The Religion of the Rigveda 9780192868213

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The Religion of the R: gveda

The Religion of the R: gveda THOMAS OBERLIES

Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP, United Kingdom Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries © Thomas Oberlies 2023 The moral rights of the author have been asserted All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Control Number: 2023937907 ISBN 978–0–19–286821–3 DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780192868213.001.0001 Printed and bound in the UK by Clays Ltd, Elcograf S.p.A. Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and for information only. Oxford disclaims any responsibility for the materials contained in any third party website referenced in this work.

In loving memory of my teacher Paul Thieme (1905–2001)

Preface –– Ten years after ––

It is generally agreed that the Rgveda is one of the most poetic and at the same : time most cryptic texts known to the world. The Vedic poets cloaked their visions, for by far the most part, in what the Vedist Maurice Bloomfield so aptly termed ‘the Vedic haze’ (JAOS 45 [1925] 159). Nevertheless, what little the poets tell us in what seem to be clear words can be patched together and held against what the younger texts say, often in rather unambiguous language. Happily the same applies, at least in my understanding, to the ‘basic concept of Vedic religion’ (as K, History of Religions 15 [1975] 107–20, called it in his seminal study). It consists in a dichotomy of two groups of gods, the Asuras and the Devas, who also shape the internal structure of the Rgvedic pantheon. This dichotomy is quite : antagonistic in nature; the Rgveda tells of a battle in which these two classes of gods are pitted against each other (e.g. RV 10.53.4, 157.4). The reason for this conflict becomes apparent when we turn to younger Vedic texts, where we find that ‘the gods and the Asuras are offspring of Prajāpati, the gods the younger, the Asuras the elder’ (Br: hadāranyaka-Upani s: ad Kānva, I 3.1). That these are two : : generations of gods is mentioned at many other points in the Vedic texts as well, if only en passant. One of the most significant of these passages is in the Amarakośa, an authoritative lexicon of Sanskrit synonyms, which calls the Asuras ‘the elder gods’. This is echoed too in the Jātaka, a very old collection of Buddhist texts, which speaks of ‘elder gods’ (pubbadevā, Ja V 18.10*) to whom the comment refers as ‘the Asuras’ (asurā, ct.) as though this is given. And in the Sagāthavagga of the Samyuttanikāya, another ancient text of the Buddhist canon, Devas and : Asuras are juxtaposed, and the latter again referred to as ‘elder gods’ (see I 222,32–4). The not implausible conclusion that power and sovereignty are the prizes over which the battle of the gods is waged is entirely confirmed not only by many younger Vedic texts, but also by the Rgveda itself. And it is surely relevant in : this particular context that the highest-ranking of the Asuras, Dyaus: Pitā, is the father of Indra, the most powerful of the younger gods, and that the text refers to life-or-death conflicts between these two. The victory of the ‘younger gods’ over the ‘elder’, of Indra over his father Dyaus, the old Sky god, is ensured when a falcon brings him the Soma, the guarantor of power and rulership. This had been stolen from the ‘elder gods’, ‘away from the rock’, RV 1.93.6 (which likely refers to the ‘stone heaven’, meaning the Asura Dyaus), who thereby lost their ‘bounteous blessings’, as RV 4.27.2 says. And so the Asuras, deprived of their powers, are

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banished to the edge of the world, whence they continually threaten the reign of the Devas, who nonetheless assert their superiority. This perpetual battle between the elder and the younger gods is mentioned in the Vedic and many other texts in numerous passages. These two successive generations of gods are mirrored by the states of the world, likewise successive. The myth that tells of the battle of the gods also describes how the now-state of the world, the sát, ‘the existent’, the world and its order, separated from primeval time by a caesura—the gods’ battle—emerged from the ásat, the ‘chaos’ that makes every form of life impossible, once ruled by the Asuras: the primeval gods. When the younger gods, the Devas, take power, the world emerges, and the vanquished gods—or parts of them—become parts of the new world or they are banished to its edges, where they reside at a safe distance from the ‘emerging’ (Vedic) society in the middle of the world. For example, Indra smashes his own father, Dyaus, a stone monster, and from him creates the sky as it is seen today. This destruction of the ‘old’ Sky god releases the phenomena of light that he had held within him (why he is also called Vala, ‘enclosure’) and brings to the ‘new’ world the alternation of light and darkness, day and night, that actually constitutes the sky. This cosmogonic myth, handed down in various versions and interwoven with an ancient myth about the succession of power, is also political. As seen for example in the belief that the war-god Indra is incarnated in the leader of the tribe, the myth also speaks of the tribe’s contemporary practice of capturing lands for settlement. Central themes in this land-seizure myth are reflected in turn in the great Soma ritual, which was celebrated primarily in Indra’s honour and includes the appointment of his mortal ‘counterpart’, selected for instance through a physical or verbal contest. The lifestyle of the Vedic tribes, characterized by a cycle of alternating predatory raids and peaceful periods of settling (yoga-ks:ema), also shaped their religious system. For while the phase of pillaging or conquering new territory is associated with warlike gods such as Indra and his companions, the Maruts, whose main functions are brought to bear in these situations, the peaceful settling phase is associated with Varuna : and the Ādityas, whose typical functions are fully manifested in that phase. Thus the two subsystems of the religion of the Rgveda, the : ‘Indra religion’ and the ‘Āditya religion’, are complementary, including the cult, and alternate in much the same way as do war and peace. In the process it seems the power structure alternated as well, between a monarchic and a polyarchic system. During the warlike phase (yoga), all was oriented around a single warriorking, an absolute ruler, while in peacetime, power and control lay with the many ‘lords of the settlement’ and ‘lords of the house’. In this political reading of the Rgveda, the tremendous significance of Soma in : the legitimation of authority can be discerned. This role of Soma, that intoxicating libation thought to grant immortality, is also reflected in the highly complex

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composition of the Soma hymns, which interweave life, society, and the cosmos and identify the legitimate ruler, known by his possession of the Soma, who ensures the existence of all (for details see O, Die Religion des Rgveda, : Zweiter Teil: Kompositionsanalyse der Soma-Hymnen des Rgveda (The religion : of the Rgveda, Part II: Composition analysis of the Soma hymns of the Rgveda, : : Vienna 1999). Another aspect that makes these conceptions so interesting is that they operate with myths and mythemes which the religion of the Rgveda inherited from Indo: European times. Many of its elements are found in the Greek, Germanic, and old Iranian religions as well: the family of gods around the Sky god; ‘elder’ and ‘younger’ gods; the battle for ascendency between two generations of gods or between powers benevolent and those antagonistic to life; the legitimation of that ascendancy accorded by possession of an ‘elixir of immortality’; the act of separating heaven from earth; the banishment of the ‘elder gods’, defeated in battle, to the edges of the new-emerging world; the rescue of cows trapped in a dark enclosure; and the slaying of a ‘dragon’ that encircled and held the waters, thus making life itself impossible. The poets of the Rgveda used the old myths to create : paradigms for the validity of claims to power and legitimation of rulership, which were then spoken of in their hymns, often in obscure, recondite allusions. Such paradigms also characterized the cult; specifically the rituals and rites, the performance of which lay in the poets’ hands. This can also explain the many agonistic elements in rituals and rites and particularly in those of the Soma cult: the victor is a ruler who knows how to win the gods to his side, whether through exquisite poetry or enticing sacrifices. I am well aware that much in the interpretation of the Rgveda is a matter of : belief and presumably will, even must, ever remain so. I am likewise aware that my understanding of circumstances relating to ‘earlier’ and ‘later’ gods; that is, the Asuras and the Devas, and to the mythology that surrounds them and serves the retention and legitimation of power, places me in distinct opposition to the interpretation of B and J, who penned what is probably the authoritative portrayal of the religion of the Rgveda (The Rigveda: A Guide, : Oxford 2020). In their view, ‘the Vedic opposition between Devas and Asuras is not ancient but late’ (The Rigveda: A Guide, p. 68) and ‘the eternal enmity and competition between . . . the Devas and the Asuras’ is a ‘misleading backprojection’ (The Rigveda: A Guide, p. 66). Implicit here is the imputation that the opposing view is ‘extrapolated from Rgvedic evidence . . . not expressed in the text’ (The : Rigveda: A Guide, p. 84)—as though a text like the Rgveda would ever express : clearly what it is actually talking about. Would not an expectation of such clarity in fact mark a failure to recognize this truly impressive poetry with its great love of the Vedic haze? Be that as it may, this is not the place for an examination of that very different approach to the religion of the R: gveda. Suffice it to note that the work of F. B. J. K, in my opinion ground-breaking, was essentially ignored.

