Chapter VIII: Introduction (7)

I could identify still more of these Vedic rivers, such as, for instance, the Kubha, the Greek Cophen, the modern Kabul river;[220] but the names which I have traced from the Veda to Alexander, and in many cases from Alexander again to our own time, seem to me sufficient to impress upon us the real and historical character of the Veda. Suppose the Veda were a forgery--suppose at least that it had been put together after the time of Alexander--how could we explain these names? They are names that have mostly a meaning in Sanskrit, they are names corresponding very closely to their Greek corruptions, as pronounced and written down by people who did not know Sanskrit. How is a forgery possible here?

I selected this hymn for two reasons. First, because it shows us the widest geographical horizon of the Vedic poets, confined by the snowy mountains in the north, the Indus and the range of the Suleiman mountains in the west, the Indus or the seas in the south, and the valley of the Jumna and Ganges in the east. Beyond that, the world, though open, was unknown to the Vedic poets. Secondly, because the same hymn gives us also a kind of historical background to the Vedic age. These rivers, as we may see them to-day, as they were seen by Alexander and his Macedonians, were seen also by the Vedic poets. Here we have an historical continuity--almost living witnesses, to tell us that the people whose songs have been so strangely, ay, you may almost say, so miraculously preserved to us, were real people, lairds with their clans, priests, or rather, servants of their gods, shepherds with their flocks, dotted about on the hills and valleys, with inclosures or palisades here and there, with a few strongholds, too, in case of need--living their short life on earth, as at that time life might be lived by men, without much pushing and crowding and trampling on each other--spring, summer, and winter leading them on from year to year, and the sun in his rising and setting lifting up their thoughts from their meadows and groves which they loved, to a world in the East, from which they had come, or to a world in the West, to which they were gladly hastening on. They had what I call religion, though it was very simple, and hardly reduced as yet to the form of a creed. "There is a Beyond," that was all they felt and knew, though they tried, as well as they could, to give names to that Beyond, and thus to change religion into _a_ religion. They had not as yet a name for God--certainly not in our sense of the word--or even a general name for the gods; but they invented name after name to enable them to grasp and comprehend by some outward and visible tokens powers whose presence they felt in nature, though their true and full essence was to them, as it is to us, invisible and incomprehensible.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 150: Wilson, Lectures, p. 9.]

[Footnote 151: As it has been doubted, and even denied, that the publication of the Rig-Veda and its native commentary has had some important bearing on the resuscitation of the religious life of India, I feel bound to give at least one from the many testimonials which I have received from India. It comes from the Adi Brahma Samaj, founded by Ram Mohun Roy, and now represented by its three branches, the Adi Brahma Samaj, the Brahma Samaj of India, and the Sadharano Brahma Samaj. "The Committee of the Adi Brahma Samaj beg to offer you their hearty congratulations on the completion of the gigantic task which has occupied you for the last quarter of a century. By publishing the Rig-Veda at a time when Vedic learning has by some sad fatality become almost extinct in the land of its birth, you have conferred a boon upon us Hindus, for which we cannot but be eternally grateful."]

[Footnote 152: Rig-Veda X. 114, 5.]

[Footnote 153: Rig-Veda X. 121.]

[Footnote 154: Muir, iv. 9.]

[Footnote 155: Rig-Veda I. 139, 11.]

[Footnote 156: Rig-Veda III. 6, 9.]

[Footnote 157: The following names of Devapatnis or wives of the gods are given in the Vaitana Sutra XV. 3 (ed. Garbe): P_ri_thivi, the wife of Agni, Va_k_ of Vata, Sena of Indra, Dhena of B_ri_haspati, Pathya of Pushan, Gayatri of Vasu, Trish_t_ubh of Rudra, _G_agati of Aditya, Anush_t_ubh of Mitra, Vira_g_ of Varu_n_a, Pankti of Vish_n_u, Diksha of Soma.]

[Footnote 158: Rig-Veda III. 9, 9.]

[Footnote 159: Grimm showed that Thorr is sometimes the supreme god, while at other times he is the son of Odinn. This, as Professor Zimmer truly remarks, need not be regarded as the result of a revolution, or even of gradual decay, as in the case of Dyaus and Tyr, but simply as inherent in the character of a nascent polytheism. See Zeitschrift fuer D. A., vol. xii. p. 174.]

[Footnote 160: "Among not yet civilized races prayers are addressed to a god with a special object, and to that god who is supposed to be most powerful in a special domain. He becomes for the moment the highest god to whom all others must give place. He may be invoked as the highest and the only god, without any slight being intended for the other gods."--Zimmer, l. c. p. 175.]

[Footnote 161: "Es handelt sich hier nicht um amerikanische oder afrikanische Zersplitterung, sondern eine ueberraschende Gleichartigkeit dehnt sich durch die Weite und Breite des Stillen Oceans, und wenn wir Oceanien in der vollen Auffassung nehmen mit Einschluss Mikro-und Mela-nesiens (bis Malaya), selbst weiter. Es laesst sich sagen, dass ein einheitlicher Gedankenbau, in etwa 120 Laengen und 70 Breitegraden, ein Viertel unsers Erdglobus ueberwoelbt."--Bastian, Die Heilige Sage der Polynesier, p. 57.]

[Footnote 162: Henry S. King & Co., London, 1876.]

[Footnote 163: P. 58.]

[Footnote 164: There is a second version of the story even in the small island of Mangaia; see "Myths and Songs," p. 71.]

[Footnote 165: See before, p. 158.]

[Footnote 166: This explanation is considered altogether inadequate by many scholars. It is, of course, not altogether a question of learning, but also one of judgment.--AM. PUBS.]

[Footnote 167: "The Sacred Books of the East," vol. i. p. 249: "The first half is the earth, the second half the heaven, their uniting the rain, the uniter Par_g_anya." And so it is when it (Par_g_anya) rains thus strongly--without ceasing, day and night together--then they say also, "Heaven and earth have come together."--From the Aitareya-Ara_n_yaka, III. 2, 2.--A. W.]

