Satapatha Brahmana_ and their dread of
death. They overcame him by certain sacrifices suggested by Prajapati.
Death resented this, and complained that men would now become immortal
and his occupation would be gone. To console him the gods promised that
no man in future should become immortal with his body, but only through
knowledge after parting with his body. This legend, at least in its
present form, is necessarily later than the establishment of minute
sacrificial rules. It is only quoted here as an example of the opinion
that the gods were once mortal and "just like men". It may be urged,
and probably with truth, that this belief is the figment of religious
decadence. As to the victory of the gods over the Asuras, that is
ascribed by the _Satapatha Brahmana_* to the fact that, at a time when
neither gods nor Asuras were scrupulously veracious, the gods invented
the idea of speaking the truth. The Asuras stuck to lying. The first
results not unnaturally were that the gods became weak and poor, the
Asuras mighty and rich. The gods at last overcame the Asuras, not by
veracity, but by the success of a magical sacrifice. Earlier
dynasties of gods, to which the generation of Indra succeeded, are not
unfrequently mentioned in the _Rig- Veda_.**
* Muir, iv. 6a.
** Ibid., v. 16.
On the whole, the accounts of the gods and of their nature present in
Aryan mythology the inconsistent anthropomorphism, and the mixture of
incongruous and often magical and childish ideas, which mark all other
mythological systems. This will become still more manifest when we
examine the legends of the various gods separately, as they have been
disentangled by Dr. Muir and M. Bergaigne from the Vedas, and from the
later documents which contain traditions of different dates.
The Vedas contain no such orderly statements of the divine genealogies
as we find in Hesoid and Homer. All is confusion, all is contradiction.*
In many passages heaven and earth, Dyaus and Prithivi, are spoken of
as parents of the other gods. Dyaus is commonly identified, as is well
known, with Zeus by the philologists, but his legend has none of the
fulness and richness which makes that of Zeus so remarkable. Before the
story of Dyaus could become that of Zeus, the old Aryan sky or heaven
god had to attract into his cycle that vast collection of miscellaneous
adventures from a thousand sources which fill the legend of the chief
Hellenic deity. In the Veda, Dyaus appears now, as with Prithivi,**
the parent of all, both men and gods, now as a created thing or being
fashioned by Indra or by Tvashtri.*** He is "essentially beneficent,
but has no marked individuality, and can only have become the Greek Zeus
by inheriting attributes from other deities ".****
Another very early divine person is Aditi, the mother of the great
and popular gods called Adityas. "Nothing is less certain than the
derivation of the name of Aditi," says M. Paul Regnaud.*****
* Certain myths of the beginnings of things will be found in
the chapter on cosmogonic traditions.
** Muir, v. 21-24.
*** Ibid., v. 30.
**** Bergaigne, iii. 112.
***** _Revue de l'Histoire des Religions_, xii. 1, 40.
M. Regnaud finds the root of Aditi in _ad_, to shine. Mr. Max Mueller
looks for the origin of the word in _a_, privative, and _da_, to bind;
thus Aditi will mean "the boundless," the "infinite," a theory rejected
by M. Regnaud. The expansion of this idea, with all its important
consequences, is worked out by Mr. Max Mueller in his _Hibbert Lectures_.
"The dawn came and went, but there remained always behind the dawn that
heaving sea of light or fire from which she springs. Was not this the
invisible infinite? And what better name could be given than that which
the Vedic poets gave to it, Aditi, the boundless, the yonder, the beyond
all and everything." This very abstract idea "may have been one of
the earliest intuitions and creations of the Hindu mind" (p. 229). M.
Darmesteter and Mr. Whitney, on the other hand, explain Aditi just as
Welcker and Mr. Max Mueller explain Cronion. There was no such thing as
a goddess named Aditi till men asked themselves the meaning of the
title of their own gods, "the Adityas". That name might be interpreted
"children of Aditi," and so a goddess called Aditi was invented to fit
the name, thus philologically extracted from Adityas.*
M. Bergaigne** finds that Aditi means "free," "untrammelled," and is
used both as an adjective and as a name.
* The Brahmanic legend of the birth of the Adityas (Aitareya
Brahmana iii. 33) is too disgusting to be quoted.
** _Religion Vedique_, iii. 88.
This vague and floating term was well suited to convey the pantheistic
ideas natural to the Indian mind, and already notable in the Vedic
hymns. "Aditi," cries a poet, "is heaven; Aditi is air; Aditi is the
father, the mother and the son; Aditi is all the gods; Aditi is that
which is born and which awaits the birth."* Nothing can be more advanced
and metaphysical. Meanwhile, though Aditi is a personage so floating
and nebulous, she figures in fairly definite form in a certain myth. The
_Rig-Veda_ (x. 72, 8) tells us the tale of the birth of her sons, the
Adityas. "Eight sons were there of Aditi, born of her womb. To the gods
went she with seven; Martanda threw she away." The _Satapatha Brahmana_
throws a good deal of light on her conduct. Aditi had eight sons; but
there are only seven gods whom men call Adityas. The eighth she bore a
shapeless lump, of the dimensions of a man, as broad as long, say some.
The Adityas then trimmed this ugly duckling of the family into human
shape, and an elephant sprang from the waste pieces which they threw
away; therefore an elephant partakes of the nature of man. The shapen
eighth son was called Vivasvat, the sun.**
* Rig- Veda, i. 89, 10.