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I saw no reason to rearrange this book in any way for the English edition. I have also abstained from adding material, as any attempt at this Sisyphean task would have proved inadequate even as the book was going to press. All translations of the Vedic texts are my own. They were, however, aligned with standard translations, thus in the case of the Rgveda with that of J/ : B, The Rigveda: The Earliest Religious Poetry of India (Oxford 2014), which I acknowledge here with gratitude. This English translation is entirely the work of Elizabeth Crawford (Göttingen), who had the difficult task of creating highly readable English from what was surely not the simplest of German texts. In the process, she also pointed out a few ambiguities and contradictions, enabling me to rectify them. The collaboration with her was in my view not only highly successful, but also quite enjoyable. Invaluable assistance in proofreading was provided by David Herting, predoctoral research fellow in the Indology Department at the University of Göttingen. To David also fell the task of reworking the ‘Index’ and the ‘Bibliography’ for this translated edition. At the Oxford University Press, publication of this book was in the capable hands of Tom Perridge, Jamie Mortimer, Jothi Aloysia Stephenson, and Cathryn Steele. My sincere thanks are also due to three anonymous readers for their comments and above all for urging Oxford University Press to publish this English translation. I would like to extend my heartfelt thanks to all of the previously mentioned people. It goes without saying that I alone bear responsibility for all errors and omissions. My sincere thanks also go to Insel Verlag for generously reverting the rights to the German book for this translation. Freiburg im Breisgau 5 November, 2023.

Contents 1. The Vedic Tribes

1

2. The R: gveda

21

3. The Indo-European Religion

33

4. The Indo-Iranian Religion

47

5. Conceptions of Gods in the R: gvedic Religion

72

6. Myths

157

7. The Cult of the R: gvedic Religion

197

8. R: gvedic Conceptions of the World Beyond and the Soul

279

Bibliography Index Locorum Index of Names and Subjects

301 311 318

1 The Vedic Tribes 1.1 Settlement areas and subsistence Beginning around the middle of the third century , the peoples of the steppes east of the Caspian Sea set out in a continuing search for new areas to settle, leaving behind the steppes and semi-arid regions of what is today Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan and moving towards the southeast. It was evidently quite some time before they reached the area now referred to as the Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex (BMAC). The Bronze Age culture which had flourished from about 2400 to 1600  in this region of present-day southern Turkmenistan and Tajikistan and northern Afghanistan soon succumbed to the superior military might of the newcomers. The process was not unlike what happened in the kingdom of Mitanni in northwestern Mesopotamia, when Indo-Aryan invaders from the steppes of presentday southern Russia—the ‘Western’ arm of the migration event described previously—thrust themselves into position as the ruling elite over the Hurrian population starting in the fifteenth century .¹ Through their contact with BMAC culture, which was to some extent urbanised, the nomads from the steppe experienced a cultural shift that was apparently extensive.² A steady influx of new tribes continually pushed those at the forefront to go further until finally, in the first half of the second century , they descended from the highlands of eastern Iran, today’s Afghanistan, through the mountain passes of the Hindu Kush—and perhaps also through the valley of Swat, the ancient Ud: diyāna—and entered India, : where they [14] settled on the banks of the Indus and in the ‘land of five rivers’. This hilly area in the east of what today is Pakistan and Punjab, which they called saptá síndhavah: , ‘Seven Rivers’, is flanked by high mountains in the north and transected by large rivers to the east and west, which flowed into the Indus but

¹ This ruling class is distinguished from the Hurrians over whom they ruled by their regnal names, which for the most part are clearly Indo-Aryan. The name of the Mitanni king Ar-ta-ta-a-ma, for ́ an, ‘place of truth’ (RV example, can be seen as corresponding to the Rgvedic syntagma :rtásya dhām : 1.43.9, 123.9, 7.36.5, 10.124.3). ² This is attested by a large number of (apparently) BMAC words in the text of the Rgveda, which : can be distinguished by primarily phonological singularities. The terms in question deal mainly with— h to name only the most important realms—religion and cult (*anću- ‘Soma plant’, *at aru̯ an- ‘priest’, *ućig- ‘sacrificing priest’), material culture (*khā- ‘well’, *J h́ armii̯a- ‘house’, *mai̯ūkha- ‘stake’), and fauna (*[H]uštra- ‘camel’, *matsi̯a- ‘fish’, *u̯ araJ h́ a- ‘boar’).

The Religion of the Rgveda. Thomas Oberlies, Oxford University Press. © Thomas Oberlies 2023. : DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780192868213.003.0001

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    .  SH KU DU N HI

Herat

Margiana Kabul

PAMIR Peshawar Schraffur

Bactria

Islamabad

KHOR ASSAN Lahore

Quetta

Sibri In du sR

ive r

Mergarh

Harappa

BALUCHISTAN

Mohenjo-daro

Fig. 1 The culture complex of Bactria and Margiana (based on  , Archaelogical models and Asian Indo-Europeans. In: Indo-Iranian Languages and Peoples, ed. by N S-W. Oxford 2002, p. 31).

largely dropped out of knowledge in later times.³ In summer, snow melt from the mountains swelled these rivers so that they flooded the broad valley floor, leaving behind on their banks, then as now, broad swathes of fertile soil—‘dripping with ghee’ (RV 8.59.4)—which were used primarily for animal husbandry and to a far lesser degree for cultivation. The doabs—dry plates between these rivers which ³ Of the various lists that mention these ‘Seven Rivers’ none matches any of the others, so that it is difficult to say specifically which rivers were meant. When referred to collectively as ‘the Seven Rivers’ without individual names, the poets most likely had in mind major rivers such as the Indus, the Vitastā, the Vipāś, the Asiknī, the Parus: nī, : the Śutudrī, and the Sarasvatī. ‘Seven’ thus stands for, as so often in the Rgveda, the entirety, or an indeterminate multitude (‘all’). See O, Die Religion des Rgveda, : : Part Two, Wien 1999, pp. 72–4.

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3

form the other characteristic feature of this strip of land—lacked the lush vegetation that thrives near water. These are expansive grasslands where trees grow only at great distances from one another. There is little rainfall here, and even the monsoon bestows its precious water only sparingly upon the Punjab region beyond the mountain crags. These Vedic tribes did not build cities. They settled in villages, in houses and huts, and sought safety behind wooden palisades when they were under attack, taking their belongings with them. Not least of these last were the cattle and other animals which they kept in large herds, necessitating the ‘vast space’ for which they appealed to the gods in the Rgveda time and again. Pastoral farming far : outweighed agriculture in importance. Thus they lacked a specific agricultural deity, and in place of a Demeter or Ceres-like myth the Vedic tribes handed down a legend that told of how their ancestors, with divine assistance, laid claim to the abundance of nourishment that comes from cows. And like their relatives beyond the Hindu Kush, they preserved a legend from the earliest times that told of how a hero captured cows for them (see pp. 169–71). The Vedic tribes raised cattle [15] and sheep first and foremost. The most important product obtained from cows—aside from the calf, or ‘yearling’ (vatsá)—was milk, from which they made a wide variety of dairy products already known to the Indo-Europeans. Meat and hides were taken primarily from the male animals, although infertile and young females (vehát, vaśā)́ were probably slaughtered as well: ‘Agni, whose food is young bulls, whose food is young cows, upon whose back is the Soma, the sacrificer—[16] we would like to sate him with our praises’ (RV 8.43.11). The same can be said of sheep, which were additionally kept for their wool. The significance of wool processing can be discerned from the extensive technical vocabulary relating to it. Particularly for their chariots, without which the rapid ‘conquest’ of northwestern India would not have been possible, the Vedic tribes bred horses that they held in high honour (see p. 90). Horses also played a major role in the tournaments held by the tribes—‘aristocratic’ contests for glory—at least some of which were anything but (mere) sporting events, but also served to determine the chieftain or chieftains (see p. 13). In addition to animal husbandry, the Vedic tribes did engage in agriculture, though not to any great extent.⁴ The main crop was barley (yáva), as it was both resilient and had a short growth cycle⁵ and thus could be harvested twice a year,

⁴ It does say, however, in RV 10.42.10: ‘With cattle would we, o much-invoked, overcome the dire want, with grain every hunger’. ⁵ The Kāt:haka knew: ‘Hence the grain ripens twice in a year’ (tasmād dvis sam : vatsarasya sasyam : pacyate, ΧΙΧ 7: 8.10). It was noted by Megasthenes as well: Μεγασθένης δὲ τὴν εὐδαιμονίαν τῆς Ἰνδικῆς ἐπισημαίνεται τῶι δίκαρπον εἶναι καὶ δίφορον, καθάπερ καὶ Ἐρατοσθένης ἔφη, τὸν μὲν εἰπὼν σπόρον χειμερινὸν τὸν δὲ θερινόν, Strabo 15, 1, 20 (Fragmente griechischer Hstoriker (FGrH) 715 F 8). And the same is found in Diodor 2.35–6 (FGrH 715 F 4) [337].

