The Sanskrit Epics
Page 973
Chastise us not, O God, for that iniquity.
There are in the Rigveda five solar deities, differentiated as representing various aspects of the activity of the sun. One of the oldest of these, Mitra, the “Friend,” seems to have been conceived as the beneficent side of the sun’s power. Going back to the Indo-Iranian period, he has in the Rigveda almost entirely lost his individuality, which is practically merged in that of Varuṇa. With the latter he is constantly invoked, while only one single hymn (iii. 59) is addressed to him alone.
Sūrya (cognate in name to the Greek Hēlios) is the most concrete of the solar deities. For as his name also designates the luminary itself, his connection with the latter is never lost sight of. The eye of Sūrya is often mentioned, and Dawn is said to bring the eye of the gods. All-seeing, he is the spy of the whole world, beholding all beings and the good or bad deeds of mortals. Aroused by Sūrya, men pursue their objects and perform their work. He is the soul or guardian of all that moves and is fixed. He rides in a car, which is generally described as drawn by seven steeds. These he unyokes at sunset: —
When he has loosed his coursers from their station,
Straightway Night over all spreads out her garment (i. 115, 4).
Sūrya rolls up the darkness like a skin, and the stars slink away like thieves. He shines forth from the lap of the dawns. He is also spoken of as the husband of Dawn. As a form of Agni, the gods placed him in heaven. He is often described as a bird or eagle traversing space. He measures the days and prolongs life. He drives away disease and evil dreams. At his rising he is prayed to declare men sinless to Mitra and Varuṇa. All beings depend on Sūrya, and so he is called “all-creating.”
Eleven hymns, or about the same number as to Sūrya, are addressed to another solar deity, Savitṛi, the “Stimulator,” who represents the quickening activity of the sun. He is pre-eminently a golden deity, with golden hands and arms and a golden car. He raises aloft his strong golden arms, with which he blesses and arouses all beings, and which extend to the ends of the earth. He moves in his golden car, seeing all creatures, on a downward and an upward path. He shines after the path of the dawn. Beaming with the rays of the sun, yellow-haired, Savitṛi raises up his light continually from the east. He removes evil dreams and drives away demons and sorcerers. He bestows immortality on the gods as well as length of life on man. He also conducts the departed spirit to where the righteous dwell. The other gods follow Savitṛi’s lead; no being, not even the most powerful gods, Indra and Varuṇa, can resist his will and independent sway. Savitṛi is not infrequently connected with the evening, being in one hymn (ii. 38) extolled as the setting sun: —
Borne by swift coursers, he will now unyoke them:
The speeding chariot he has stayed from going.
He checks the speed of them that glide like serpents:
Night has come on by Savitṛi’s commandment.
The weaver rolls her outstretched web together,
The skilled lay down their work in midst of toiling,
The birds all seek their nests, their shed the cattle:
Each to his lodging Savitṛi disperses.
To this god is addressed the most famous stanza of the Rigveda, with which, as the Stimulator, he was in ancient times invoked at the beginning of Vedic study, and which is still repeated by every orthodox Hindu in his morning prayers. From the name of the deity it is called the Sāvitrī, but it is also often referred to as “the Gāyatrī,” from the metre in which it is composed: —
May we attain that excellent
Glory of Savitṛi the god,
That he may stimulate our thoughts (iii. 62, 10).
A peculiarity of the hymns to Savitṛi is the perpetual play on his name with forms of the root sū, “to stimulate,” from which it is derived.
Pūshan is invoked in some eight hymns of the Rigveda. His name means “Prosperer,” and the conception underlying his character seems to be the beneficent power of the sun, manifested chiefly as a pastoral deity. His car is drawn by goats and he carries a goad. Knowing the ways of heaven, he conducts the dead on the far path to the fathers. He is also a guardian of roads, protecting cattle and guiding them with his goad. The welfare which he bestows results from the protection he extends to men and cattle on earth, and from his guidance of mortals to the abodes of bliss in the next world.