[Footnote 168: Bastian, Heilige Sage der Polynesier, p. 36.]

[Footnote 169: Bergaigne, "La Religion Vedique," p. 240.]

[Footnote 170: Ait. Br. IV. 27; Muir, iv. p. 23.]

[Footnote 171: See Muir, iv. p. 24.]

[Footnote 172: Homer, Hymn xxx. 17.]

[Footnote 173: [Greek: Chaire theon meter, haloch Onranon asteroentos.]]

[Footnote 174: Euripides, Chrysippus, fragm. 6 (edit. Didot, p. 824):

[Greek: Gaia megiste kai Dios aither,
o men anthropon kai theon genetor,
he d' ugrobolous stagonas notious
paradexamene tiktei thnatous,
tiktei de Boran, phula te theron,
hothen onk hadikos
meter panton nenomistai.]]

[Footnote 175: Dionysius Halic., vol. v. p. 355; Muir, v. p. 27.]

[Footnote 176: Rig-Veda I. 22, 15.]

[Footnote 177: See "Lectures on the Science of Language," vol. ii. p. 468.]

[Footnote 178: Rig-Veda I. 160, 4.]

[Footnote 179: L. c. IV. 56, 3.]

[Footnote 180: L. c. VIII. 6, 5.]

[Footnote 181: L. c. III. 30, 5.]

[Footnote 182: L. c. III. 34, 8.]

[Footnote 183: L. c. III. 34, 8.]

[Footnote 184: L. c. VIII. 36, 4.]

[Footnote 185: L. c. X. 54, 3.]

[Footnote 186: Cf. IV. 17, 4, where Dyaus is the father of Indra; see however Muir, iv. 31, note.]

[Footnote 187: Rig-Veda VI. 30, 1.]

[Footnote 188: L. c. I. 131, 1.]

[Footnote 189: L. c. IV. 17, 2.]

[Footnote 190: L. c. II. 40, 1.]

[Footnote 191: L. c. X. 121, 9.]

[Footnote 192: L. c. X. 190, 3.]

[Footnote 193: L. c. X. 81, 2.]

[Footnote 194: Rig-Veda VI. 70, 1.]

[Footnote 195: Rig-Veda X. 75. See Hibbert Lectures, Lect. iv.]

[Footnote 196: Vivasvat is a name of the sun, and the seat or home of Vivasvat can hardly be anything but the earth, as the home of the sun, or, in a more special sense, the place where a sacrifice is offered.]

[Footnote 197: I formerly translated yat va_g_an abhi adrava_h_ tvam by "when thou rannest for the prizes." Grassman had translated similarly, "When thou, O Sindhu, rannest to the prize of the battle," while Ludwig wrote, "When thou, O Sindhu, wast flowing on to greater powers." Va_g_a, connected with vegeo, vigeo, vigil, wacker (see Curtius, Grundzuege, No. 159), is one of the many difficult words in the Veda the general meaning of which may be guessed, but in many places cannot yet be determined with certainty. Va_g_a occurs very frequently, both in the singular and the plural, and some of its meanings are clear enough. The Petersburg Dictionary gives the following list of them--swiftness, race, prize of race, gain, treasure, race-horse, etc. Here we perceive at once the difficulty of tracing all these meanings back to a common source, though it might be possible to begin with the meanings of strength, strife, contest, race, whether friendly or warlike, then to proceed to what is won in a race or in war, viz. booty, treasure, and lastly to take vaga_h_ in the more general sense of acquisitions, goods, even goods bestowed as gifts. We have a similar transition of meaning in the Greek [Greek: athlos], contest, contest for a prize, and [Greek: athlon], the prize of contest, reward, gift, while in the plural [Greek: ta athla] stands again for contest, or even the place of combat. The Vedic va_g_ambhara may in fact be rendered by [Greek: athlophoros], va_g_asati by [Greek: athlosyne].

The transition from fight to prize is seen in passages such as:

Rig-Veda VI. 45, 12, va_g_an indra _s_ravayyan tvaya _g_eshna hitam dhanam, "May we with thy help, O Indra, win the glorious fights, the offered prize" (cf. [Greek: athlothetes]).

Rig-Veda VIII. 19, 18, te it va_g_ebhi_h_ _g_igyu_h_ mahat dhanam, "They won great-wealth by battles."

What we want for a proper understanding of our verse, are passages where we have, as here, a movement toward va_g_as in the plural. Such passages are few; for instance: X. 53, 8, atra _g_ahama ye asan a_s_evah _s_ivan vayam ut tarema abhi va_g_an, "Let us leave here those who were unlucky (the dead), and let us get up to lucky toils." No more is probably meant here when the Sindhu is said to run toward her va_g_as, that is, her struggles, her fights, her race across the mountains with the other rivers.]

[Footnote 198: On _s_ushma, strength, see Rig-Veda, translation, vol. i. p. 105. We find _s_ubhram _s_ushmam II. 11, 4; and iyarti with _s_ushmam IV. 17, 12.]

[Footnote 199: See Muir, Santkrit Texts, v. p. 344.]

[Footnote 200: "O Marudv_ri_dha with Asikni, Vitasta; O Ar_g_ikiya, listen with the Sushoma," _Ludwig_. "Asikni and Vitasta and Marudv_ri_dha, with the Sushoma, hear us, O Ar_g_ikiya," _Grassman._]

[Footnote 201: Marudv_ri_dha, a general name for river. According to Roth the combined course of the Akesines and Hydaspes, _before_ the junction with the Hydraotes; according to Ludwig, the river _after_ the junction with Hydraotes. Zimmer (Altindisches Leben, p. 12) adopts Roth's, Kiepert in his maps follows Ludwig's opinion.]

