No reasonable student of mythology will demand of a myth so clearly
destined for fructification an everlasting virginal inviolateness. From
the start almost the two dogs of Yama are the brood of Saram[=a]. Why?
Saram[=a] is the female messenger of the gods, at the root identical
with Hermes or Hermeias; she is therefore the predestined mother of
those other messengers, the two four-eyed dogs of Yama. And as the
latter are her litter the myth becomes retroactive; she herself is
fancied later on as a four-eyed bitch (_Atharva-Veda_, iv. 20. 7).
Similarly the epithet "broad-nosed" stands not in need of mythic
interpretation, as soon as it has become a question of life-hunting
dogs. Elusive and vague, I confess, is the persistent and important
attribute "four-eyed." This touch is both old and widespread. The
_Avesta_, the bible of the ancient Iranians, has reduced the Cerberus
myth to stunted rudiments. In _Vendidad_, xiii. 8. 9, the killing of
dogs is forbidden, because the soul of the slayer "when passing to the
other world, shall fly amid louder howling and fiercer pursuit than the
sheep does when the wolf rushes upon it in the lofty forest. No soul
will come and meet his departing soul and help it through the howls and
pursuit in the other world; nor will the dogs that keep the Cinvad
bridge (the bridge to paradise) help his departing soul through the
howls and pursuit in the other world." The _Avesta_ also conceives this
dog to be four-eyed. When a man dies, as soon as the soul has parted
from the body, the evil one, the corpse-devil (Druj Nasu), from the
regions of hell, falls upon the dead. Whoever henceforth touches the
corpse becomes unclean, and makes unclean whomsoever he touches. The
devil is expelled from the dead by means of the "look of the dog": a
"four-eyed dog" is brought near the body and is made to look at the
dead; as soon as he has done so the devil flees back to hell
(_Vendidad_, vii. 7; viii. 41). It is not easy to fetch from a
mythological hell mythological monsters for casual purposes, especially
as men are always engaged in dying upon the earth. Herakles is the only
one who, one single time, performed this notable "stunt." So the
Parsis, being at a loss to find four-eyed dogs, interpret the name as
meaning a dog with two spots over the eyes. Curiously enough the Hindu
scholiasts also regularly interpret the term "four-eyed" in exactly the
same way, "with spots over the eyes." And the Vedic ritual in its turn
has occasion to realize the mythological four-eyed dog in practice. The
horse, at the horse-sacrifice, must take a bath for consecration to the
holy end to which it is put. It must also be guarded against hostile
influences. A low-caste man brings a four-eyed dog--here obviously the
symbol of the hostile powers--kills him with a club, and afterwards
places him under the feet of the horse. It is scarcely necessary to
state that this is a dog with spots over his eyes, and that he is a
symbol of Cerberus.[16]