** Muir, iv. 15.
It is not to be expected that many, if any, remains of a theriomorphic
character should cling to a goddess so abstract as Aditi. When,
therefore, we find her spoken of as a cow, it is at least as likely that
this is only part of "the pleasant unconscious poetry" of the Veda,
as that it is a survival of some earlier zoomorphic belief. Gubernatis
offers the following lucid account of the metamorphosis of the infinite
(for so he understands Aditi) into the humble domestic animal: "The
inexhaustible soon comes to mean that which can be milked without end"
(it would be more plausible to say that what can be milked without end
soon comes to mean the inexhaustible), "and hence also a celestial cow,
an inoffensive cow, which we must not offend.... The whole heavens being
thus represented as an infinite cow, it was natural that the principal
and most visible phenomena of the sky should become, in their turn,
children of the cow." Aditi then is "the great spotted cow". Thus did
the Vedic poets (according to Gubernatis) descend from the unconditioned
to the byre.
From Aditi, however she is to be interpreted, we turn to her famous
children, the Adityas, the high gods.
There is no kind of consistency, as we have so often said, in Vedic
mythical opinion. The Adityas, for example, are now represented as
three, now as seven; for three and seven are sacred numbers. To the
triad a fourth is sometimes added, to the seven an eighth Aditya. The
Adityas are a brotherhood or college of gods, but some of the members
of the fraternity have more individual character than, for example, the
Maruts, who are simply a company with a tendency to become confused
with the Adityas. Considered as a triad, the Adityas are Varuna, Mitra,
Aryaman. The name of Varuna is commonly derived from vri (or Var),* to
cover, according to the commentator Sayana, because "he envelops the
wicked in his snares," the nets which he carries to capture the guilty.
As god of the midnight sky, Varuna is also "the covering" deity, with
his universal pall of darkness. Varuna's name has frequently been
compared to that of Uranus (------), the Greek god of heaven, who was
mutilated by his son Cronos.
* Max Mueller, Select Essays, i. 871.
Supposing Varuna to mean the heaven, we are not much advanced, for _dyu_
also lias the same meaning; yet Dyaus and Varuna have little in common.
The interpreters of the Vedas attempted to distinguish Mitra from Varuna
by making the former the god of the daylight, the latter the god of the
midnight vault of heaven. The distinction, like other Vedic attempts at
drawing a line among the floating phantasms of belief, is not kept up
with much persistency.
Of all Vedic deities, Varuna has the most spiritual and ethical
character. "The grandest cosmical functions are ascribed to Varuna."
"His ordinances are fixed and unassailable." "He who should flee far
beyond the sky would not escape Varuna the king." He is "gracious even
to him who has committed sin". To be brief, the moral sentiments, which
we have shown to be often present in a pure form, even in the religion
of savages, find a lofty and passionate expression in the Vedic psalms
to Varuna.* But even Varuna has not shaken off all remains of the ruder
mythopoeic fancy. A tale of the grossest and most material obscenity
is told of Mitra and Varuna in the _Rig- Veda_ itself--the tale of the
birth of Vasistha.**
In the Aitareya Brahmana (ii. 460) Varuna takes a sufficiently personal
form. He has somehow fallen heir to a role familiar to us from the
Russian tale of _Tsar Morskoi_, the Gaelic "Battle of the Birds," and
the Scotch "Nicht, Nought, nothing"*** Varuna, in short, becomes the
giant or demon who demands from the king the gift of his yet unborn son.
* Muir, v. 66.
** Rig. Veda, vii. 33, 2.
*** See Custom, and Myth, "A Far-Travelled Tale," and our
chapter postea, on "Romantic Myths".
Harischandra is childless, and is instructed to pray to Varuna,
promising to offer the babe as a human sacrifice. When the boy is born,
Harischandra tries to evade the fulfilment of his promise. Finally
a young Brahman is purchased, and is to be sacrificed to Varuna as
a substitute for the king's son. The young Brahman is supernaturally
released.
Thus even in Vedic, still more in Brahmanic myth, the vague and
spiritual form of Varuna is brought to shame, or confused with some
demon of lower earlier legends.
There are believed on somewhat shadowy evidence to be traces of a
conflict between Varuna and Indra (the fourth Aditya sometimes added to
the triad), a conflict analogous to that between Uranus and Cronos.*
The hymn, as M. Bergaigne holds, proves that Indra was victorious over
Varuna, and thereby obtained possession of fire and of the soma juice.
But these births and battles of gods, who sometimes are progenitors of
their own fathers, and who seem to change shapes with demons, are no
more to be fixed and scientifically examined than the torn plumes and
standards of the mist as they roll up a pass among the mountain pines.**
* Rig- Veda, x. 124.
** Bergaigne, iii. 147.
We next approach a somewhat better defined and more personal figure,
that of the famous god Indra, who is the nearest Vedic analogue of the
Greek Zeus. Before dealing with the subject more systematically, it may
be interesting to give one singular example of the parallelisms between
Aryan and savage mythology.