[Footnote 202: According to Yaska, the Ar_g_ikiya is the Vipa_s_. Vivien de Saint-Martin takes it for the country watered by the Suwan, the Soanos of Megasthenes.]

[Footnote 203: According to Yaska the Sushoma is the Indus. Vivien de Saint-Martin identifies it with the Suwan. Zimmer (l. c. p. 14) points out that in Arrian, Indica, iv. 12, there is a various reading Soamos for Soanos.]

[Footnote 204: "Chips from a German Workshop," vol. i. p. 157.]

[Footnote 205: Va_g_inivati is by no means an easy word. Hence all translators vary, and none settles the meaning. Muir translates, "yielding nutriment;" Zimmer, "having plenty of quick horses;" Ludwig, "like a strong mare." Va_g_in, no doubt, means a strong horse, a racer, but va_g_ini never occurs in the Rig-Veda in the sense of a mare, and the text is not va_g_inivat, but va_g_inivati. If va_g_ini meant mare, we might translate rich in mares, but that would be a mere repetition after sva_s_va, possessed of good horses. Va_g_inivati is chiefly applied to Ushas, Sarasvati, and here to the river Sindhu. It is joined with va_g_ebhi_h_, Rig-Veda I. 3, 10, which, if va_g_ini meant mare, would mean "rich in mares through horses." We also read, Rig-Veda I. 48, 16, sam (na_h_ mimikshva) va_g_ai_h_ va_g_inivati, which we can hardly translate by "give us horses, thou who art possessed of mares;" nor, Rig-Veda I. 92, 15, yukshva hi va_g_inivati a_s_van, "harness the horses, thou who art rich in mares." In most of the passages where va_g_inivati occurs, the goddess thus addressed is represented as rich, and asked to bestow wealth, and I should therefore prefer to take va_g_ini, as a collective abstract noun, like tretini, in the sense of wealth, originally booty, and to translate va_g_inivati simply by rich, a meaning well adapted to every passage where the word occurs.]

[Footnote 206: Ur_n_avati, rich in wool, probably refers to the flocks of sheep for which the North-West of India was famous. See Rig-Veda I. 126, 7.]

[Footnote 207: Silamavati does not occur again in the Rig-Veda. Muir translates, "rich in plants;" Zimmer, "rich in water;" Ludwig takes it as a proper name. Saya_n_a states that silama is a plant which is made into ropes. That the meaning of silamavati was forgotten at an early time we see by the Atharva-Veda III. 12, 2, substituting sun_ri_tavati, for silamavati, as preserved in the _S_ankhayana G_ri_hya-sutras, 3, 3. I think silama means straw, from whatever plant it may be taken, and this would be equally applicable to a _s_ala, a house, a sthu_n_a, a post, and to the river Indus. It may have been, as Ludwig conjectures, an old local name, and in that case it may possibly account for the name given in later times to the Suleiman range.]

[Footnote 208: Madhuv_ri_dh is likewise a word which does not occur again in the Rig-Veda. Saya_n_a explains it by nirgu_n_di and similar plants, but it is doubtful what plant is meant. Gu_n_da is the name of a grass, madhuv_ri_dh therefore may have been a plant such as sugar-cane, that yielded a sweet juice, the Upper Indus being famous for sugar-cane; see Hiouen-thsang, II. p. 105. I take adhivaste with Roth in the sense "she dresses herself," as we might say "the river is dressed in heather." Muir translates, "she traverses a land yielding sweetness;" Zimmer, "she clothes herself in Madhuv_ri_dh;" Ludwig, "the Silamavati throws herself into the increaser of the honey-sweet dew." All this shows how little progress can be made in Vedic scholarship by merely translating either words or verses, without giving at the same time a full justification of the meaning assigned to every single word.]

[Footnote 209: See Petersburg Dictionary, s. v. virap_s_in.]

[Footnote 210: "Among the Hottentots, the Kunene, Okavango, and Orange rivers, all have the name of Garib, _i.e._ the Runner."--Dr. Theoph. Hahn, _Cape Times_, July 11, 1882.]

[Footnote 211: _Deh_li, not _Del_-high.--A. W.]

[Footnote 212: Cunningham, "Archaeological Survey of India," vol. xii. p. 113.]

[Footnote 213: Pliny, Hist. Nat. vi. 20, 71: "Indus incolis Sindus appellatus."]

[Footnote 214: The history of these names has been treated by Professor Lassen, in his "Indische Alterthumskunde," and more lately by Professor Kaegi, in his very careful essay, "Der Rig-Veda," pp. 146, 147.]

[Footnote 215: Ptol. vii. 1, 29.]

[Footnote 216: Arrian, Indica, viii. 5.]

[Footnote 217: Rig-Veda III. 33, 1: "From the lap of the mountains Vipa_s_ and _S_utudri rush forth with their water like two lusty mares neighing, freed from their tethers, like two bright mother-cows licking (their calf).

"Ordered by Indra and waiting his bidding you run toward the sea like two charioteers; running together, as your waters rise, the one goes into the other, you bright ones."]

[Footnote 218: Other classical names are Hypanis, Bipasis, and Bibasis. Yaska identifies it with the Ar_g_ikiya.]

[Footnote 219: Cf. Nirukta IX. 26.]