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    . 

making it ideal for tribes that were frequently forced to move on.⁶ Unlike keeping livestock, successful cultivation of cereals was largely dependent on the ability to keep enemies away from the fields until after a harvest. It seems that the Vedic tribes got by to a large degree without cultivation of grain, choosing instead to concentrate their efforts on carrying out raids against the indigenous population, from whom they stole both grain and livestock. As in so many archaic societies, stealing livestock was one of the main reasons for combat and ‘war’.⁷ This can be seen clearly not least of all from the many pleas directed at Indra for the possession of livestock and the many ‘cattle stealing myths’ frequently alluded to in the Rgveda. :

1.2 yóga and ks: éma: The settlements of the Vedic tribes ́ a (‘Aryan name’),⁸ as the Vedic tribes call In their new homeland, the āŕ yam nām themselves (RV 10.49.3)—conspicuously echoing the nomen Latinum—had to fight the native population, who are repeatedly referred to as dark-skinned (including e.g. RV 1.130.8).⁹ The battles waged against the original inhabitants of northwestern India form the background of the Rgvedic hymns. The indigen: ́ ous people are called Dásyu or Dāsa in these songs—names that the text also gives to demons and other antigods. And the battles, too, that were fought over the land converge almost indistinguishably with the mythical victories of the gods over their enemies. It is sufficiently clear from the text, however, that these battles ended in victory for the immigrants, with the aboriginals pushed out to rougher terrain or even subjugated as vassals of the Āryas. These conquests could be achieved because—in the view of the Vedic poets—the Dasyus were ‘godless’ (RV 10.38.3), ‘without creed’ (RV 7.6.3), lived ‘without vows [made to the gods]’ (RV 1.51.8, 130.8) and because they ‘did not worship [the gods]’ (RV 7.6.3). One of the poets actually referred to them as ‘non-humans’ (RV 10.22.8), who were also ‘mouthless’ (i.e. without ‘human’ language) ‘and of evil speech’ (RV 5.29.10). The settlement modes of the Vedic tribes in their new homeland alternated between peaceful dwelling—or ‘settling’ (ks: éma) as it is called in the Rgveda—on : ⁶ Rice, although grown by cultures of late Indus civilization, seems to have played no part in the subsistence of the Vedic tribes. ⁷ To ‘portion out the sustenance [i.e. the wealth] of the non-sacrificer’ (RV 2.26.1) was of paramount importance. ⁸ Herodotus, 7,62, knew the name Arioi as a name for the Medes: οἱ δὲ Μῆδοι . . . ἐκαλέοντο πάλαι πρὸς πάντων Ἄριοι. The word is often written as Ἀρια-, Ἀριο- (Aria-/Ario) in Graecised Iranian proper names. ⁹ Concerning the physical appearance of the Aryans, on the other hand, the Rgveda is silent. This : alone is enough to show that seeing—or wanting to see—the designation of a certain ‘race’ in the name Ārya is and always has been wrong.

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5

the one hand and ‘yoking’ (yóga), when fighting or seeking new territory (cf. RV 7.54.3), on the other.¹⁰ This form of living and habitation was certainly entailed in part by the steady influx of more tribes coming over the Hindu Kush, arriving in an area that did not have enough space for all. As can be discerned from the Rgvedic hymns, the battles for new lands all had the fertile river valleys as their : prize, as every tribe strove [18] to settle near water: ‘We call upon you therefore in the battle on [this] earth for offspring, for cattle and for water’ (RV 6.19.12). One of the hymns of the Rgveda shows vividly how the migratory movements of the : Vedic tribes centred around rivers. The Rgvedic poets frequently evoke the image : of winning the sun when recounting the conquest of such locales. There were constant battles for these areas, both against the indigenous peoples already living there and against other Āryas. ‘May we vanquish Dāsa and Ārya with you as our companion in arms’ (RV 10.83.1), entreats one poet. And so prevailed a state of ‘hardship’ (ám : has) that led another to exclaim: ‘We have come here to a field that has no grazing, o gods; the land, although broad, has yet become narrow!’ (RV 6.47.20). This was remedied, albeit to a small degree,¹¹ by using slash-and-burn agriculture to make the land arable:¹² ‘The gods came; they carried axes; hewing the trees, they arrived with the settlements’ (RV 10.28.8). The strongest desire was for ‘broad pasture lands and security’ (RV 7.77.4, 9.78.5). The Vedic tribes lived in ‘settlements’ (víś).¹³ Surrounded by ‘godless’ peoples (RV 6.49.15),¹⁴ the settlements formed ‘tribes’ (k:r:s:t í, ks: ití, cars: an: í, jána), which in turn constituted the ‘Five Peoples’ (páñca jánāh: ). These are understood to be the entirety of all Āryas, although one’s own tribe is thought of as central, with the others settled around it at the four points of the compass: ‘When the Viś belonging to the Five Peoples had sent up its cries to Indra, he laid low the strangers through the power of his enragement. He is the peaceful dwelling of the house’ (RV 8.63.7). Taking the settlements of the Maruts¹⁵ as the divine counterpart, we see that those of the Vedic tribes were conjoined through kinship or considered to be so. Thus each was a sort of clan. Judging from the structure of the Rgveda (see pp. 22–3) and : the indications of various ‘family religions’ and ‘family cults’ that remained largely ¹⁰ On the interaction between this way of life and the religious system of the Vedic tribes, see pp. 82–6. On the meaning of the word yoga- see also M, Die Bedeutung von yoga- im Rigveda. Saddharmām:rtam—Festschrift für Jens-Uwe Hartmann zum 65. Geburtstag. Wien 2018, 329–43. ¹¹ For clearing land on a larger scale, iron tools are evidently indispensable. But iron was apparently unknown at that time, at least in the early Vedic period. ¹² This calls to mind the saga of The Great Migration of the Aryans, wherein it is said: ‘Agni has burnt over all the rivers’ (Śatapatha Brāhmana : I 4,1.14). ¹³ The word víś designates both the location in which a group settles, a settlement—battles are fought over víś, or space for settlements (RV 7.56.22)—as well as the group itself who settles there. ¹⁴ Here we have the familiar paradigm land—‘surrounding (= non-)land’. ¹⁵ The Viś of the Maruts are spoken of in the Rgveda (RV 1.39.5, 5.56.1, 8.12.29, 8.13.28; cf. also : 2.30.11 and 9.88.7), albeit not nearly as frequently as later. Here they are said to be ‘of the same nest’ (RV 1.165.1, 7.56.1) and ‘brothers’ (RV 1.170.2). What is remarkable is that Indra, whose comrades in arms they are (RV 3.51.8, 5.52.2, 53.16, 6.48.11), is not their Viśpati; rather, the relationship of the Maruts and Indra is apparently that of víśah: and rā j́ ā.

6

    . 

separate, these [19] clans were—at least primarily—the families that can be perceived in the ‘Books’ of the Rgveda, including the G:rtsamadas and others (see p. 22). : The settlements, in turn, are each made up of multiple ‘houses’ (g:rhá) where extended families including several generations lived together. These will have numbered some twenty to fifty family members, if the living arrangements that prevail to this day are any indication. Houses, settlements, and tribes formed the settlement units of the Vedic immigrants. In accord with the alternation between the times of ‘yoking’ and of ‘settling’ (see p. 4), smaller units joined to make up larger groups, and then split up again. While in times of settling (ks: éma) the ‘house’ was the standard unit with regard to questions of organisation, production and protection, in times of ‘yoking’ (yóga) it was the Víś—in which individual houses were merged to some extent—and also the tribe. The names given to the larger units in which ‘settlements’ converged vary and are at best only poorly attested in the text of the Rgveda. For the most part, : ‘settlements’ are only mentioned in plural: ‘The dawns are marshalled like yoked settlements’ (RV 7.79.2). In some instances, however, these are also denoted by one of the words meaning ‘tribe’: ‘The tribes (ks: ití) think only of yoking, almighty one, urging one another to capture victory of the floods’ (RV 4.24.4).

1.3 Power structures As described previously, the living arrangements of the Vedic tribes were subject to a constant fission-and-fusion process, as the ethnologists call it, and this is mirrored in their systems of power and authority as well. During the time of ‘yoking’, the settlements—presumably in the person of their leaders, the Viśpatis, the ‘Lords of the Settlement’—selected a king¹⁶: ‘They, on choosing [Indra] [20] as clans choose a king, turned away from Vr: tra in abhorrence’ (RV 10.124.8; cf. 10.173, Atharvaveda III 4.2).¹⁷ The hymns of the Rgveda emphasise again and : again the importance of the office of king during times of battle and war.¹⁸ It is also said repeatedly that one king is selected. Indra—and only Indra—is the one king, chosen for the position by all deities: ¹⁶ The concept of ‘kingship’ was presumably already known to the Indo-European peoples. That S felt the need to deny the Indo-Europeans this institution (The Vedic Word for ‘King’, Journal of the American Oriental Society 105 [1985] 543–8; see id., Sacred Kingship, Warlords, and Nobility, Essays in Honour of J. C. Heesterman, Leiden 1992, pp. 309–22) is based on a linguistic argument that is assuredly false. After all, we can safely assume that what he deems a ghost-word, rāj́ - (‘king’), is the root noun derived from Proto-Indo-European *h₃rēĝ- which has the same [338] meaning (see O, König Somas Kriegszug, Studien zur Indologie und Iranistik 15 [1989] 77–8 fn. 32). ¹⁷ The Pañcavimśa Brāhmana : : expresses the close relationship between king and settlement by referring to the king as ‘the embryo (garbha) of the Viś’ (II 7.5). ¹⁸ A topos that is also prevalent in the Brāhmanas: : ‘The Devas and the Asuras assembled [for battle] in these worlds. . . . There the Asuras defeated the [Devas]. Then the Devas spoke: “Truly, because we are without a king, [the Asuras] defeat us. We want to make [for ourselves] a king”. There they made Soma their king. With Soma as king the Devas conquered all directions’ (Aitareya Brāhmana : I 14,

  

7

Thus all the gods, the helpers so receptive to our invocation, and both halves of the world, selected you, o Indra, bearer of the cudgel, so great, so strengthened and upstanding, as the one to battle V:rtra.¹⁹ The gods placed themselves in your care as were they old men; you, o Indra, became the sole ruler. . . . You did slay the serpent that beleaguered the water. You did dig out the courses [of] the allnourishing [streams]. (RV 4.19.1–2).

