Volume II Part 16 (2/2)

** 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 s.h.i.+ne”. 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 Ris.h.i.+s 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 s.h.i.+fting 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 s.h.i.+fting 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”.*

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