[Footnote 220: "The first tributaries which join the Indus before its meeting with the Kubha or the Kabul river cannot be determined. All travellers in these northern countries complain of the continual changes in the names of the rivers, and we can hardly hope to find traces of the Vedic names in existence there after the lapse of three or four thousand years. The rivers intended may be the Shauyook, Ladak, Abba Seen, and Burrindu, and one of the four rivers, the Rasa, has assumed an almost fabulous character in the Veda. After the Indus has joined the Kubha or the Kabul river, two names occur, the Gomati and Krumu, which I believe I was the first to identify with the modern rivers the Gomal and Kurrum. (Roth, Nirukta, Erlaeuterungen, p. 43, Anm.) The Gomal falls into the Indus, between Dera Ismael Khan and Paharpore, and although Elphinstone calls it a river only during the rainy season, Klaproth (Foe-koue-ki, p. 23) describes its upper course as far more considerable, and adds: 'Un peu a l'est de Sirmagha, le Gomal traverse la chaine de montagnes de Soliman, passe devant Raghzi, et fertilise le pays habite par les tribus de Dauletkhail et de Gandehpour. Il se desseche au defile de Pezou, et son lit ne se remplit plus d'eau que dans la saison des pluies; alors seulement il rejoint la droite de l'Indus, au sud-est de bourg de Paharpour.' The Kurrum falls into the Indus north of the Gomal, while, according to the poet, we should expect it south. It might be urged that poets are not bound by the same rules as geographers, as we see, for instance, in the verse immediately preceding. But if it should be taken as a serious objection, it will be better to give up the Gomati than the Krumu, the latter being the larger of the two, and we might then take Gomati, 'rich in cattle,' as an adjective belonging to Krumu."--From a review of General Cunningham's "Ancient Geography of India," in _Nature_, 1871, Sept. 14.]

LECTURE VI.

VEDIC DEITIES.

The next important phenomenon of nature which was represented in the Veda as a terrestrial deity is Fire, in Sanskrit Agni, in Latin _ignis_. In the worship which is paid to the Fire and in the high praises bestowed on Agni we can clearly perceive the traces of a period in the history of man in which not only the most essential comforts of life, but life itself, depended on the knowledge of producing fire. To us fire has become so familiar that we can hardly form an idea of what life would be without it. But how did the ancient dwellers on earth get command and possession of fire? The Vedic poets tell us that fire first came to them from the sky, in the form of lightning, but that it disappeared again, and that then Matari_s_van, a being to a certain extent like Prometheus, brought it back and confided it to the safe keeping of the clan of the Bh_r_igus (Phlegyas).[221]

In other poems we hear of the mystery of fire being produced by rubbing pieces of wood; and here it is a curious fact that the name of the wood thus used for rubbing is in Sanskrit Pramantha, a word which, as Kuhn has shown, would in Greek come very near to the name of Prometheus. The possession of fire, whether by preserving it as sacred on the hearth, or by producing it at pleasure with the fire-drill, represents an enormous step in early civilization. It enabled people to cook their meat instead of eating it raw; it gave them the power of carrying on their work by night; and in colder climates it really preserved them from being frozen to death. No wonder, therefore, that the fire should have been praised and worshipped as the best and kindest of gods, the only god who had come down from heaven to live on earth, the friend of man, the messenger of the gods, the mediator between gods and men, the immortal among mortals. He, it is said, protects the settlements of the Aryans, and frightens away the black-skinned enemies.

Soon, however, fire was conceived by the Vedic poets under the more general character of light and warmth, and then the presence of Agni was perceived, not only on the hearth and the altar, but in the Dawn, in the Sun, and in the world beyond the Sun, while at the same time his power was recognized as ripening, or as they called it, as cooking, the fruits of the earth, and as supporting also the warmth and the life of the human body. From that point of view Agni, like other powers, rose to the rank of a Supreme God.[222] He is said to have stretched out heaven and earth--naturally, because without his light heaven and earth would have been invisible and undistinguishable. The next poet says that Agni held heaven aloft by his light, that he kept the two worlds asunder; and in the end Agni is said to be the progenitor and father of heaven and earth, and the maker of all that flies, or walks, or stands, or moves on earth.

Here we have once more the same process before our eyes. The human mind begins with being startled by a single or repeated event, such as the lightning striking a tree and devouring a whole forest, or a spark of fire breaking forth from wood being rubbed against wood, whether in a forest, or in the wheel of a carriage, or at last in a fire-drill, devised on purpose. Man then begins to wonder at what to him is a miracle, none the less so because it is a fact, a simple, natural fact. He sees the effects of a power, but he can only guess at its cause, and if he is to speak of it, he can only do so by speaking of it as an agent, or as something like a human agent, and, if in some respects not quite human, in others more than human or superhuman. Thus the concept of Fire grew; and while it became more and more generalized, it also became more sublime, more incomprehensible, more divine. Without Agni, without fire, light, and warmth, life would have been impossible. Hence he became the author and giver of life, of the life of plants and animals and of men; and his favor having once been implored for "light and life and all things," what wonder that in the minds of some poets, and in the traditions of this or that village-community he should have been raised to the rank of a supreme ruler, a god above all gods, their own true god!

* * * * *

We now proceed to consider the powers which the ancient poets might have discovered in the air, in the clouds, and, more particularly, in those meteoric conflicts which by thunder, lightning, darkness, storms, and showers of rain must have taught man that very important lesson that he was not alone in this world. Many philosophers, as you know, believe that all religion arose from fear or terror, and that without thunder and lightning to teach us, we should never have believed in any gods or god. This is a one-sided and exaggerated view. Thunderstorms, no doubt, had a large share in arousing feelings of awe and terror, and in making man conscious of his weakness and dependence. Even in the Veda, Indra is introduced as saying: "Yes, when I send thunder and lightning, then you believe in me." But what we call religion would never have sprung from fear and terror alone. _Religion is trust_, and that trust arose in the beginning from the impressions made on the mind and heart of man by the order and wisdom of nature, and more particularly by those regularly recurring events, the return of the sun, the revival of the moon, the order of the seasons, the law of cause and effect, gradually discovered in all things, and traced back in the end to a cause of all causes, by whatever name we choose to call it.