As Sátpati, as ‘Lord of the Dwellings’,²⁰ the king holds control over the lands won under his rule.²¹ It is he who divides it, through the individual Viśpatis, among the members of his ‘settlement’ (víś) for living space.²² Once again it is emphasised that ‘Indra is the one Lord of the Dwellings’ (RV 5.32.11). When the yoking phase is at an end, the king’s function as warrior is in abeyance and he acts—alongside the Viśpatis—as a ‘peacetime king’ until the next ‘decampment’: Varuna : ‘abides, settles’,²³ while Indra (once again) ‘vanishes’ (see p. 83). Only against this background does the dictum of King Trasadasyu, ‘I am Indra, [I am] Varuna’ : (RV 4.42.3) unfold its full meaning. This king is a king in war and peace, clearly as an incarnation of the gods named.²⁴ This is in perfect alignment with the later ritual consecration of the king, in which it is proclaimed: Him, o gods, call out as sole ruler and universal ruler, . . . as king, as father of kings. . . . [Now] the sovereignty is born, [now] the sovereign is born, . . . , [now] the destroyer of the ramparts is born, [now] the killer of the Asuras is born, [now] the guardian of the brahman is born, [now] the protector of the order is born. . . . Varuna, : the vows [21] to whom are always kept, has settled himself . . . in universal sovereignty . . . in kingship. (Aitareya Brāhman: a VIII 12; quite similar to VII 17)²⁵ cf. Kaus: ītaki Brāhmana : VII 10). We have a similar theme in the Iliad as well: Agamemnon was chosen as the military commander only to lead the Achaean alliance against Troy. Yet in that position, total decision-making authority was in his hands. ¹⁹ RV 8.12.22 says: ‘Indra was placed to the fore by the gods, that he slay V:rtra’. ́ : rā j́ ā, ‘King of the Dwellings’. ²⁰ In one instance, the Rgveda (5.2.6) refers to the king as vasā m : ²¹ It is important to note that the king is termed rāj́ an sátpati in various instances (RV 1.54.7, 130.1), because all stanzas in which the word sátpati occurs in the Rgveda have something to do with battle and : looting (cf. RV 6.13.3). The allocation of this epithet is entirely characteristic: With few exceptions, it is bestowed exclusively on Indra (of all forty-six instances, twenty-nine refer to Indra), and only Agni is designated more than once as sátpati (RV 6.16.19, 51.13, 60.6, 10.65.2 [the latter two, however, pertain to Indra and Agni together], cf. 2.1.4). Otherwise, only Varuna : and Mitra (RV 5.65.2), the Ādityas (RV 6.51.4), Soma (RV 1.91.5), Rudra (RV 2.33.12), Savit:r (RV 5.82.7 [this verse speaks of the ‘selection’ of the Satpati]), and Aryaman (RV 2.1.4) are accorded this designation. ²² Compare RV 4.20.8, 26.2, 5.27.1–2, 6.4.4 and 30.2. It seems the Viś subsequently owed tribute to the ‘Lord of the Dwelling’ (RV 10.173.6, cf. 7.6.5 and 9.7.5). The epithet cars: an: iprā ́ may also denote the task of land distribution (‘filling the boundaries, the settled domains’), a term used once to designate Agni (RV 4.2.13) and otherwise conferred only upon Indra. ²³ Note that also in the royal proclamation cited later, [339] from the Aitareya Brāhmana, : it says, ‘Varuna : has settled himself . . . in universal sovereignty’. ²⁴ The Aṅgiras were also significantly involved in his birth (see pp. 189–90 fn. 152). ²⁵ See L, Kleine Schriften, Wiesbaden 1978, p. 276.

8

    . 

While in time of war the power structure was monarchic—all positions being subordinate to one (warrior) king, ‘under whose command are the horses, the cattle, the men, the chariots, all . . . : he, o peoples, is Indra’ (RV 2.12.7)²⁶—in peacetime the organisation was polyarchic or, more precisely, anarchic, as the Viśpati—perhaps together with the king, but then as primi inter pares—had only limited authority over the ‘Lords of the Houses’ (g:rhápati). Power and authority lay first and foremost with the individual pater familias. His word was law over everyone who belonged to his household. And of them all, only he was in fact a member of the Viś. In peacetime, the individual ‘householders’—each house has its ‘lord’—were the sustaining elements. Agni is the divine counterpart, the archetype of the Gr: hapati (RV 6.48.8), the omnipresent god in all houses at all times, ‘the houselord who is never absent’, as RV 8.60.19 calls him. Chief of the ‘settlement’ is the Viśpati.²⁷ He holds this ‘office’ in both the time of ‘yoking’ and that of ‘settling’. While he is like the others in his obligation to take part in battle, his primary function is to carry out the sacrifice. To act as Hot:r and ‘messenger’ (dūtá) of the Viś is his special task. Thus he represents the settlement outwardly, including towards the gods in the sacrifice.²⁸ Agni is also the prototypical Viśpati, who is always present in the Viś, who is the epitome of Hotr: and messenger, and a warrior god besides. This is why RV 1.127.8 also calls him ‘the Lord of all Viś’. The G:rhapati and Viśpati, at their core, represent the same structure of power, with the only difference being in the area of authority: one comprehends the [22] settlement as the ‘extended’ house, in which the same activities take place as in the private household.²⁹ Whereas the authority/power of the G:rhapati is limited to the house, the ‘settlement’ comprises the area within which the Viśpati reigns. Each of

²⁶ That this monocephalic organisation is reminiscent of that of the Vrātyas, who led the lives of yóga, is surely not coincidental. The significant expression (senānī ŕ . . . gan: ásya) rā j́ ā vrāt́ asya prathamó is seen again in RV 10.34.12: ‘He who is commander of your great regiment, the first of your alliance’. ²⁷ Although in some respects exceeding the bounds of the provable, the remarks of K, Das Ritual der Feuergründung, p. 177 fn. 451, are apposite: Viś and Viśpati (Grāma and Grāmanī)—an Aryan tribe with its leader—this is the earliest : tangible social framework, the divine archetype of which, in the RV, is seen in the Maruts (warriors and priest-chanters) with Indra (warrior and Kavi). To use the later caste designations, one would have to formulate it as follows: all people are ‘Vaiśyas’; alternating in function between ‘Brahmans’ (priests) and ‘Ks: atriyas’ (warriors), they are pastoral and warlike nomadic tribes who sometimes live as settled farmers. (cf. ibid. p. 240 fn. 591.) ²⁸ Of the thirty-three instances of the word viśpáti in the Rgveda, ten refer with absolute clarity, and : seven with adequate clarity, to the sacrifice. The connection to battle/war recedes into the background by comparison, as it is mentioned only in RV 8.23.13/14 and 60.19. Due to the correlation between authority and sacrifice rituals, this fact is not to be interpreted to the effect that the Viśpati is a kind of ‘religious functionary’. Rather, because he is Viśpati, he carries out the sacrifice. ²⁹ Naturally, only a G:rhapati could hold the office of Viśpati: ‘You, the lord of all Viś, houselord common to all [houses], we call’ (RV 1.127.8).

  

9

them is both a priest and a warrior king in one person; each is the outward representative of the circle of persons who are subordinate to him.³⁰ What presents a certain problem is the mutual delimitation of the areas in which the Viśpati and the ‘peacetime king’ function. Here it is helpful to examine the relationship between Agni, the Viśpati per se, and Varuna, : the peacetime king, as presented in the Rgveda. Agni is often called upon to ‘protect [us] from : Varunaʼs malicious whims’ (RV 1.128.7) and ‘placate the rancour of Varuna, : : [and] . . . to reconcile Varuna : [through sacrifice]’ (RV 4.1.4–5). This can be better understood against the background of the legal setting in this tribal society, as responsibility for the actions of the individual lay not with that individual, but rather with the clan. As the highest authority, the Viśpati—and on the divine level, Agni—was responsible for the activities of the members of his Viś and had to represent them before and vis-à-vis the ‘peacetime king’—on the divine level, Varuna—who dispensed justice. Thus we can presume that the ‘peacetime king’ : would intervene when a (legal) matter affected more than one Viś. It is notable that to a certain extent, the shadowy nature of the ‘peacetime king’ corresponds to the shadowy nature of a greater number of persons than the Viś actually is.