Judged by a statistical standard, Vishṇu is only a deity of the fourth rank, less frequently invoked than Sūrya, Savitṛi, and Pūshan in the Rigveda, but historically he is the most important of the solar deities. For he is one of the two great gods of modern Hinduism. The essential feature of his character is that he takes three strides, which doubtless represent the course of the sun through the three divisions of the universe. His highest step is heaven, where the gods and the fathers dwell. For this abode the poet expresses his longing in the following words (i. 154, 5): —
May I attain to that, his well-loved dwelling,
Where men devoted to the gods are blessèd:
In Vishṇu’s highest step — he is our kinsman,
Of mighty stride — there is a spring of nectar.
Vishṇu seems to have been originally conceived as the sun, not in his general character, but as the personified swiftly moving luminary which with vast strides traverses the three worlds. He is in several passages said to have taken his three steps for the benefit of man.
To this feature may be traced the myth of the Brāhmaṇas in which Vishṇu appears in the form of a dwarf as an artifice to recover the earth, now in the possession of demons, by taking his three strides. His character for benevolence was in post-Vedic mythology developed in the doctrine of the Avatārs (“descents” to earth) or incarnations which he assumed for the good of humanity.
Ushas, goddess of dawn, is almost the only female deity to whom entire hymns are addressed, and the only one invoked with any frequency. She, however, is celebrated in some twenty hymns. The name, meaning the “Shining One,” is cognate to the Latin Aurora and the Greek Ēōs. When the goddess is addressed, the physical phenomenon of dawn is never absent from the poet’s mind. The fondness with which the thoughts of these priestly singers turned to her alone among the goddesses, though she received no share in the offering of soma like the other gods, seems to show that the glories of the dawn, more splendid in Northern India than those we are wont to see, deeply impressed the minds of these early poets. In any case, she is their most graceful creation, the charm of which is unsurpassed in the descriptive religious lyrics of any other literature. Here there are no priestly subtleties to obscure the brightness of her form, and few allusions to the sacrifice to mar the natural beauty of the imagery.
To enable the reader to estimate the merit of this poetry I will string together some utterances about the Dawn goddess, culled from various hymns, and expressed as nearly as possible in the words of their composers. Ushas is a radiant maiden, born in the sky, daughter of Dyaus. She is the bright sister of dark Night. She shines with the light of her lover, with the light of Sūrya, who beams after her path and follows her as a young man a maiden. She is borne on a brilliant car, drawn by ruddy steeds or kine. Arraying herself in gay attire like a dancer, she displays her bosom. Clothed upon with light, the maiden appears in the east and unveils her charms. Rising resplendent as from a bath, she shows her form. Effulgent in peerless beauty, she withholds her light from neither small nor great. She opens wide the gates of heaven; she opens the doors of darkness, as the cows (issue from) their stall. Her radiant beams appear like herds of cattle. She removes the black robe of night, warding off evil spirits and the hated darkness. She awakens creatures that have feet, and makes the birds fly up: she is the breath and life of everything. When Ushas shines forth, the birds fly up from their nests and men seek nourishment. She is the radiant mover of sweet sounds, the leader of the charm of pleasant voices. Day by day appearing at the appointed place, she never infringes the rule of order and of the gods; she goes straight along the path of ord
er; knowing the way, she never loses her direction. As she shone in former days, so she shines now and will shine in future, never aging, immortal.
The solitude and stillness of the early morning sometimes suggested pensive thoughts about the fleeting nature of human life in contrast with the unending recurrence of the dawn. Thus one poet exclaims: —
Gone are the mortals who in former ages
Beheld the flushing of the earlier morning.
We living men now look upon her shining;
They are coming who shall in future see her (i. 113, 11).
In a similar strain another Rishi sings: —
Again and again newly born though ancient,
Decking her beauty with the self-same colours,
The goddess wastes away the life of mortals,
Like wealth diminished by the skilful player (i. 92, 10).
The following stanzas from one of the finest hymns to Dawn (i. 113) furnish a more general picture of this fairest creation of Vedic poetry: —
This light has come, of all the lights the fairest,
The brilliant brightness has been born, far-shining.
Urged onward for god Savitṛi’s uprising,
Night now has yielded up her place to Morning.
The sisters’ pathway is the same, unending:
Taught by the gods, alternately they tread it.