In his disquisition on the Indian gods, Dr. Muir has been observing*
that some passages of the _Rig- Veda_ imply that the reigning deities
were successors of others who had previously existed. He quotes, in
proof of this, a passage from _Rig- Veda_, iv. 18, 12: "Who, O Indra,
made thy mother a widow? Who sought to kill thee, lying or moving? What
god was present in the fray when thou didst slay thy father, seizing
him by the foot?" According to M. Bergaigne,** Indra slew his father,
Tvashtri, for the purpose of stealing and drinking the soma, to which he
was very partial. This is rather a damaging passage, as it appears that
the Vedic poet looked on Indra as a parricide and a drunkard. To explain
this hint, however, Sayana the ancient commentator, quotes a passage
from the _Black Yajur Veda_ which is no explanation at all. But it has
some interest for us, as showing how the myths of Aryans and Hottentots
coincide, even in very strange details. Yajna (sacrifice) desired
Dakshina (largesse). He consorted with her. Indra was apprehensive of
this. He reflected, "Whoever is born of her will be this". He entered
into her. Indra himself was born of her. He reflected, "Whoever is born
of her besides me will be this". Having considered, he cut open her
womb. She produced a cow. Here we have a high Aryan god passing into and
being born from the womb of a being who also bore a cow. The Hottentot
legend of the birth of their god, Heitsi Eibib, is scarcely so
repulsive.***
* _Sanskrit Texts_, v. 16,17.
** _Religion Vedique_, iii. 99.
*** _Tsuni Goam_, Hahn, p.
"There was grass growing, and a cow came and ate of that grass, and she
became pregnant" (as Hera of Ares in Greek myth), "and she brought forth
a young bull. And this bull became a very large bull." And the people
came together one day in order to slaughter him. But he ran away down
hill, and they followed him to turn him back and catch him. But when
they came to the spot where he had disappeared, they found a man making
milk tubs. They asked this man, "Where is the bull that passed down
here?" He said, "I do not know; has he then passed here?" And all the
while it was he himself, who had again become Heitsi Eibib. Thus
the birth of Heitsi Eibib resembled that of Indra as described in
_Rig-Veda_, iv. 18, 10. "His mother, a cow, bore Indra, an unlicked
calf."* Whatever view we may take of this myth, and of the explanation
in the Brahmana, which has rather the air of being an invention to
account for the Vedic cow-mother of Indra, it is certain that the god is
not regarded as an uncreated being.**
* Ludwig, _Die farse hat den groszen, starken, nicht zu venoundenden
stier, den tosenden Indra, geboren_.
** As to the etymological derivation and original significance of the
name of Indra, the greatest differences exist among philologists. Yaska
gives thirteen guesses of old, and there are nearly as many modern
conjectures. In 1846 Roth described Indra as the god of "the bright
clear vault of heaven" (Zeller's _Theologisches Jahrbuch_, 1846, p.
352). Compare for this and the following conjectures, E. D. Perry,
_Journal of American Oriental Society_, vol. i. p. 118. Roth derived
the "radiance" from _idh, indh_, to kindle. Roth afterwards changed his
mind, and selected _in_ or _inv_, to have power over. Lassen (_Indisclie
Allerthumskunde_, 2nd ed., i. p. 893) adopted a different derivation.
Benfey (Or. und Occ, 1862, p. 48) made Indra God, not of the radiant,
but of the rainy sky. Mr. Max Mueller (lectures on Science of Language,
ii. 470) made Indra "another conception of the bright blue sky," but (p.
473, note 35) he derives Indra from the same root as in Sanskrit gives
indu, drop or sap, that is, apparently, rainy sky, the reverse of blue.
It means originally "the giver of rain," and Beufey is quoted ut supra.
In Chips, ii. 91, Indra becomes "the chief solar deity of India ". Muir
(Texts, v. 77) identifies the character of Indra with that of Jupiter
Pluvius, the Rainy Jove of Rome. Grassman (Dictionary, s. v.) calls
Indra "the god of the bright firmament". Mr. Perry takes a distinction,
and regards Indra as a god, not of sky, but of air, a midgarth between
earth and sky, who inherited the skyey functions of Dyu. In the Veda Mr.
Perry finds him "the personification of the thunderstorm". And so on! It
seems incontestable that in Vedic mythology Tvashtri is regarded as the
father of Indra.* Thus (ii. 17, 6) Indra's thunderbolts are said to have
been fashioned by his father. Other proofs are found in the account of
the combat between father and son. Thus (iii. 48, 4) we read, "Powerful,
victorious, _he gives his body what shape he pleases_. Thus Indra,
having vanquished Tvashtri even at his birth, stole and drank the
soma."** These anecdotes do not quite correspond with the version of
Indra's guilt given in the Brahmanas. There it is stated*** that
Tvashtri had a three-headed son akin to the Asuras, named Vairupa. This
Vairupa was suspected of betraying to the Asuras the secret of soma.
Indra therefore cut off his three heads.
* On the parentage of Indra, Bergaigne writes, iii. 58.
** iii. 61. Bergaigne identifies Tvashtri and Vritra.
Cf. Aitareya Brahmana, ii. 483, note 5.
*** Aitareya Brahmana, it 483, note 6.
Now Vairupa was a Brahman, and Indra was only purified of his awful
guilt, Brahmanicide, when earth, trees and women accepted each their
share of the iniquity. Tvashtri, the father of Vairupa, still excluded
Indra from a share of the soma, which, however, Indra seized by force.
Tvashtri threw what remained of Indra's share into the fire with
imprecations, and from the fire sprang Vritra, the enemy of Indra. Indra
is represented at various times and in various texts as having sprung
from the mouth of Purusha, or as being a child of heaven and earth, whom
he thrust asunder, as Tutenganahau thrust asunder Rangi and Papa in the
New Zealand myth. In a passage of the _Black Yajur Veda_, once already
quoted, Indra, sheep and the Kshattriya caste were said to have sprung
from the breast and arms of Prajapati.* In yet another hymn in the _Rig-
Veda_ he is said to have conquered heaven by magical austerity. Leaving
the Brahmanas aside, Mr. Perry** distinguishes four sorts of Vedic texts
on the origin of Indra:--
1. Purely physical.
2. Anthropomorphic.
3. Vague references to Indra's parents.
4. Philosophical speculations.
Of the first class,*** it does not appear to us that the purely physical
element is so very pure after all. Heaven, earth, Indra, "the cow," are
all thought of as _personal_ entities, however gigantic and vague.