1.4 Tournaments and the selection of ‘Indra’ The Vedic tribes were constantly at war with the indigenous populations in the region of the ‘Seven Rivers’ as well as with any Āryas who had settled there before them. Every victory they won was attributed to the god Indra, who had fought at their side: ‘These are victorious, who have Indra on their side’ [23] (RV 8.16.5).³¹ He fought in the person of the warrior chieftain in whom he had manifested. King Trasadasyu was not the only one who could proclaim, ‘I am Indra, [I am] Varuna’ : (see p. 7). The god’s caprice, however, and the arbitrariness with which he took sides—‘One friendship he discards, another he takes up going with unsteady impulse’ (RV 6.47.17), ‘[The one] you help to become ruler, [the other] you did

³⁰ One problem is the question of whether the Viśpati is always the ruler of only one Viś, just as the ́ : viśpáti and viśām ́ : páti, to which Gr: hapati always rules over only one house. Designations such as viśām ́ páti- and viśpáti-, Münchener Studien zur the secondary literature (in particular Z, viśām Sprachwissenschaft 44 [1985] 291–304) refers, seem to indicate that the Viśpati can rule over multiple Viś. Yet a careful examination of the relevant passages shows beyond doubt that only [340] viśpáti appears there as a fixed title. According to G’ dictionary—to name but one example—the ́ : viśpáti is documented in the following places: RV 3.2.10, 3.13.5, 5.4.3, 6.1.8, 7.7.4, designation viśām 9.108.10, 10.92.1 (cf. also 7.39.2). In point of fact, however, we have recourse only to RV 3.13.5 ́ ́ ) and 10.92.1 (viśpátim ́ : |hótāram), and possibly also 7.7.4 (viśām (hótāram : viśpátim : viśām : viśām ́ : váhnir ná viśpátih: ), to document the mere existence of adhāyi viśpátir duron: é) and 9.108.10 (viśām ́ : kavím this construction, whereas in 3.2.10, 5.4.3, and 6.1.8 (viśām : viśpátim), the genitive is arguably connected with the word directly next to it. ³¹ Compare Kāt:haka IX 14: 116.7 ‘[At] whose [side] Indra is, they win in battle’ (es: ām indro bhavati te sam : grāmam : jayanti).

10

    . 

not help, o Indra, Lord of Strength’ (RV 8.37.6)—gave rise to doubts of his very existence. Hence the urgent question, ‘Where is this . . . bull [Indra]?’ (RV 8.64.7). The answer was simply: ‘Who knows him . . . ? He is the one who breaks the ramparts [of the enemy camp]’ (RV 8.33.7). Indra, the invincible vanquisher, whose very being is victoriousness, who can never succumb, always manifests himself in the victor of a battle. And thus it was that, when ‘the men selected Indra for their raids’ (RV 10.147.2), they had to choose the winner of a fight, the ‘human’ Indra. And indeed this was a purpose of their contests, which—as the hymns of the Rgveda and post-Rgvedic texts make very clear—were more than a mere : : aristocratic competition for glory. As ‘Indra’, the victor not only wins the contest but also gains power; he attains and secures authority while simultaneously legitimating his claim to it. Moreover, such competitions apparently also determined how goods were distributed, which is why Bhaga, god of apportionment, was often petitioned for support in these contests (see pp. 108–9). As far as may be perceived in the hymns of the Rgveda, the selection of ‘Indra’ : was determined primarily through chariot races and verbal contests. The inclusion of a ‘dice game’ among these competitions is thought to be at least probable,³² as judging by RV 1.132.1 it apparently counted among the contests held during the New Year’s festival (see pp. 15–17). And the contested prize is described there in terms similar to those characterising the object of the other two forms of competition: ‘. . . striving for the victor’s prize, . . . which [consists in the] winning of the sun’ (RV 1.132.1–2). [24] The younger Vedic ritual texts show us a variety of contexts—duels, verbal contests, chariot races, archery competitions and dice games—as components of the cult, and in particular of the Soma rituals.³³ That this was already the case in the days of the Rgveda is made clear in various ways: ‘That about which the two : dispute, the lower and upper³⁴—who of us two leaders of the sacrifice knows it

³² This ‘game’ was played as follows: two players sat on either side of a game pit, located in the Sabhā (see p. 11 fn. 36). The pit, constructed to resemble a salt pan, contained 150 nuts. One of the two players would reach into the pile with both hands and take out a large quantity of nuts in one ‘grab’ (gláha). The object was to then gradually reduce the amount in the ‘grab’ by subtracting four nuts at a time, with victory or defeat being determined by the remainder. If there were four nuts left at the end, these could be subtracted, and the ‘grab’ was completely reduced to zero. That meant this player had won the game and he was declared śvaghnín, the ‘killer of the dog’, where ‘the dog’ was already an Indo-European term for a losing throw of the dice, as proved by the Latin canis and the Greek κύων/kyōn (see S, Kleine Schriften, Göttingen 1933, pp. 223–4). If only one nut was left—the káli—the player lost to his opponent (the texts provide no information on the procedure with a remainder of two or three nuts). The important point in this context is that the leader, the ‘foremost of the alliance’ (vrāt́ asya prathamáh: , RV 10.34.12), seems to have been determined with the help of this ‘dice game’ (see F, Bruderschaft und Würfelspiel, Freiburg 1986, p. 107). ³³ These took place for the most part before the Mahendragraha, ‘probably the ritualised form of a first drink of Soma for the winner (Indra), who had identified himself in the preceding contests and through the distribution of the spoils of battle (Daks: inā : handover) as Indra v:rtrahā and maghavā’ (K, Der Vanis: t:husava und Indras Offenbarung, Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde Südasiens 19 [1975] 34 [341] fn. 28). Compare, for example, Śatapatha Brāhmana : V 1,4,1–2 and Āpastamba Śrautasūtra XVIII 4,1 (cf. ibid. XVIII 15,10, XX 19,11, and XXI 19,1). ³⁴ O, Noten ad loc., surmises that this refers to the Hot:r and another priest.

  

11

with certainty?’ (RV 10.88.17). And there is much to indicate that these contests were held publicly. The verbal contests in particular were apparently held in the Sabhā, in the ‘hall’ that lay to the south outside the settlement,³⁵ where the ruling class of the Vedic tribes gathered³⁶ and selected their leader.

1.4.1 Verbal contests Indra is not only a powerful warrior, but also a great poet and a wise visionary: ‘Indra is a poet, Indra is a seer’ (RV 8.16.6, cf. 5.29.1, 7.18.2, 8.6.41, 16.7). He loves hymns and songs and approaches from afar (RV 1.130.1, 3.37.12, 4.24.3), ‘carried by them’ (see p. 30), to be with humans. Most of all, however, the ‘Lord of Formulation’ (bŕ̥haspáti) appreciated the poetry created in contests inducing him to manifest: ‘Bring, as you seek the prize,³⁷ Indra in good manner a song of praise, true praise, if he truly be. “There is no Indra”, say some. “Who has seen him, whom shall we praise?”—“Here I am, o singer! See me here!” . . .’ (RV 8.100.3–4). It is the winner of such a contest in whom Indra manifests: I am the killer of rivals, like Indra unscathed, uninjured. Under my feet be the rivals, all those who came against me! Exactly here I bind you all, like the ends of a bow with the bowstring. Lord of Speech! Hold them down, that I may make them inferior to me in debate! . . . Having seized your yoking [25] and your settling, I would be the highest! On your head have I trodden. (RV 10.166.2–3/5ab)

These word duels—called ‘combat, battle’ RV 1.152.7 (pŕ̥tanā), ‘meeting, contest’ RV 6.9.2 (samará)³⁸—were fought either within a single group (for example, if the position of leader was to be decided) or between two or even several groups ³⁵ The Atharvaveda in particular includes a number of songs about leadership contests held in the Sabhā, such as Atharvaveda II 27 and VII 12. But also the tenth book of the Rgveda contains two hymns : of this type, RV 10.166 and 10.191. ³⁶ See K, Das Ritual der Feuergründung, Wien 1982, p. 345. Falk brought together all the passages pertaining to the Sabhā for evaluation, and came to the following conclusion: The scattered relics show that the term Sabhā originally had sharper contours. Among these were the godhead Rudra with the killing of cows in the Sabhā, as well as the sexual debauchery, alcohol, and the relationship of the location, and those gathered there, to the dead. The Sabhā once lay in the wilderness; was, in a way, impure. Companions met there, probably at the time of the Śiśira. There in the wilderness the leader of the group was determined or confirmed. (Bruderschaft und Würfelspiel, Freiburg 1986, p. 99) ³⁷ The contest for the prize is fought with the hymns named subsequently (cf. RV 6.24.6: ‘To you, who are so, they came as the horses to the contest, competing with these fair hymns for the prize, o you, who are transported here by the songs’). On RV 8.100, see O, Kleine Schriften, Wiesbaden 1967, pp. 476–82, as well as his Noten on this hymn, and K, Der Vanis: t:husava und Indras Offenbarung, Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde Südasiens 19 (1975) 59–60. ³⁸ In ‘Traumschlüssel des Jagaddeva’ (II 53) they are mentioned alongside ‘dispute and battle with enemies’ (ed. by  N, Gießen 1912, p. 259).

12

    . 

