Myth, Ritual And Religion Volume II Part 16

**** 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 G.o.ddess 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 G.o.ds 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 hors.e.m.e.n, 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 Muller, _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 Muller seems in favour of the two twilights. As to these and allied modes of explaining the two G.o.ds 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 circ.u.mstances. 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 G.o.ds, 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 subst.i.tuted for Helen of Troy: "Tvashtri makes a wedding for his daughter. Hearing this, the whole world a.s.sembled. 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 G.o.ds, 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 G.o.ds 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 Muller 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 b.l.o.o.d.y 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 subst.i.tuted 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 Muller 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 a.s.similated 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 G.o.d 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 Muller 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 G.o.ds of the tempest, of lightning, of wind and of rain. Their names, as usual, are tortured on various by the etymologists. Mr. Max Muller connects _Maruts_ with the roots _mar_, "to pound," and with the Roman war-G.o.d 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 Muller, _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-G.o.ds. 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 G.o.ds 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 Gra.s.smann 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 Praj.a.pati.******

* 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 Praj.a.pati is discussed in the chapter on "Indian Cosmogonic Myths".

These blendings of various conceptions and of philosophic systems with early traditions have now been ill.u.s.trated as far as our s.p.a.ce 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.

CHAPTER XVIII. GREEK DIVINE MYTHS

G.o.ds in myth, and G.o.d in religion--The society of the G.o.ds like that of men in Homer--Borrowed elements in Greek belief--Zeus--His name--Development of his legend--His b.e.s.t.i.a.l shapes explained--Zeus in religion--Apollo--Artemis-- Dionysus--Athene--Aphrodite--Hermes--Demeter--Their names, natures, rituals and legends--Conclusions.

In the G.o.ds of Greece, when represented in ideal art and in the best religious sentiment, as revealed by poets and philosophers, from Homer to Plato, from Plato to Porphyry, there is something truly human and truly divine. It cannot be doubted that the religion of Apollo, Athene, Artemis and Hermes was, in many respects, an adoration directed to the moral and physical qualities that are best and n.o.blest. Again, even in the oldest Greek literature, in Homer and in all that follows, the name of the chief G.o.d, Zeus, might in many places be translated by our word "G.o.d".*