Still the meteoric phenomena had, no doubt, their important share in the production of ancient deities; and in the poems of the Vedic Rishis they naturally occupy a very prominent place. If we were asked who was the principal god of the Vedic period, we should probably, judging from the remains of that poetry which we possess, say it was Indra, the god of the blue sky, the Indian Zeus, the gatherer of the clouds, the giver of rain, the wielder of the thunder-bolt, the conqueror of darkness, and of all the powers of darkness, the bringer of light, the source of freshness, vigor, and life, the ruler and lord of the whole world. Indra is this, and much more in the Veda. He is supreme in the hymns of many poets, and may have been so in the prayers addressed to him by many of the ancient septs or village communities in India. Compared with him the other gods are said to be decrepit old men. Heaven, the old Heaven or Dyaus, formerly the father of all the gods, nay the father of Indra himself, bows before him, and the Earth trembles at his approach. Yet Indra never commanded the permanent allegiance of all the other gods, like Zeus and Jupiter; nay, we know from the Veda itself that there were skeptics, even at that early time, who denied that there was any such thing as Indra.[223]

By the side of Indra, and associated with him in his battles, and sometimes hardly distinguishable from him, we find the representatives of the wind, called Vata or Vayu, and the more terrible storm-gods, the Maruts, literally the Smashers.

When speaking of the Wind, a poet says:[224] "Where was he born? Whence did he spring? the life of the gods, the germ of the world! That god moves about where he listeth, his voices are heard, but he is not to be seen."

The Maruts are more terrible than Vata, the wind. They are clearly the representatives of such storms as are known in India, when the air is darkened by dust and clouds, when in a moment the trees are stripped of their foliage, their branches shivered, their stems snapped, when the earth seems to reel and the mountains to shake, and the rivers are lashed into foam and fury. Then the poet sees the Maruts approaching with golden helmets, with spotted skins on their shoulders, brandishing golden spears, whirling their axes, shooting fiery arrows, and cracking their whips amid thunder and lightning. They are the comrades of Indra, sometimes, like Indra, the sons of Dyaus or the sky, but also the sons of another terrible god, called Rudra, or the Howler, a fighting god, to whom many hymns are addressed. In him a new character is evolved, that of a healer and saviour--a very natural transition in India, where nothing is so powerful for dispelling miasmas, restoring health, and imparting fresh vigor to man and beast, as a thunderstorm, following after weeks of heat and drought.

All these and several others, such as Par_g_anya and the _Ri_bhus, are the gods of mid-air, the most active and dramatic gods, ever present to the fancy of the ancient poets, and in several cases the prototypes of later heroes, celebrated in the epic poems of India. In battles, more particularly, these fighting gods of the sky were constantly invoked.[225] Indra is the leader in battles, the protector of the bright Aryans, the destroyer of the black aboriginal inhabitants of India. "He has thrown down fifty thousand black fellows," the poet says, "and their strongholds crumbled away like an old rag." Strange to say, Indra is praised for having saved his people from their enemies, much as Jehovah was praised by the Jewish prophets. Thus we read in one hymn that when Sudas, the pious king of the T_ri_tsus, was pressed hard in his battle with the ten kings, Indra changed the flood into an easy ford, and thus saved Sudas.

In another hymn we read:[226] "Thou hast restrained the great river for the sake of Turviti Vayya: the flood moved in obedience to thee, and thou madest the rivers easy to cross." This is not very different from the Psalmist (78:13): "He divided the sea, and caused them to pass through; and he made the waters to stand as an heap."

And there are other passages which have reminded some students of the Veda of Joshua's battle,[227] when the sun stood still and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. For we read in the Veda also, as Professor Kaegi has pointed out (l. c. p. 63), that "Indra lengthened the days into the night," and that "the Sun unharnessed its chariot in the middle of the day."[228]

In some of the hymns addressed to Indra his original connection with the sky and the thunderstorm seems quite forgotten. He has become a spiritual god, the only king of all worlds and all people,[229] who sees and hears everything,[230] nay, who inspires men with their best thoughts. No one is equal to him, no one excels him.

The name of Indra is peculiar to India, and must have been formed after the separation of the great Aryan family had taken place, for we find it neither in Greek, nor in Latin, nor in German. There are Vedic gods, as I mentioned before, whose names must have been framed before that separation, and which occur therefore, though greatly modified in character, sometimes in Greek, sometimes in Latin, sometimes in the Celtic, Teutonic, and Slavonic dialects. D y a u s, for instance, is the same word as Zeus or Jupiter, U s h a s is Eos, N a k t a is Nyx, S u r y a is Helios, A g n i is ignis, B h a g a is Baga in Old Persian, B o g u in Old Slavonic, V a r u _n_ a is Uranos, V a t a is Wotan, V a _k_ is vox, and in the name of the _Maruts_, or the storm-gods, the germs of the Italic god of war, Mars, have been discovered. Besides these direct coincidences, some indirect relations have been established between Hermes and S a r a m e y a, Dionysos and D y u n i _s_ y a, Prometheus and p r a m a n t h a, Orpheus and _R i_ b h u, Erinnys and S a r a _n_ y u, Pan and P a v a n a.[231]

But while the name of Indra as the god of the sky, also as the god of the thunderstorm, and the giver of rain, is unknown among the north-western members of the Aryan family, the name of another god who sometimes acts the part of Indra (Indra_h_ Par_g_anyatma), but is much less prominent in the Veda, I mean Par_g_anya, must have existed before that of Indra, because two at least of the Aryan languages have carried it, as we shall see, to Germany, and to the very shores of the Baltic.

Sometimes this Par_g_anya stands in the place of Dyaus, the sky. Thus we read in the Atharva-Veda, XII. 1, 12:[232] "The Earth is the mother, and I am the son of the Earth. Par_g_anya is the father; may he help us!"

In another place (XII. 1, 42) the Earth, instead of being the wife of Heaven or Dyaus, is called the wife of Par_g_anya.

Now who or what is this Par_g_anya? There have been long controversies about him,[233] as to whether he is the same as Dyaus, Heaven, or the same as Indra, the successor of Dyaus, whether he is the god of the sky, of the cloud, or of the rain.