(in the event of hostilities between them) in accordance with specified rules.³⁹ The groups were then likely represented by their leaders⁴⁰ or ‘poets’.⁴¹ A battle of words⁴² begins with a challenge that cannot be declined. The one challenged must answer the challenger with an artfully coded response, often a ‘dark’ answer to a question of the same ilk.⁴³ The challenger, in turn, must then respond in like manner. This exchange continues until a silence serves as admission that the limits of one’s knowledge have been reached. It was strictly forbidden to ‘question beyond [one’’s own knowledge]’ (ati-√p:rcch) and ‘to speak beyond [such limits]’ (ati-√vad). This would mean defeat, and—as it was called by the Upanis: ads—the ‘bursting of the head’, apparently meaning death at the hands of one’s opponent. When a verbal contest had been chosen for determining ‘Indra’, the winner embodied one of the ideals of Vedic society. Indeed, poetic-mantic skills were held to be as important as physical strength. Both the strength that lends the contestant the ability to fight—the ks: atrá—and the inspirational power of the bráhman are required of a leader. He must be simultaneously warrior and ‘poet-priest;’ an incarnation of Indra-B:rhaspati (see pp. 116–17): The poet speaking in the Sabhā gains the prize through his [formulated] thoughts. He whose enmity is permanent, who in accordance with his power calls in the debts [of the loser],⁴⁴ who is victorious in the gathering, he is the Lord

³⁹ What emerges from the younger Vedic texts is that ‘in the brahmódya . . . question and answer are exchanged among multiple speakers, at times in ritually fixed verses (as during the well-known brahmódya- of the horse sacrifice), but also in free, improvised speech. This may have to do with battle; with rivalry among different parties. They challenge each other (hantainam : brahmodyam āhvayāmahai Śat. Br. XI 4,1,2). A team made up of many elects one especially strong disputer as their vīra- (ibid.). He provides [342] victory and defeat (na vai jātu yus: mākam imam : kaścid brahmodyam : jetā Śat. Br. XIV 6,8,1; see also XI 6,2,5) (O, Kleine Schriften, Wiesbaden 1967, pp. 1136–7). ⁴⁰ As it says in Śatapatha Brāhmana : XI 4,1,2: ‘Come, let us challenge him to a Brahmodya!’—‘With which champion?’ (hántainam : brahmódyam āhvayāmahā íti—kéna vīrén: éti). ⁴¹ A special kind of verbal contest was the battle of words carried out between opponents before the beginning of combat, in which each boasted of his own superiority and degradingly vilified the attributes of the other: ‘Even this [V:rtra], who . . . in the sunless dark had grown so strong, has struck the bull Indra, intoxicated from the pressed [Soma], dead, after he did [beforehand] taunt him in a loud voice’ (RV 5.32.6). Such ‘taunting creates heroic strength’ (Kāt:haka VII 15: 78.20). In the Iliad, moreover, this manner of opening combat is well known (Iliad Η 37–42, Λ 378–95). The race mentioned on p. 20 between Aži Dahāka and the fire is also accompanied by a diatribe (Yt. 19.47–48). ⁴² Thus RV 10.125.5/6c, in a hymn to Vāc, the goddess of ‘speech’, can be interpreted as meaning: ‘Whom I love, him I make the powerful one, the brahmán, the seer, the sage. . . . I make the people dispute/battle’. See pp. 153–4. ⁴³ After all, in the Atharvaveda these verbal duels are also called ‘interrogation’ (prā ś́ ). That this is one of the characteristic elements of these verbal battles is shown most elegantly in RV 10.88.17–18. There the term upaspíjam is used, which appears to designate a trick question (see K, The Riddle of the sp(h)ij-. La Langue Poétique Indo-Européenne [ed. by G.-J. P and D. P], Leuven—Paris 2006, pp. 157–94). ⁴⁴ The winner of a verbal contest is Brahmanaspati, the ‘Lord of Formulation’, another name : for B:rhaspati. As such, he gains the prize: cows, which he then drives out as his winnings (on this, see p. 175 fn. 67). These are the debts to be collected by Brahmanaspati; the ‘stake’ in Brahmodya :

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of Formulation. The battle fury of Brahmanaspati, intending to perform a great : deed, has manifested, as desired by him [26] who drove out the cows and disbursed them across the heavens. Like a mighty river [the herd] run in separate ways through his strength. (RV 2.24.13–14)

Such a Rājars: i, still considered the ideal monarch as late as in the Arthaśāstra (I 6–7), had an especially close relationship with Soma, which is important for his legitimation (see pp. 17–20). Because Soma himself is both poet and warrior.

1.4.2 Chariot races Aside from verbal contests, chariot racing was the primary method of selecting ‘Indra’; here too, he incarnated in the winner: ‘Indra, the munificent, makes the chariot that strives for the prize, that he has mounted, forward striving (= makes the . . . chariots advance quickly) as the herdsman guides the herds with his calls. Unscathed he goes forward as the first who seeks to win [the prize]’ (RV 5.31.1). The track used for these races was a long, wide, smooth path lined with wood beams, marked at one end by a wooden post—the Meta. When all the chariots were in position, the race was started, and the chariot drivers urged the horses forward. The contestants raced furiously towards the post and had to drive round it clockwise without touching it and return to the starting point, which was thus also the end. The first to cross the finish line achieved both ‘everlasting glory’ (cf. RV 8.19.6) and the promised prize, which could consist of cattle and horses (cf. RV 4.31.14) or even women (see p. 105 and 253). Both Soma and the sun, however, are also named among prizes that could be won—by ‘Indra’—in a chariot race [27].

1.4.3 The first drink of Soma Particularly post-Rgvedic texts, which demonstrate the enduring popularity of : competitions, report that Soma was the prize in chariot races: ‘Chariots are raced by the [the participants] to gain the prize. . . . A bowl of madhu (Soma) they bring to the Brahman-priest. From the Brahman-priest in turn he purchases with it [the prize] for himself ’ (Maitrāyanī I 11.7: 168.18–19/169.12). The winner, : Samhitā : the (human) ‘Indra’, is entitled to it. What is specially significant is that it has in some instances been made clear that the prize consists in taking the first drink of the Soma (see pp. 214–15). If this privilege, in the Rgveda, is accorded to the Hot:r and : which is also mentioned in RV 2.23.17: ‘It is Brahmanaspati who collects the debts, who pursues the : debts, who will slay the deceivers, the keeper of the great truth’. In distributing it, he mirrors Indra’s heroic act of splitting Vala and thus embodies in every way the ideal of a leader [343].

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    . 

if the Hot:r is also ‘selected’ (see pp. 214–16), one may, with all due caution, be permitted to conclude that the leader, who has become such by winning this contest, functions as Hot:r. To put it another way: ‘Indra’ holds the office of the Hot:r. This is decisively confirmed by the solemn Pravara list of the Agnis: t:oma ritual, which names the priests who perform functions in this Soma sacrifice: ‘He chooses . . . the Hot:r with the formula “The Indra, by the power of his Hotr: function . . . [I do select]”’ (Āpastamba-Śrautasūtra XI 19.5–6). This is also the result of the assignment of god and the priestʼs office in a rite of the morning Soma-pressing ritual that was later called :rtuyāja, the existence of which for the Rgvedic cult is proved by RV : 2.36–7 (see pp. 210–11 and 235): ‘Drink, Indra, . . . the Soma by reason of the Hot:r office, to which you have the first claim’ (RV 2.36.1). The fact that the first drink of Soma is mentioned at that point may be seen as confirming the previous ideas. This relationship of god and priest leads to the characteristic attribute of the Rgvedic cult. This is a cult without cult images and without temples, that has no : need of representations in which the gods are ‘embodied’ because the gods are ‘summoned’ and represented by people—the priests—in ritual [28] epiphanies. The pressing question of the Rgvedic person, ‘where is this bull [Indra]?’ (RV : 8.64.7) who fights at his side and helps him to attain victory over his enemies, is thus also asked, and urgently, within the cult: ‘Where is this hero? Who has seen Indra, passing by in a well-hubbed chariot with two dun horses . . . seeking one who presses Soma?’ (RV 5.30.1). Thus it is the serving of the Soma that causes Intra to manifest (see pp. 211–12).

1.4.4 The time at which Indra is selected One of the prizes to be won in these chariot races⁴⁵ is the sun:⁴⁶ ‘On you, o Indra, . . . the men call in the contest whose prize is the sun’ (RV 1.63.6, cf. 1.169.2). To ‘win the sun’—a recurrent topos in the Rgveda hymns (see p. 5)—also means to : breathe fresh ‘vitality’ (vā j́ a) into the cosmos as the new year commences. The chariots and the circuits they drive represent the horse-drawn chariot of the sun crossing the heavens, as evidenced not least of all in the composition of the Soma hymns. The rounding of the Meta by the winning chariot symbolises the return of the sun after the winter solstice. And it was the winner of the chariot race who helped the sun to revive after the darkest day of the year. Thus it can be presumed that a chariot race was held on the last day of the year, and that the one who emerged victorious thus revealed himself as ‘Indra’ who liberated the sun from the dungeon of darkness—the Vala (see p. 170). The ‘epiphany’ of Indra in these contests was a re-enactment of the primordial birth of the god. Indra was ⁴⁵ What follows is applicable mutatis mutandis to verbal contests and dice games. ⁴⁶ It should be mentioned that the chariot races often made ‘the sun the goal’ (cf. Aitareya Brāhmana : IV 7 and Pañcavimśa : Brāhmana : IX 1,35).