In the second or anthropomorphic myths we have**** the dialogue
already referred to, in which Indra, like Set in Egypt and Malsumis or
Chokanipok in America, insists on breaking his way through his mother's
side.*****
* Muir, i. 16.
** Op. cit., p. 124.
*** Rig- Veda, iv. 17, 4, 2, 12; iv. 22, 4; i. 63, 1; viii.
59, 4; viii. 6, 28-30.
**** Ibid., iv. 18,1.
***** Cf. "Egyptian Divine Myths"
In verse 5 his mother exposes Indra, as Maui and the youngest son of
Aditi were exposed. Indra soon after, as precocious as Heitsi Eibib,
immediately on his birth kills his father.* He also kills Vritra, as
Apollo when new-born slew the Python. In iii. 48, 2, 3, he takes early
to soma-drinking. In x. 153, 1, women cradle him as the nymphs nursed
Zeus in the Cretan cave.
In the third class we have the odd myth,** "while an immature boy, he
mounted the new waggon and roasted for father and mother a fierce bull
".
In the fourth class a speculative person tries to account for the
statement that Indra was born from a horse, "or the verse means that
Agni was a horse's son". Finally, Sayana**** explains nothing, but
happens to mention that the goddess Aditi _swallowed_ her rival Nisti,
a very primitive performance, and much like the feat of Cronos when he
dined on his family, or of Zeus when he swallowed his wife.
* Why do Indra and his family behave in this bloodthirsty
way? Hillebrandt says that the father is the heaven which
Indra "kills" by covering it with clouds. But, again, Indra
kills his father by concealing the sun. He is abandoned by
his mother when the clear sky, from which he is born,
disappears behind the veil of cloud. Is the father sun or
heaven? is the mother clear sky, or, as elsewhere, the
imperishability of the daylight? (Perry, op. cit., p. 149).
** Rig- Veda, viii. 68, 15.
*** Ibid., x. 73, 10.
**** Ibid., x. 101, 12. For Sayana, see Mr. Perry's Essay,
Journal A. 0. S. 1882, p. 180.
Thus a fixed tradition of Indra's birth is lacking in the Veda, and
the fluctuating traditions are not very creditable to the purity of the
Aryan fancy. In personal appearance Indra was handsome and ruddy as
the sun, but, like Odin and Heitsi Eibib and other gods and wizards, he
could assume any shape at will. He was a great charioteer, and wielded
the thunderbolt forged for him by Tvashtri, the Indian Hephaestus. His
love of the intoxicating soma juice was notorious, and with sacrifices
of this liquor his adorers were accustomed to inspire and invigorate
him. He is even said to have drunk at one draught thirty bowls of soma.
Dr. Haug has tasted it, but could only manage one teaspoonful. Indra's
belly is compared by his admirers to a lake, and there seems to be no
doubt that they believed the god really drank their soma, as Heitsi
Eibib really enjoys the honey left by the Hottentots on his grave. "I
have verily resolved to bestow cows and horses. I have quaffed the
soma. The draughts which I have drunk impel me as violent blasts. I have
quaffed the soma. I surpass in greatness the heaven and the vast earth.
I have quaffed the soma. I am majestic, elevated to the heavens. I
have quaffed the soma."* So sings the drunken and bemused Indra, in
the manner of the Cyclops in Euripides, after receiving the wine, the
treacherous gift of Odysseus.
According to the old commentator Sayana, Indra got at the soma which
inspired him with his drinking-song by assuming the shape of a quail.
The great feats of Indra, which are constantly referred to, are his
slaughter of the serpent Vritra, who had taken possession of all the
waters, and his recovery of the sun, which had also been stolen.**
* Rig- Veda, x. 119.
** Ibid., 139, 4; iii. 39, 6; viii. 85, 7.
These myths are usually regarded as allegorical ways of stating that the
lightning opens the dark thundercloud, and makes it disgorge the
rain and reveal the sun. Whether this theory be correct or not, it is
important for our purpose to show that the feats thus attributed
to Indra are really identical in idea with, though more elevated in
conception and style, than certain Australian, Iroquois and Thlinkeet
legends. In the Iroquois myth, as in the Australian,* a great frog
swallowed all the waters, and was destroyed by Ioskeha or some other
animal. In Thlinkeet legends, Yehl, the raven-god, carried off to men
the hidden sun and the waters. Among these lower races the water-stealer
was thought of as a real reptile of some sort, and it is probable that a
similar theory once prevailed among the ancestors of the Aryans. Vritra
and Ahi, the mysterious foes whom Indra slays when he recovers the sun
and the waters, were probably once as real to the early fancy as the
Australian or Iroquois frog. The extraordinary myth of the origin of
Vritra, only found in the Brahmanas, indicates the wild imagination of
an earlier period. Indra murdered a Brahman, a three-headed one, it is
true, but still a Brahman. For this he was excluded from the banquet and
was deprived of his favourite soma. He stole a cup of it, and the dregs,
thrown into the fire with a magical imprecation, became Vritra, whom
Indra had such difficulty in killing. Before attacking Vritra, Indra
supplied himself with Dutch courage. "A copious draught of soma provided
him with the necessary courage and strength." The terror of the other
gods was abject.** After slaying him, he so lost self-possession that in
his flight he behaved like Odin when he flew off in terror with the head
of Suttung.***
* Brinton, Myths of New World, pp. 184, 185. See also
chapter i.