To me it seems that this very expression, god of the sky, god of the cloud, is so entire an anachronism that we could not even translate it into Vedic Sanskrit without committing a solecism. It is true, no doubt, we must use our modern ways of speaking when we wish to represent the thoughts of the ancient world; but we cannot be too much on our guard against accepting the dictionary representative of an ancient word for its real counterpart. Deva, no doubt, means "gods" and "god," and P a r _g_ a n y a means "cloud," but no one could say in Sanskrit p a r _g_ a n y a s y a d e v a _h_, "the god of the cloud." The god, or the divine, or transcendental element, does not come from without, to be added to the cloud or to the sky or to the earth, but it springs from the cloud and the sky and the earth, and is slowly elaborated into an independent concept. As many words in ancient languages have an undefined meaning, and lend themselves to various purposes according to the various intentions of the speakers, the names of the gods also share in this elastic and plastic character of ancient speech. There are passages where Par_g_anya means cloud, there are passages where it means rain. There are passages where Par_g_anya takes the place which elsewhere is filled by Dyaus, the sky, or by Indra, the active god of the atmosphere. This may seem very wrong and very unscientific to the scientific mythologist. But it cannot be helped. It is the nature of ancient thought and ancient language to be unscientific, and we must learn to master it as well as we can, instead of finding fault with it, and complaining that our forefathers did not reason exactly as we do.

There are passages in the Vedic hymns where Par_g_anya appears as a supreme god. He is called father, like Dyaus, the sky. He is called a s u r a, the living or life-giving god, a name peculiar to the oldest and the greatest gods. One poet says,[234] "He rules as god over the whole world; all creatures rest in him; he is the life (atma) of all that moves and rests."

Surely it is difficult to say more of a supreme god than what is here said of Par_g_anya. Yet in other hymns he is represented as performing his office, namely that of sending rain upon the earth, under the control of Mitra and Varu_n_, who are then considered as the highest lords, the mightiest rulers of heaven and earth.[235]

There are other verses, again, where par_g_anya occurs with hardly any traces of personality, but simply as a name of cloud or rain.

Thus we read:[236] "Even by day the Maruts (the storm-gods) produce darkness with the cloud that carries water, when they moisten the earth." Here cloud is par_g_anya, and it is evidently used as an appellative, and not as a proper name. The same word occurs in the plural also, and we read of many par_g_anyas or clouds vivifying the earth.[237]

When Devapi prays for rain in favor of his brother, he says:[238] "O lord of my prayer (B_ri_haapati), whether thou be Mitra or Varu_n_a or Pushan, come to my sacrifice! Whether thou be together with the Adityas, the Vasus or the Maruts, let the cloud (par_g_anya) rain for _S_antanu."

And again: "Stir up the rainy cloud" (par_g_anya).

In several places it makes no difference whether we translate par_g_anya by cloud or by rain, for those who pray for rain, pray for the cloud, and whatever may be the benefits of the rain, they may nearly all be called the benefits of the cloud. There is a curious hymn, for instance, addressed to the frogs who, at the beginning of the rains, come forth from the dry ponds, and embrace each other and chatter together, and whom the poet compares to priests singing at a sacrifice, a not very complimentary remark from a poet who is himself supposed to have been a priest. Their voice is said to have been revived by par_g_anya, which we shall naturally translate "by rain," though, no doubt, the poet may have meant, for all we know, either a cloud, or even the god Par_g_anya himself.

I shall try to translate one of the hymns addressed to Par_g_anya, when conceived as a god, or at least as so much of a god as it was possible to be at that stage in the intellectual growth of the human race.[239]

1. "Invoke the strong god with these songs! praise
Par_g_anya, worship him with veneration! for he, the roaring
bull, scattering drops, gives seed-fruit to plants.

2. "He cuts the trees asunder, he kills evil spirits; the
whole world trembles before his mighty weapon. Even the
guiltless flees before the powerful, when Par_g_anya
thundering strikes down the evil-doers.

3. "Like a charioteer, striking his horses with a whip, he
puts forths his messenger of rain. From afar arise the
roarings of the lion, when Par_g_anya makes the sky full of
rain.

4. "The winds blow, the lightnings[240] fly, plants spring
up, the sky pours. Food is produced for the whole world,
when Par_g_anya blesses the earth with his seed.

5. "O Par_g_anya, thou at whose work the earth bows down,
thou at whose work hoofed animals are scattered, thou at
whose work the plants assume all forms, grant thou to us thy
great protection!

6. "O, Maruts, give us the rain of heaven, make the streams
of the strong horse run down! And come thou hither with thy
thunder, pouring out water, for thou (O Par_g_anya) art the
living god, thou art our father.

7. "Do thou roar, and thunder, and give fruitfulness! Fly
around us with thy chariot full of water! Draw forth thy
water-skin, when it has been opened and turned downward, and
let the high and the low places become level!

8. "Draw up the large bucket, and pour it out; let the
streams pour forth freely! Soak heaven and earth with
fatness! and let there be a good draught for the cows!

9. "O Par_g_anya, when roaring and thundering thou killest
the evil-doers, then everything rejoices, whatever lives on
earth.

10. "Thou hast sent rain, stop now! Thou hast made the
deserts passable, thou hast made plants grow for food, and
thou hast obtained praise from men."

This is a Vedic hymn, and a very fair specimen of what these ancient hymns are. There is nothing very grand and poetical about them, and yet, I say, take thousands and thousands of people living in our villages, and depending on rain for their very life, and not many of them will be able to compose such a prayer for rain, even though three thousand years have passed over our heads since Par_g_anya was first invoked in India. Nor are these verses entirely without poetical conceptions and descriptions. Whoever has watched a real thunderstorm in a hot climate will recognize the truth of those quick sentences: "the winds blow, the lightnings fly, plants spring up, the hoofed cattle are scattered." Nor is the idea without a certain drastic reality, that Par_g_anya draws a bucket of water from his well in heaven, and pours out skin after skin (in which water was then carried) down upon the earth.