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born in the night of the ekās: :t akā, the (theoretically) darkest night of the [29] solar year⁴⁷—the night of the winter solstice: ‘The ekās: :t akā night . . . bore an embryo, Indra . . . . With him the gods conquered their enemies. He became the one who slew the Dasyus⁴⁸ with his might’ (Atharvaveda III 10.12 = Taittirīya-Samhitā IV : 3,11.3).⁴⁹ And so, just as the birth of Indra had brought an end to the primordial chaos and the rule of the Asuras (see pp. 78–81) so long ago, now—as the year comes to a close (and a new one begins); as the steady shortening of the days and lengthening of the nights threatens to bring about a return to the primordial darkness; as the flattening of the sun’s path across the sky seems to return the world to the state of things when heaven and earth lay one atop the other; when, in short, it seems the Asuras are poised to take power once again—now is the time to reiterate the primeval victory of the Devas which had won the world the first time, and to help the sun gain victory over the darkness. Just as the conquest over the hostile powers of the Asuras—and the concomitant dominance of the Devas— were possible only because in Indra a powerful hero had been born whose feats in battle sapped the strength of the Asuras, so a renewed ‘birth’ of Indra must take place every New Year’s eve, to ensure that the power of the Devas which had appeared to wane as the old year ended may be restored, and their continued rule for the coming year assured. Thus, through its New Year’s festival, the society has a hand in perpetuating cosmic and political⁵⁰ order. The basic symbolism of this festival is the turning point from chaos to cosmos and the victory of light over darkness⁵¹—the sun is assisted in passing through the critical point of the winter solstice⁵²—and as the birth of Indra and his winning of the Soma is ritually repeated, so too is his primeval victory over the Asuras [30].

1.4.5 New Year’s day and its festival Both the phases of the moon⁵³ and the celestial path of the sun served to divide the steady flow of time in the Rgvedic era and give it the structure that a calendar : ⁴⁷ The Rgveda seems to tell in various places of the people’s fear that, upon reaching the winter : solstice, the sun might not return but instead sink forever into darkness (see S, B:rhaspati und Indra, Wiesbaden 1968, p. 135). ⁴⁸ This seems to refer to the Asuras, spoken of in the Taittirīya Samhitā. : ⁴⁹ Compare Kāt:haka XIII 3: 182.22–183.2: ‘In the [Ekās: t:akā night] truly was Indra born. He has of all the gods the most of hero’s strength. That is why the animal born in the Ekās: t:akā becomes that which has the most strength’. ⁵⁰ Because the rhythm of the cosmos and that of sovereignty are parallel, the New Year’s festival has an enormous political dimension: cosmos and sovereignty suffer a crisis at the end of the year and require strengthening and renewal. ⁵¹ On the relationship of Us: as to the New Year’s festival, see p. 146. ⁵² On the level of myth, this act corresponds to the liberation of the sun from Vala and/or from the bonds of V:rtra (see p. 172). ⁵³ In the Vedic era the calendar was based on the phases of the moon, so that the unit of time was a lunar month, which has 29¹/₂ days. To reconcile the 354-day lunar year with the 366-day solar year, twelve days were appended to the former. These were the twelve days of the winter solstice, considered

16

    . 

provides. Here the two solstices generally⁵⁴ marked the beginning, middle and end of the year, as the solstices can be determined both easily and with great accuracy. The Gavāmayana ritual mirrored the division of the year—which they divided into 360 days—into a ‘northern path [of the sun]’ half-year, called Uttarāyan: a or Devayāna, which ran from the end of December to the end of June, and a ‘southern path [of the sun]’ half-year, Daks: in: āyana, or Pit:ryāna, making up the other six months. The two halves are divided by the summer and winter solstices. In later times, the two solstices were celebrated ritually on what were called Vis: ūvant Day and Mahāvrata Day. But the festival of the winter solstice, celebrated on the evening of what by todayʼs calendar is 21 December, was the more important of the two and thus saw a more elaborate observance.⁵⁵ Following on the darkest night of the old year, it marked the beginning of the new: according to Śatapatha Brāhmana, : ‘Mahāvrata Day’ was ‘the mouth of the year’ (XII 3,1.8). From the proceedings of Mahāvrata Day together with explanations in the Vedic texts concerning both this festival and Ekās: :t akā,⁵⁶ we can get a fairly good idea of the basic sequence of events at the Rgvedic New Year’s festival⁵⁷ from the songs of : the Rgveda.⁵⁸ What we find is that it took place pāŕ ye diví, on ‘the day belonging to :

an ‘image of the year’ (Kāt:haka VII 15: 79.5–6) and—it may be assumed—celebrated in the Dvādaśāha ritual. Another method—very likely not used until post-Vedic times—to align the lunar and solar years was to add a 13th month (yuga) from time to time, usually at the end of a five-year period. ⁵⁴ It is to be assumed that even as early as in the Rigvedic era, there were several different year beginnings. Thus RV 7.103.9 suggests that the year had also begun with the advent of the rainy season, presumably meaning the summer solstice. For more, see p. 248. ⁵⁵ The Pravargya ritual was celebrated on the Vis: ūvant day, the day of the summer solstice (see p. 247) [344]. ⁵⁶ An objection has been raised that according to various post-Vedic texts, ‘the Ekās: t:akā has a connection with the beginning of the year only to the extent that a beginning of the year could occur on a preceding or subsequent full moon, phālguna or caitra’ (F, Bruderschaft und Würfelspiel, Freiburg 1986, p. 147). But this simply illustrates the shift from the old solar to the younger lunar year: in the former, the year begins and ends in the Ekās: t:akā night, while in the latter, the full moons mentioned mark the end or beginning of the year (citations in J, Beiträge zur Kenntnis der vedischen Chronologie, Nachrichten von der Kgl. Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen, Phil.-hist Klasse 1894, p. 3). ⁵⁷ K provides a summary of his research on the Vedic New Year’s festival in ‘On Zarathustra’s Language’, Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschapen, Mededelingen van de Afdeling Letterkunde, Nieuwe Reeks 41,4, Amsterdam 1978, on p. 30: The characteristic feature of this Aryan ‘winter ritual’ can be summarized in the following points: 1) it took place at the end of the year and its object was a) to overcome a period of crisis by winning (or, finding) the sun and the waters, that is, by reiterating Indra’s demiurgic act b) to win progeny and prolongation of life c) to win wealth and social prestige, ‘fame’ (śrávas-, yáśas-). 2) It seems to have mainly consisted of a) word duels/verbal contests, Ved. vívāc-, LAv. vyāxman- b) chariot-races, which served the purpose of deciding who got ‘fame’ as the winner of the ‘prize proposed’ (dhána-, hitá-, mī:lhá-) and, on the other hand, of helping the sun, by a well-known act of imitative magic, to round the ‘turning point’ c) distribution of wealth (vidátha-), which must have had a potlatch-like character, the sponsors (maghávan-) reiterating Indra’s liberality in the beginning of the world. ⁵⁸ It has been conjectured that in Rgvedic times, the solstice, consecration of a new fire, selection of : Hotr: , and Soma and horse sacrifices were all (with great likelihood) part of one aggregate festival, which in later times was divided into separate rituals (K, Das Ritual der Feuergründung, Wien 1982, pp. 239–40 fn. 590/410). These suppositions cannot, however, be proved.

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the far shore’, which followed the night of the winter solstice.⁵⁹ In competitions, first and foremost in chariot races, the sun was regained⁶⁰ and the darkness conquered, giving the world new life: ‘Trusting in you, o bounteous one, the contender seeks to win the prize on the day belonging to the far shore’ (RV 7.32.14, cf. 6.23.2) [31]. ‘Indra’ is born in the victor of these contests. Thus the competitions serve—as repeatedly noted previously—the establishment of a new leader (or reaffirmation of the current leader) for the coming year.

1.5 Legitimation of authority If the victor of such a contest hoped to hold his position for a long period of time without constantly having to exert direct force, it was essential that he be accepted as a leader. He need not necessarily be accepted as a person, but as the acknowledged holder of an office or as the bearer of insignia, due to his origins or through succession—in short, with regard to the legitimacy of his rule. Because a king in the Rgvedic era was not—or more precisely, was no longer⁶¹—chosen on the : grounds of familial relationship but rather was ‘selected’ (see pp. 6–7), other grounds for legitimation were needed.⁶² One of these was the prize that was set for the winner: the Soma. After all, taking possession of Soma required power, and at the same time legitimised a position that was based on this power. The writers of the Brāhmana : spoke of this quite clearly: ‘Soma truly is princely power’ (ks: atrám vái sómah : : , Śatapatha Brāhmana : III 4,1.10 = 9,3.3 = V 3,5.8), He who, being meet for (/who is entitled to . . . ) a kingship, obtains not a kingship should slaughter [/have slaughtered] to Soma a red-brown [bull]. The kingship is connected with Soma. He shall go to Soma with the [Soma’s] own share. [Soma] bestows on him a kingship. The kingship comes to him. (saumyám babhrúm

⁵⁹ The night came before the day. Like the Gauls (cf. Caesar, De bello gallico VI 18: ob eam causam spatia omnis temporis non numero dierum, sed noctium finiunt; dies natales et mensium at annorum initia sic observant, ut noctem dies subsequatur) and Germanic peoples (cf. Tacitus, Germ. 11: nec dierum numerum, ut nos, sed noctium computant. . . . nox ducere diem videtur), the Vedic Indians did not count the passage of time by days, [345] but rather by nights: ‘Through heaven you go, through the broad space, measuring the days with the nights’ (RV 1.50.7, cf. 2.19.3). ⁶⁰ RV 1.121.7 articulates the hope that ‘the sun may shine forth on the decisive days’, most likely referring to the winter solstice. ⁶¹ Once the point is reached at which rulership is no longer bound to and legitimated by bloodlines, which always happens when a culture has reached a certain level of complexity—and which, as the Rgveda itself shows us, applies to the Vedic society as well—new forms of legitimation become : necessary. ⁶² It seems as though in earlier Rgvedic times, no concept of legitimation had even been outlined. : Religious legitimation of power and authority emerged in the late-Rgvedic era, and is conferred by a : Purohita who is assigned to the king or ruler (see p. 117). And this remains the form of legitimation in post-Rgvedic times. :