** Perry, op. cit., p. 137; Rig-Veda, v. 29, 3, 7; iii.
43, 7; iv. 18, 11; viii. 85, 7.
*** Rig-Veda, i. 32,14, tells of a flight as headlong as
that of Apollo after killing the Python. Mr. Perry explains
the flight as the rapid journey of the thunderstorm.
If our opinion be correct, the elemental myths which abound in the Veda
are not myths "in the making," as is usually held, but rather myths
gradually dissolving into poetry and metaphor. As an example of the
persistence in civilised myth of the old direct savage theory that
animals of a semi-supernatural sort really cause the heavenly phenomena,
we may quote Mr. Darmesteter's remark, in the introduction to the
_Zendavesta_: "The storm floods that cleanse the sky of the dark fiends
in it were described in a class of myths as the urine of a gigantic
animal in the heavens".* A more savage and theriomorphic hypothesis
it would be hard to discover among Bushmen or Nootkas.** Probably the
serpent Vritra is another beast out of the same menagerie.
If our theory of the evolution of gods is correct, we may expect to find
in the myths of Indra traces of a theriomorphic character. As the point
in the ear of man is thought or fabled to be a relic of his arboreal
ancestry, so in the shape of Indra there should, if gods were developed
out of divine beasts, be traces of fur and feather. They are not very
numerous nor very distinct, but we give them for what they may be worth.
The myth of Yehl, the Thlinkeet raven-god, will not have been forgotten.
In his raven gear Yehl stole the sacred water, as Odin, also in bird
form, stole the mead of Suttung. We find a similar feat connected with
Indra. Gubernatis says:***
* Sacred Books of the East, vol. iv. p. lxxxviii.
** The etymology of Vritra is usually derived from vn, to
"cover," "hinder," "restrain," then "what is to be
hindered," then "enemy," "fiend".
*** Zoological Mythology, ii. 182.
"In the _Rig-Veda_ Indra often appears as a hawk. While the hawk
carries the ambrosia through the air, he trembles for fear of the archer
Kricanus, who, in fact, shot off one of his claws, of which the hedgehog
was born, according to the _Aitareya Brahmana_, and according to the
Vedic hymn, one of his feathers, which, falling on the earth, afterwards
became a tree."* Indra's very peculiar relations with rams are also
referred to by Gubernatis.** They resemble a certain repulsive myth of
Zeus, Demeter and the ram referred to by the early Christian fathers. In
the _Satapatha Brahmana_*** Indra is called "ram of Medhatithi," wife of
Vrishanasva. Indra, like Loki, had taken the part of a woman.**** In the
shape of a ram he carried off Medhatithi, an exploit like that of Zeus
with Ganymede.*****
In the Vedas, however, all the passages which connect Indra with animals
will doubtless be explained away as metaphorical, though it is admitted
that, like Zeus, he could assume whatever form he pleased.****** Vedic
poets, probably of a late period, made Indra as anthropomorphic as the
Homeric Zeus. His domestic life in the society of his consort Indrani
is described.******* When he is starting for the war, Indrani calls
him back, and gives him a stirrup-cup of soma. He and she quarrel very
naturally about his pet monkey.********
In this brief sketch, which is not even a summary, we have shown how
much of the irrational element, how much, too, of the humorous element,
there is in the myths about Indra. He is a drunkard, who gulps down
cask, spigot and all.*********
* Compare Rig-Veda, iv. 271.
** Zool. Myth., i. 414.
*** ii. 81.
**** Rig- Veda, i. 51, 13.
***** Ibid., viii. 2, 40.
****** Ibid.,
****** Ibid., iii. 48, 4.
******* Ibid, 53, 4-6; vii. 18, 2.
******** Ibid., x. 86.
********* Ibid. 116.
He is an adulterer and a "shape-shifter," like all medicine-men and
savage sorcerers. He is born along with the sheep from the breast of a
vast non-natural being, like Ymir in Scandinavian myth; he metamorphoses
himself into a ram or a woman; he rends asunder his father and mother,
heaven and earth; he kills his father immediately after his birth, or
he is mortal, but has attained heaven by dint of magic, by "austere
fervour". Now our argument is that these and such as these incongruous
and irrational parts of Indra's legend have no necessary or natural
connection with the worship of him as a nature-god, an elemental deity,
a power of sky and storm, as civilised men conceive storm and sky. On
the other hand, these legends, of which plenty of savage parallels
have been adduced, are obviously enough survivals from the savage
intellectual myths, in which sorcerers, with their absurd powers, are
almost on a level with gods. And our theory is, that the irrational
part of Indra's legend became attached to the figure of an elemental
divinity, a nature-god, at the period when savage men mythically
attributed to their gods the qualities which were claimed by the most
illustrious among themselves, by their sorcerers and chiefs. In the
Vedas the nature-god has not quite disengaged himself from these old
savage attributes, which to civilised men seem so irrational. "Trailing
clouds of" anything but "glory" does Indra come "from heaven, which is
his home." If the irrational element in the legend of Indra was neither
a survival of, nor a loan from, savage fancy, why does it tally with the
myths of savages?