There is even a moral sentiment perceptible in this hymn. "When the storms roar, and the lightnings flash and the rain pours down, even the guiltless trembles, and evil-doers are struck down." Here we clearly see that the poet did not look upon the storm simply as an outbreak of the violence of nature, but that he had a presentiment of a higher will and power which even the guiltless fears; for who, he seems to say, is entirely free from guilt?

If now we ask again, Who is Par_g_anya? or What is Par_g_anya? we can answer that par_g_anya was meant originally for the cloud, so far as it gives rain; but as soon as the idea of a giver arose, the visible cloud became the outward appearance only, or the body of that giver, and the giver himself was somewhere else, we know not where. In some verses Par_g_anya seems to step into the place of Dyaus, the sky, and P_ri_thivi, the earth, is his wife. In other places,[241] however, he is the son of Dyaus or the sky, though no thought is given in that early stage to the fact that thus Par_g_anya might seem to be the husband of his mother. We saw that even the idea of Indra being the father of his own father did not startle the ancient poets beyond an exclamation that it was a very wonderful thing indeed.

Sometimes Par_g_anya does the work of Indra,[242] the Jupiter Pluvius of the Veda; sometimes of Vayu, the wind, sometimes of Soma, the giver of rain. Yet with all this he is not Dyaus, nor Indra, nor the Maruts, nor Vayu, nor Soma. He stands by himself, a separate person, a separate god, as we should say--nay, one of the oldest of all the Aryan gods.

His name, par_g_anya, is derived from a root par_g_, which, like its parallel forms pars and parsh, must (I think) have had the meaning of sprinkling, irrigating, moistening. An interchange between final _g_, _s_, and sh, may, no doubt, seem unusual, but it is not without parallel in Sanskrit. We have, for instance, the roots pi_ng_, pingere; pish, to rub; pi_s_, to adorn (as in pe_s_as, [Greek: poikilos], etc.); m_rig_, to rub, m_ri_sh, to rub out, to forget; m_ris_, mulcere.

This very root m_rig_ forms its participle as m_ri_sh-_t_a, like ya_g_, ish_t_a, and vi_s_, vish_t_a; nay there are roots, such as druh, which optionally take a final lingual or guttural, such as dhru_t_ and dhruk.[243]

We may therefore compare par_g_ in par_g_anya with such words as p_ri_shata, p_ri_shati, speckled, drop of water;[244] also par_s_u, cloud, p_ris_ni, speckled, cloud, earth; and in Greek [Greek: prox(o)], [Greek: perknos], etc.[245]

If derived from par_g_, to sprinkle, Par_g_anya would have meant originally "he who irrigates or gives rain."[246]

When the different members of the Aryan family dispersed, they might all of them, Hindus as well as Greeks and Celts, and Teutons and Slaves, have carried that name for cloud with them. But you know that it happened very often that out of the commonwealth of their ancient language, one and the same word was preserved, as the case might be, not by all, but by only six, or five, or four, or three, or two, or even by one only of the seven principal heirs; and yet, as we know that there was no historical contact between them, after they had once parted from each other, long before the beginning of what we call history, the fact that two of the Aryan languages have preserved the same finished word with the same finished meaning, is proof sufficient that it belonged to the most ancient treasure of Aryan thought.

Now there is no trace, at least no very clear trace, of Par_g_anya, in Greek, or Latin, or Celtic, or even in Teutonic. In Slavonic, too, we look in vain, till we come to that almost forgotten side-branch called the _Lettic_, comprising the spoken _Lituanian_ and _Lettish_, and the now extinct _Old Prussian_. Lituania is no longer an independent state, but it was once, not more than six centuries ago, a Grand Duchy, independent both of Russia and Poland. Its first Grand Duke was Ringold, who ruled from 1235, and his successors made successful conquests against the Russians. In 1368 these grand dukes became kings of Poland, and in 1569 the two countries were united. When Poland was divided between Russia and Prussia, part of Lituania fell to the former, part to the latter. There are still about one million and a half of people who speak Lituanian in Russia and Prussia, while Lettish is spoken by about one million in Curland and Livonia.

The Lituanian language even as it is now spoken by the common people, contains some extremely primitive grammatical forms--in some cases almost identical with Sanskrit. These forms are all the more curious, because they are but few in number, and the rest of the language has suffered much from the wear and tear of centuries.

Now in that remote Lituanian language we find that our old friend Par_g_anya has taken refuge. There he lives to the present day, while even in India he is almost forgotten, at least in the spoken languages; and there, in Lituania, not many centuries back might be heard among a Christianized or nearly Christianized people, prayers for rain, not very different from that which I translated to you from the Rig-Veda. In Lituanian the god of thunder was called _Perkunas_,[247] and the same word is still used in the sense of thunder. In Old Prussian, thunder was _percunos_, and in Lettish to the present day _perkons_ is thunder, god of thunder.[248]

It was, I believe, Grimm who for the first time identified the Vedic Par_g_anya with the Old Slavonic Perun, the Polish Piorun, the Bohemian Peraun. These words had formerly been derived by Dobrovsky and others from the root peru, I strike. Grimm ("Teutonic Mythology," Engl. transl., p. 171) showed that the fuller forms Perkunas, Pehrkons, and Perkunos existed in Lituanian, Lettish, Old Prussian, and that even the Mordvinians had adopted the name Porguini as that of their thunder-god.

Simon Grunau, who finished his chronicle in 1521, speaks of three gods, as worshipped by the Old Prussians, Patollo, Patrimpo, and Perkuno, and he states that Perkuno was invoked "for storm's sake, that they might have rain and fair weather at the proper time, and thunder and lightning should not injure them."[249]

The following Lituanian prayer has been preserved to us by Lasitzki:[250]

"Check thyself, O Percuna, and do not send misfortune on my
field! and I shall give thee this flitch."