Fair-shaped, of different forms and yet one-minded,
Night and Morning clash not, nor do they linger.
Bright leader of glad sounds, she shines effulgent:
Widely she has unclosed for us her portals.
Arousing all the world, she shows us riches:
Dawn has awakened every living creature.
There Heaven’s Daughter has appeared before us,
The maiden flushing in her brilliant garments.
Thou sovran lady of all earthly treasure,
Auspicious Dawn, flush here to-day upon us.
In the sky’s framework she has shone with splendour;
The goddess has cast off the robe of darkness.
Wakening up the world with ruddy horses,
Upon her well-yoked chariot Dawn is coming.
Bringing upon it many bounteous blessings,
Brightly shining, she spreads her brilliant lustre.
Last of the countless mornings that have gone by,
First of bright morns to come has Dawn arisen.
Arise! the breath, the life, again has reached us:
Darkness has gone away and light is coming.
She leaves a pathway for the sun to travel:
We have arrived where men prolong existence.
Among the deities of celestial light, those most frequently invoked are the twin gods of morning named Açvins. They are the sons of Heaven, eternally young and handsome. They ride on a car, on which they are accompanied by the sun-maiden Sūryā. This car is bright and sunlike, and all its parts are golden. The time when these gods appear is the early dawn, when “darkness still stands among the ruddy cows.” At the yoking of their car Ushas is born.
Many myths are told about the Açvins as succouring divinities. They deliver from distress in general, especially rescuing from the ocean in a ship or ships. They are characteristically divine physicians, who give sight to the blind and make the lame to walk. One very curious myth is that of the maiden Viçpalā, who having had her leg cut off in some conflict, was at once furnished by the Açvins with an iron limb. They agree in many respects with the two famous horsemen of Greek mythology, the Dioskouroi, sons of Zeus and brothers of Helen. The two most probable theories as to the origin of these twin deities are, that they represent either the twilight, half dark, half light, or the morning and evening star.
In the realm of air Indra is the dominant deity. He is, indeed, the favourite and national god of the Vedic Indian. His importance is sufficiently indicated by the fact that more than one-fourth of the Rigveda is devoted to his praise. Handed down from a bygone age, Indra has become more anthropomorphic and surrounded by mythological imagery than any other Vedic god. The significance of his character is nevertheless sufficiently clear. He is primarily the thunder-god, the conquest of the demon of drought or darkness named Vṛitra, the “Obstructor,” and the consequent liberation of the waters or the winning of light, forming his mythological essence. This myth furnishes the Rishis with an ever-recurring theme. Armed with his thunderbolt, exhilarated by copious draughts of soma, and generally escorted by the Maruts or Storm-gods, Indra enters upon the fray. The conflict is terrible. Heaven and earth tremble with fear when Indra smites Vṛitra like a tree with his bolt. He is described as constantly repeating the combat. This obviously corresponds to the perpetual renewal of the natural phenomena underlying the myth. The physical elements in the thunderstorm are seldom directly mentioned by the poets when describing the exploits of Indra. He is rarely said to shed rain, but constantly to release the pent-up waters or rivers. The lightning is regularly the “bolt,” while thunder is the lowing of the cows or the roaring of the dragon. The clouds are designated by various names, such as cow, udder, spring, cask, or pail. They are also rocks (adri), which encompass the cows set free by Indra. They are further mountains from which Indra casts down the demons dwelling upon them. They thus often become fortresses (pur) of the demons, which are ninety, ninety-nine, or a hundred in number, and are variously described as “moving,” “autumnal,” “made of iron or stone.” One stanza (x. 89, 7) thus brings together the various features of the myth: “Indra slew Vṛitra, broke the castles, made a channel for the rivers, pierced the mountain, and delivered over the cows to his friends.” Owing to the importance of the Vṛitra myth, the chief and specific epithet of Indra is Vṛitrahan, “slayer of Vṛitra.” The following stanzas are from one of the most graphic of the hymns which celebrate the conflict of Indra with the demon (i. 32): —
I will proclaim the manly deeds of Indra,
The first that he performed, the lightning-wielder.
He smote the dragon, then discharged the waters,
And cleft the caverns of the lofty mountains.