The other Adityas, strictly so called (for most gods are styled Adityas
now and then by way of compliment), need not detain us. We go on to
consider the celebrated soma.
Soma is one of the most singular deities of the Indo-Aryans. Originally
Soma is the intoxicating juice of a certain plant.* The wonderful
personifying power of the early imagination can hardly be better
illustrated than by the deification of the soma juice. We are accustomed
to hear in the _maerchen_ or peasant myths of Scotch, Russian, Zulu and
other races, of drops of blood or spittle which possess human faculties
and intelligence, and which can reply, for example, to questions. The
personification of the soma juice is an instance of the same exercise
of fancy on a much grander scale. All the hymns in the ninth book of
the _Rig- Veda_, and many others in other places, are addressed to the
milk-like juice of this plant, which, when personified, holds a place
almost as high as that of Indra in the Indo-Aryan Olympus. The sacred
plant was brought to men from the sky or from a mountain by a hawk, or
by Indra in guise of a hawk, just as fire was brought to other races
by a benevolent bird, a raven or a cow. According to the _Aitareya
Brahmana_ (ii. 59), the gods bought some from the Gandharvas in exchange
for one of their own number, who was metamorphosed into a woman, "a big
naked woman" of easy virtue. In the _Satapatha Brahmana_,** the gods,
while still they lived on earth, desired to obtain soma, which was then
in the sky.
* As to the true nature and home of the soma plant, see a
discussion in the _Academy_, 1885.
** Muir, v. 263.
A Gandharva robbed the divine being who had flown up and seized the
soma, and, as in the _Aitareya Brahmana_, the gods won the plant back
by the aid of Vach, a woman-envoy to the amorous Gandharvas. The _Black
Yajur Veda_ has some ridiculous legends about Soma (personified) and his
thirty-three wives, their jealousies, and so forth. Soma, in the _Rig-
Veda_, is not only the beverage that inspires Indra, but is also an
anthropomorphic god who created and lighted up the sun,* and who drives
about in a chariot. He is sometimes addressed as a kind of Atlas, who
keeps heaven and earth asunder.** He is prayed to forgive the violations
of his law.*** Soma, in short, as a personified power, wants little of
the attributes of a supreme deity.****
Another, and to modern ideas much more poetical personified power, often
mentioned in the Vedas, is Ushas, or the dawn. As among the Australians,
the dawn is a woman, but a very different being from the immodest
girl dressed in red kangaroo-skins of the Murri myth. She is an active
maiden, who***** "advances, cherishing all things; she hastens on,
arousing footed creatures, and makes the birds fly aloft.... The flying
birds no longer rest after thy dawning, O bringer of food (?). She has
yoked her horses from the remote rising-place of the sun.... Resplendent
on thy massive car, hear our invocations." Ushas is "like a fair girl
adorned by her mother.... She has been beheld like the bosom of a bright
maiden...."
* Rig- Veda, vi. 44, 23.
** Ibid., 44, 24.
*** Ibid., viii. 48, 9.
**** Bergaigne, i. 216. To me it seems that the Rishis
when hymning Soma simply gave him all the predicates of God
that came into their heads. Cf. Bergaigne, i. 223.
**** Rig-Veda, i. 48.
"Born again and again though ancient, shining with an ever uniform hue,
she wasteth away the life of mortals." She is the sister of Night, and
the bright sun is her child. There is no more pure poetry in the Vedic
collections than that which celebrates the dawn, though even here
the Rishis are not oblivious of the rewards paid to the sacrificial
priests.* Dawn is somewhat akin to the Homeric Eos, the goddess of
the golden throne,** she who loved a mortal and bore him away, for his
beauty's sake, to dwell with the immortals. Once Indra, acting with
the brutality of the Homeric Ares, charged against the car of Ushas and
overthrew it.***
* Rig- Veda, i. 48, 4.
** Ibid., i.. 48,10.
*** Ibid., iv. 30, 8; Ait Br., iv. 9.
In her legend, however, we find little but pure poetry, and we do not
know that Ushas, like Eos, ever chose a mortal lover. Such is the Vedic
Ushas, but the Brahmanas, as usual, manage either to retain or to revive
and introduce the old crude element of myth. We have seen that the
Australians account to themselves for the ruddy glow of the morning sky
by the hypothesis that dawn is a girl of easy virtue, dressed in the red
opossum-skins she has received from her lovers. In a similar spirit the
_Aitareya Brahmana_ (iv. 9) offers brief and childish aetiological myths
to account for a number of natural phenomena. Thus it explains the
sterility of mules by saying that the gods once competed in a race; that
Agni (fire) drove in a chariot drawn by mules and scorched them, so
that they do not conceive. But in this race Ushas was drawn by red cows;
"hence after the coming of dawn there is a reddish colour". The red cows
of the Brahmana may pair off with the red opossums of the Australian
imagination.
We now approach a couple of deities whose character, as far as such
shadowy things can be said to have any character at all, is pleasing and
friendly. The Asvins correspond in Vedic mythology to the Dioscuri, the
Castor and Polydeuces of Greece. They, like the Dioscuri, are twins, are
horsemen, and their legend represents them as kindly and helpful to
men in distress. But while the Dioscuri stand forth in Greek legend as
clearly and fairly fashioned as two young knights of the Panathenaic
procession, the Asvins show as bright and formless as melting wreaths of
mist.