Among the neighbors of the Lets, the Esthonians, who, though un-Aryan in language, have evidently learned much from their Aryan neighbors, the following prayer was heard,[251] addressed by an old peasant to their god _Picker_ or _Picken_, the god of thunder and rain, as late as the seventeenth century.[252]

"Dear Thunder (woda Picker), we offer to thee an ox that has
two horns and four cloven hoofs; we would pray thee for our
ploughing and sowing, that our straw be copper-red, our
grain golden-yellow. Push elsewhere all the thick black
clouds, over great fens, high forests, and wildernesses. But
unto us, ploughers and sowers, give a fruitful season and
sweet rain. Holy Thunder (poeha Picken), guard our
seed-field, that it bear good straw below, good ears above,
and good grain within."[253]

Now, I say again, I do not wish you to admire this primitive poetry, primitive, whether it is repeated in the Esthonian fens in the seventeenth century of our era, or sung in the valley of the Indus in the seventeenth century before our era. Let aesthetic critics say what they like about these uncouth poems. I only ask you, Is it not worth a great many poems, to have established this fact, that the same god Par_g_anya, the god of clouds and thunder and lightning and rain, who was invoked in India a thousand years before India was discovered by Alexander, should have been remembered and believed in by Lituanian peasants on the frontier between East Prussia and Russia, not more than two hundred years ago, and should have retained its old name Par_g_anya, which in Sanskrit meant "showering," under the form of _Perkuna_, which in Lituanian is a name and a name only, without any etymological meaning at all; nay, should live on, as some scholars assure us, in an abbreviated form in most Slavonic dialects, namely, in Old Slavonic as _Perun_, in Polish as _Piorun_, in Bohemian as _Peraun_, all meaning thunder or thunderstorm?[254]

Such facts strike me as if we saw the blood suddenly beginning to flow again through the veins of old mummies; or as if the Egyptian statues of black granite were suddenly to begin to speak again. Touched by the rays of modern science the old words--call them mummies or statues--begin indeed to live again, the old names of gods and heroes begin indeed to speak again.

All that is old becomes new, all that is new becomes old, and that one word, Par_g_anya, seems, like a charm, to open before our eyes the cave or cottage in which the fathers of the Aryan race, our own fathers--whether we live on the Baltic or on the Indian Ocean--are seen gathered together, taking refuge from the buckets of Par_g_anya, and saying, "Stop now, Par_g_anya; thou hast sent rain; thou hast made the deserts passable, and hast made the plants to grow; and thou hast obtained praise from man."

* * * * *

We have still to consider the third class of gods, in addition to the gods of the earth and the sky, namely the gods of the highest heaven, more serene in their character than the active and fighting gods of the air and the clouds, and more remote from the eyes of man, and therefore more mysterious in the exercise of their power than the gods of the earth or the air.

The principal deity is here no doubt the bright sky itself, the old _Dyaus_, worshipped as we know by the Aryans before they broke up into separate people and languages, and surviving in Greece as Zeus, in Italy as Jupiter, Heaven-father, and among the Teutonic tribes as _Tyr_ and _Tiu_. In the Veda we saw him chiefly invoked in connection with the earth, as Dyava-p_ri_thivi, Heaven and Earth. He is invoked by himself also, but he is a vanishing god, and his place is taken in most of the Vedic poems by the younger and more active god, _Indra_.

Another representative of the highest heaven, as covering, embracing, and shielding all things, is Varu_n_a, a name derived from the root var, to cover, and identical with the Greek _Ouranos_. This god is one of the most interesting creations of the Hindu mind, because though we can still perceive the physical background from which he rises, the vast, starry, brilliant expanse above, his features, more than those of any of the Vedic gods, have become completely transfigured, and he stands before us as a god who watches over the world, punishes the evil-doer, and even forgives the sins of those who implore his pardon.

I shall read you one of the hymns addressed to him:[255]

"Let us be blessed in thy service, O Varu_n_a, for we always
think of thee and praise thee, greeting thee day by day,
like the fires lighted on the altar, at the approach of the
rich dawns." 2.

"O Varu_n_a, our guide, let us stand in thy keeping, thou
who art rich in heroes and praised far and wide! And you,
unconquered sons of Aditi, deign to accept us as your
friends, O gods!" 3.

"Aditya, the ruler, sent forth these rivers; they follow the
law of Varu_n_a. They tire not, they cease not; like birds
they fly quickly everywhere." 4.

"Take from me my sin, like a fetter, and we shall increase,
O Varu_n_a, 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! 5.

"Take far away from me this terror, O Varu_n_a; Thou, O
righteous king, have mercy on me! 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." 6.

"Do not strike us, Varu_n_a, with weapons which at thy will
hurt the evil-doer. Let us not go where the light has
vanished! Scatter our enemies, that we may live." 7.

"We did formerly, O Varu_n_a, and do now, and shall in
future also, sing praises to thee, O mighty one! For on
thee, unconquerable hero, rest all statutes, immovable, as
if established on a rock." 8.

"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 us to live in them, O
Varu_n_a." 9.

You may have observed that in several verses of this hymn Varu_n_a was called Aditya, or son of Aditi. Now Aditi means _infinitude_, from _dita_, bound, and _a_, not, that is, not bound, not limited, absolute, infinite. Aditi itself is now and then invoked in the Veda, as the Beyond, as what is beyond the earth and the sky, and the sun and the dawn--a most surprising conception in that early period of religious thought. More frequently, however, than Aditi, we meet with the Adityas, literally the sons of Aditi, or the gods beyond the visible earth and sky--in one sense, the infinite gods. One of them is Varu_n_a, others Mitra and Aryaman (Bhaga, Daksha, A_ms_a), most of them abstract names, though pointing to heaven and the solar light of heaven as their first, though almost forgotten source.

When Mitra and Varu_n_a are invoked together, we can still perceive dimly that they were meant originally for day and night, light and darkness. But in their more personal and so to say dramatic aspect, day and night appear in the Vedic mythology as the two A_s_vins, the two horsemen.