Impetuous as a bull, he chose the soma,
And drank in threefold vessels of its juices.
The Bounteous god grasped lightning for his missile,
He struck down dead that first-born of the dragons.
Him lightning then availèd naught, nor thunder,
Nor mist nor hailstorm which he spread around him:
When Indra and the dragon strove in battle,
The Bounteous god gained victory for ever.
Plunged in the midst of never-ceasing torrents,
That stand not still but ever hasten onward,
The waters bear off Vṛitra’s hidden body:
Indra’s fierce foe sank down to lasting darkness.
With the liberation of the waters is connected the winning of light and the sun. Thus we read that when Indra had slain the dragon Vṛitra with his bolt, releasing the waters for man, he placed the sun visibly in the heavens, or that the sun shone forth when Indra blew the dragon from the air.
Indra naturally became the god of battle, and is more frequently invoked than any other deity as a helper in conflicts with earthly enemies. In the words of one poet, he protects the Aryan colour (varṇa) and subjects the black skin; while another extols him for having dispersed 50,000 of the black race and rent their citadels. His combats are frequently called gavishṭi, “desire of cows,” his gifts being considered the result of victories.
The following stanzas (ii. 12, 2 and 13) will serve as a specimen of the way in which the greatness of Indra is celebrated: —
Who made the widespread earth when quaking steadfast,
Who brought to rest the agitated mountains.
Who measured out air’s intermediate spaces,
Who gave the sky support: he, men, is Indra.
Heaven and earth themselves bow down before him,
Before his might the very mountains tremble.
Who, known as Soma-drinker, armed with lightning,
Is wielder of the bolt: he, men, is Indra.
To the more advanced anthropomorphism of Indra’s nature are due the occasional immoral traits which appear in his character. Thus he sometimes indulges in acts of capricious violence, such as the slaughter of his father or the destruction of the car of Dawn. He is especially addicted to soma, of which he is described as drinking enormous quantities to stimulate him in the performance of his warlike exploits. One entire hymn (x. 119) consists of a monologue in which Indra, inebriated with soma, boasts of his greatness and power. Though of little poetic merit, this piece has a special interest as being by far the earliest literary description of the mental effects, braggadocio in particular, produced by intoxication. In estimating the morality of Indra’s excesses, it should not be forgotten that the exhilaration of soma partook of a religious character in the eyes of the Vedic poets.
Indra’s name is found in the Avesta as that of a demon. His distinctive Vedic epithet, Vṛitrahan, also occurs there in the form of verethraghna, as a designation of the god of victory. Hence there was probably in the Indo-Iranian period a god approaching to the Vedic form of the Vṛitra-slaying and victorious Indra.
In comparing historically Varuṇa and Indra, whose importance was about equal in the earlier period of the Rigveda, it seems clear that Varuṇa was greater in the Indo-Iranian period, but became inferior to Indra in later Vedic times. Indra, on the other hand, became in the Brāhmaṇas and Epics the chief of the Indian heaven, and even maintained this position under the Puranic triad, Brahmā-Vishṇu-Çiva, though of course subordinate to them.
At least three of the lesser deities of the air are connected with lightning. One of these is the somewhat obscure god Trita, who is only mentioned in detached verses of the Rigveda. The name appears to designate the “third” (Greek, trito-s), as the lightning form of fire. His frequent epithet, Āptya, seems to mean the “watery.” This god goes back to the Indo-Iranian period, as both his name and his epithet are found in the Avesta. But he was gradually ousted by Indra as being originally almost identical in character with the latter. Another deity of rare occurrence in the Rigveda, and also dating from the Indo-Iranian period, is Apāṃ napāt, the “Son of Waters.” He is described as clothed in lightning and shining without fuel in the waters. There can, therefore, be little doubt that he represents fire as produced from the rain-clouds in the form of lightning. Mātariçvan, seldom mentioned in the Rigveda, is a divine being described as having, like the Greek Prometheus, brought down the hidden fire from heaven to earth. He most probably represents the personification of a celestial form of Agni, god of fire, with whom he is in some passages actually identified. In the later Vedas, the Brāhmaṇas, and the subsequent literature, the name has become simply a designation of wind.