The origin of their name has been investigated by the commentator Yaska,
who "quotes sundry verses to prove that the two Asvins belong together"
(sic).* The etymology of the name is the subject, as usual, of various
conjectures. It has been derived from _Asva_, a horse, from the root
as, "to pervade," and explained as a patronymic from Asva, the sun. The
nature of the Asvins puzzled the Indian commentators no less than their
name. Who, then, are these Asvins? "Heaven and earth," say some.**
* Max Mueller, _Lectures on Language_, ii. 536.
** Yaska in the _Nirukta_, xii. 1. See Muir, v. 234.
The "some" who held this opinion relied on an etymological guess, the
derivation from _as_ "to pervade ". Others inclined to explain the
Asvins as day and night, others as the sun and moon, others--Indian
euhemerists--as two real kings, now dead and gone. Professor Roth thinks
the Asvins contain an historical element, and are "the earliest bringers
of light in the morning sky". Mr. Max Mueller seems in favour of the two
twilights. As to these and allied modes of explaining the two gods in
connection with physical phenomena, Muir writes thus: "This allegorical
method of interpretation seems unlikely to be correct, as it is
difficult to suppose that the phenomena in question should have been
alluded to under such a variety of names and circumstances. It appears,
therefore, to be more probable that the Rishis merely refer to certain
legends which were popularly current of interventions of the Asvins
in behalf of the persons whose names are mentioned." In the Veda* the
Asvins are represented as living in fraternal polyandry, with but one
wife, Surya, the daughter of the sun, between them. They are thought
to have won her as the prize in a chariot-race, according to the
commentator Sayana. "The time of their appearance is properly the early
dawn," when they receive the offerings of their votaries.** "When the
dark (night) stands among the tawny cows, I invoke you, Asvins, sons of
the sky."*** They are addressed as young, beautiful, fleet, and the foes
of evil spirits.
* Rig- Veda, i. 119, 2; i. 119, 5; x. 39, 11 (?).
** Muir, v. 238.
*** Rig-Veda, x. 61, 4.
There can be no doubt that, when the Vedas were composed, the Asvins
shone and wavered and were eclipsed among the bright and cloudy throng
of gods, then contemplated by the Rishis or sacred singers. Whether they
had from the beginning an elemental origin, and what that origin exactly
was, or whether they were merely endowed by the fancy of poets with
various elemental and solar attributes and functions, it may be
impossible to ascertain. Their legend, meanwhile, is replete with
features familiar in other mythologies. As to their birth, the _Rig-
Veda_ has the following singular anecdote, which reminds one of the
cloud-bride of Ixion, and of the woman of clouds and shadows that
was substituted for Helen of Troy: "Tvashtri makes a wedding for his
daughter. Hearing this, the whole world assembled. The mother of Yama,
the wedded wife of the great Vivasvat, disappeared. They concealed the
immortal bride from mortals. Making another of like appearance, they
gave her to Vivasvat. Saranyu bore the two Asvins, and when she had done
so, deserted the twins."* The old commentators explain by a legend in
which the daughter of Tvashtri, Saranyu, took on the shape of a mare.
Vivasvat followed her in the form of a horse, and she became the mother
of the Asvins, "sons of the horse," who more or less correspond to
Castor and Pollux, sons of the swan. The Greeks were well acquainted
with local myths of the same sort, according to which, Poseidon, in the
form of a horse, had become the parent of a horse by Demeter Erinnys
(Saranyu?), then in the shape of a mare. The Phigaleians, among whom
this tale was current, worshipped a statue of Demeter in a woman's shape
with a mare's head. The same tale was told of Cronus and Philyra.**
This myth of the birth of gods, who "are lauded as Asvins" sprung from a
horse,*** may be the result of a mere _volks etymologie_.
* Rig-Veda, x. 17, 1-2; Bergaigne, ii. 806, 318.
** Pausanias, viii. 25; Virgil, Georgia, iii. 91; Muir, v.
128. See chapter on "Greek Divine Myths," Demeter.
*** Muir,v. 228.
Some one may have asked himself what the word Asvins meant; may have
rendered it "sprung from a horse," and may either have invented, by way
of explanation, a story like that of Cronus and Philyra, or may have
adapted such a story, already current in folk-lore, to his purpose;
or the myth may be early, and a mere example of the prevalent mythical
fashion which draws no line between gods and beasts and men. It will
probably be admitted that this and similar tales prove the existence of
the savage element of mythology among the Aryans of India, whether it be
borrowed, or a survival, or an imitative revival.
The Asvins were usually benefactors of men in every sort of strait and
trouble. A quail even invoked them (Mr. Max Mueller thinks this quail
was the dawn, but the Asvins were something like the dawn already), and
they rescued her from the jaws of a wolf. In this respect, and in their
beauty and youth, they answer to Castor and Pollux as described by
Theocritus. "Succourers are they of men in the very thick of peril, and
of horses maddened in the bloody press of battle, and of ships that,
defying the setting and the rising of the stars in heaven, have
encountered the perilous breath of storms."*
* Theoc. Idyll, xxii. i. 17.
A few examples of the friendliness of the Asvins may be selected from
the long list given by Muir. They renewed the youth of Kali. After the
leg of Vispala had been cut off in battle, the Asvins substituted an
iron leg! They restored sight to Rijrasva, whom his father had blinded
because, in an access of altruism, he had given one hundred and one
sheep to a hungry she-wolf. The she-wolf herself prayed to the Asvins to
succour her benefactor.* They drew the Rishi Rebha out of a well. They
made wine and liquors flow from the hoof of their own horse.** Most
of the persons rescued, quail and all, are interpreted, of course, as
semblances of the dawn and the twilight. Goldstucker says they
are among "the deities forced by Professor Mueller to support his
dawn-theory". M. Bergaigne also leans to the theory of physical
phenomena. When the Asvins restore sight to the blind Kanva, he sees
no reason to doubt that "the blind Kanva is the sun during the night, or
Agni or Soma is concealment". A proof of this he finds in the statement
that Kanva is "dark"; to which we might reply that "dark" is still a
synonym for "blind" among the poor.***
* Rig- Veda, i. 116, 16.
** Ibid., i. 116, 7.
*** Bergaigne, Rel. Ved., ii. 460, 465.
M. Bergaigne's final hypothesis is that the Asvins "may be assimilated
to the two celebrants who in the beginning seemed to represent the
terrestrial and celestial fires". But this origin, he says, even if
correctly conjectured, had long been forgotten.
Beyond the certainty that the Asvins represent the element of kindly
and healing powers, as commonly conceived of in popular mythology--for
example, in the legends of the saints--there is really nothing certain
or definite about their original meaning.
A god with a better defined and more recognisable department is
Tvashtri, who is in a vague kind of way the counterpart of the Greek
Hephaestus. He sharpens the axe of Brahmanaspiti, and forges the bolts
of Indra. He also bestows offspring, is a kind of male Aphrodite, and
is the shaper of all forms human and animal. Saranyu is his daughter.
Professor Kuhn connects her with the storm-cloud, Mr. Max Mueller with
the dawn.* Her wedding in the form of a mare to Vivasvat in the guise of
a horse has already been spoken of and discussed. Tvashtri's relations
with Indra, as we have shown, are occasionally hostile; there is a
blood-feud between them, as Indra slew Tvashtri's three-headed son, from
whose blood sprang two partridges and a sparrow.**
The Maruts are said to be gods of the tempest, of lightning, of wind
and of rain. Their names, as usual, are tortured on various by the
etymologists. Mr. Max Mueller connects _Maruts_ with the roots _mar_, "to
pound," and with the Roman war-god Mars. Others think the root is _mar_,
"to shine". Benfey*** says "that the Maruts (their name being derived
from _mar_, 'to die') are personfications of the souls of the departed".
* Max Mueller, _Lectures on Language_, ii. 530.
** Muir, v. 224, 233.
*** Ibid., v. 147.
Their numbers are variously estimated. They are the sons of Rudra and
Prisni. Rudra as a bull, according to a tale told by Sayana, begat the
Maruts on the earth, which took the shape of a cow. As in similar cases,
we may suppose this either to be a survival or revival of a savage myth
or a merely symbolical statement. There are traces of rivalry between
Indra and the Maruts. It is beyond question that the Rishis regard them
as elementary and mainly as storm-gods. Whether they were originally
ghosts (like the Australian Mrarts, where the name tempts the wilder
kind of etymologists), or whether they are personified winds, or, again,
winds conceived as persons (which is not quite the same thing), it is
difficult, and perhaps impossible, to determine.
Though divers of the Vedic gods have acquired solar characteristics,
there is a regular special sun-deity in the Veda, named Surya or
Savitri. He answers to the Helios of the Homeric hymn to the sun,
conceived as a personal being, a form which he still retains in the
fancy of the Greek islanders.* Surya is sometimes spoken of as a child
of Aditi's or of Dyaus and Ushas is his wife, though she also lives
in Spartan polyandry with the Asvin twins.** Like Helios Hyperion, he
beholds all things, the good and evil deeds of mortals. He is often
involved in language of religious fervour.*** The English reader is
apt to confuse Surya with the female being Surya. Surya is regarded
by Grassmann and Roth as a feminine personification of the sun.****
M. Bergaigne looks on Surya as the daughter of the sun or daughter of
Savitri, and thus as the dawn. Savitri is the sun, golden-haired and
golden-handed. From the _Satapatha Brahmana_***** it appears that people
were apt to identify Savitri with Prajapati.******
* Bent's _Cyclades_.
** Rig- Veda, vii. 75, 5.
*** Muir, v. 155-162.
**** Bergaigne, ii. 486.
***** xiii. 3, 5, 1.
****** The very strange and important personage of Prajapati
is discussed in the chapter on "Indian Cosmogonic Myths".
These blendings of various conceptions and of philosophic systems with
early traditions have now been illustrated as far as our space will
permit. The natural conclusion, after a rapid view of Vedic deities,
seems to be that they are extremely composite characters, visible only
in the shifting rays of the Indian fancy, at a period when the peculiar
qualities of Indian thought were already sufficiently declared. The
lights of ritualistic dogma and of pantheistic and mystic and poetic
emotion fall in turn, like the changeful hues of sunset, on figures as
melting and shifting as the clouds of evening. Yet even to these vague
shapes of the divine there clings, as we think has been shown, somewhat
of their oldest raiment, something of the early fancy from which we
suppose them to have floated up ages before the Vedas were compiled in
their present form. If this view be correct, Vedic mythology does by
no means represent what is primitive and early, but what, in order of
development, is late, is peculiar, and is marked with the mark of a
religious tendency as strongly national and characteristic as the purest
Semitic monotheism. Thus the Veda is not a fair starting-point for
a science of religion, but is rather, in spite of its antiquity, a
temporary though advanced resting-place in the development of Indian
religious speculation and devotional sentiment.*
* In the chapters on India the translation of the _Veda_
used is Herr Ludwig's (Prag, 1876). Much is owed to Mr.
Perry's essay on Indra, quoted above.