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    .  āĺ abheta yám álam : rājyāý a sántam : rājyám : nópanámet|saumyám : vái rājyám : sómam evá svéna bhāgadhéyenópadhāvati|sá evāś mai rājyám práyacchati|úpainam : rājyám II 1,3.3–4)⁶³ : namati.) (Taittirīya Samhitā :

This function of Soma is emphasised in the Rgveda for the most part in Indra : myths, which show the close correlation of battles and competitions, victories, and victors, with Soma. There it is asserted time and again that Soma can be attained only [32] through victory in battle—and this is also the theme of the central Soma myth (see pp. 159–62) which relates how Soma is stolen from heaven—that only taking possession of Soma (usually through violence) makes Indraʼs conquests possible, and that it is the possession of Soma that ensures the endurance of Indraʼs power over time. The function of Soma in legitimating power was likely due, ultimately, to its role as the quintessential sacrificial offering, with its possessor being the sacrificer who was thus in a position to ensure the protection of the gods for himself and his dependants:⁶⁴ ‘The gods seek him who presses [Soma]’ (RV 8.2.18), ‘The hero [Indra] seeks no alliance with him who does not press [Soma]’ (RV 10.42.4). A particularly close relationship is formed between the ‘presser’ of Soma and Indra, the mighty Soma drinker: ‘That king does not falter, in whose home Indra drinks the sharp Soma . . . Here he drives [the cattle] with his warriors, he pummels the resistance, he abides in his dwellings’ (RV 5.37.4). Just as he who is in possession of the Soma makes Indra the first among gods, so does Indra make him, in turn, the foremost of his tribe. The beneficence of such a god to the ruler introduces a process of reciprocal legitimation: the dominant god legitimises the dominant position of the ruler, and through his ongoing intervention also ensures the sovereignty of that ruler. Because this close alliance with Indra affords him continued victories, the ruler secures peace, happiness, wealth and fertility for his tribe. Thus he is an effective leader and rules ‘justly’, which in turn legitimises his position as ruler.⁶⁵ So we see that the constitution, structure and stratification of Vedic society are among the most important functions of Soma, in that it ‘divides the non-pressers

⁶³ Parallels are found in Kāt:haka XIII 3: 182.9–12 and Maitrāyanī II 5,8: 58.18–59.2. : Samhitā : ⁶⁴ This was aptly described in the Kāt:haka (XI 3: 146.9–12): ‘The gods were not in agreement. They divided into four camps—Agni with the Vasus, Soma with the Rudras, Indra with the Maruts, Varuna : with the Ādityas. To them spoke B:rhaspati: “I want to perform the sacrifice for you, then you will agree”. To Indra [however] spoke he: “I will perform the sacrifice in your house. Truly, that you [among them] occupy the highest rank, they shall agree” ’. Significantly, the ‘origin’ of the Tānūnaptra rite is explained with almost exactly the same words (cf. i.a. Kāt:haka XXIV 9: 100.3ff.), which reflects an old alliance (see i.a. Āpastamba Śrautasūtra XI 1,1–7). ⁶⁵ The Soma myths—how Soma was stolen, and the myths of [346] change and succession of authority—elevate this individual legitimation to a general legitimacy, and one that can be handed down (see pp. 159–67).

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19

[from the pressers]’ (RV 4.24.5).⁶⁶ After all, it may be presumed that participation in Soma rituals was reserved for the ruling class, who thereby set themselves apart from those Āryas who did not partake—or not directly—of Soma. And both stood apart from those who did not press and did not [33] (want to) make sacrifices to the gods: the aforementioned Dasyus, or Dāsas, who were entirely outside of Vedic society, as the text variously shows.⁶⁷

1.5.1 The xυarənah of the Avesta A very similar manner of legitimation is outlined by the Yašts of the Younger Avesta, which reflect the societal circumstances of eastern Iran during the later part of the fifth century . Here, the rulerʼs legitimacy was signified by possession of the xυarənah, the ‘radiant fortune’, which is awarded by divine beings.⁶⁸ Only the rightful owner of what was thought of as a substantive charism remains victorious over a long period; only he can ‘[protect] the Aryan lands’ (Yt. 19.69), only he is able, and permitted, to rule. It appears as though the xυarənah took over its legitimising function from Haoma, the Avestan counterpart to Soma (see pp. 62–3)—perhaps a consequence of its ‘Daēvasation’. It seems quite likely that it once held this function, on the one hand because of the circle of the xυarənah possessors, who are mentioned in Yt. 19.34–44 (Yima, Thraētaona, Kәrәsāspa) and all of whom were closely correlated with Haoma (Y 9.4–12), and on the other hand because Haoma itself also bestows and removes sovereignty: ‘Haoma drove him from his throne, Kәrәsāni, who out of desire for power wailed [and] spoke: . . .’ (Y 9.24). And like Soma (see pp. 18–19), the xυarәnah divided populated regions into Aryan and non-Aryan. For example, Yt. 19.57 (= 59 = 60 = 64) speaks of the ‘radiant fortune which belongs to the Aryan lands’ (xυarənō . . . yat̰ asti airiianąm dax́iiunąm). This is why for the non-Aryan Fraŋrasiian, to whom Haoma is also an enemy (Y 11.7), the xυarənah remains unattainable: as a non-Aryan, he cannot (legitimately) hold power. Many aspects of the xυarənah exemplify its affinity with Haoma/*Sau̯ma: its remarkably close connection with water, particularly with [34] Lake Vouru.kas: ǎ ⁶⁹ in which it floats (see p. 65);⁷⁰ its transformation into a bird of prey upon leaving Yima ⁶⁶ Here we see familiar patterns reproduced: dividing a society through dietary customs, and forming confraternities of sacrificers. ⁶⁷ See W, Does Pressing Sóma Make You an Āryan? Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 157 (2007) 417–26—correcting an earlier statement by the author of the present volume (see Religion des Rgveda, Part One, Wien 1998, pp. 434–5). : ⁶⁸ See H, Der Zamyād-Yašt, Edition, Übersetzung, Kommentar, Wiesbaden 1994, p. 25. ⁶⁹ On Apąm Napāt and the xυarənah, see p. 42. ⁷⁰ And this is the very place where Haoma ‘grows’. After all, it is entirely clear from Y 42.3–5—one of the young litanies appended to the Yasna Haptaŋhāiti—that Haoma resides in or near Lake Vouru. kas: ̌a. This counters K, Le Hōm Stōm et la zone des déclarations, Paris 2007, p. 36 fn. 16, who claims that ‘il nʼy a pas de lien intime entre Haoma et la mer Vouru.kas: ̌a’.

20

    . 

(Yt. 19.34); and the fact that it must be striven for,⁷¹ even fought for—Aži Dahāka and the fire arranged a race against one another for the xυarənah (Yt. 19.46–50). After all, the Haoma/*Sau̯ma also comes from the heavenly sea, whence it must be fetched by a bird of prey, and it too must be won in battle, which would take place in the form of a contest such as a chariot race or footrace.

⁷¹ This is in reference to (what is known as) axυarәtәm xυarənah (cf. H, Der Zamyād-Yašt, Edition, Übersetzung, Kommentar, Wiesbaden 1994, pp. 18–19).

2 The Rgveda : 2.1 Songs and books: The text and its organisation When the Vedic tribes crossed the mountain ranges of the Hindu Kush into their new homeland, they brought with them an Indo-European language that later came to be known as Sanskrit, from which today’s New Indo-Aryan languages would ultimately emerge. One of the truest representations of the Indo-European language, its abundant forms and archaic richness can express subtle nuances of possibility, desire, will, and much more, as well as various degrees of past and future, all with remarkable precision. This, then, is the language in which the songs and hymns of the Rgveda, instrumental in the cultic worship of the gods, : were composed.¹ The Vedic people may have brought a small number of the songs with them to India, but they produced by far the larger portion, if not indeed all, after they had arrived. History has bequeathed to us these sacrificial hymns in a collection that includes, particularly in its younger sections, not only the earliest beginnings of narrative forms² and philosophical poetry but also songs used in performing magic. Once referred to as :rcah: and later as Rgveda, the collection : appears to have been created towards the end of the ‘Rgvedic’ period, around 1000 : , when the Kuru tribe under King Pariks: it united the existing mantra literature in a single compilation, which even then was very similar to the text³ we now have before us. The Rgveda, the ‘Knowledge of the Verses’, is a collection of 1,028 highly poetic : ‘well-formed [poems]’ (sūkta)—hymns declaimed, and songs sung (see pp. 23–4 and 204)⁴ [36]—with a total of 10,462 stanzas, the vast majority of which were used

¹ For the most part, the Rgveda text is from the Pūru and Bharata tribes. : ² As far as can be determined, the narrative material in the so-called Ākhyāna hymns is presented as a prelude to certain ‘practical’ functions, which are almost always named in the closing stanzas. For example, the tale of Agastya and Lopāmudrā, which tells of the futility of an older husband’s attempts at asceticism in the face of his young wife’s sexual lust, is followed by a statement from a student of the Veda who must atone for the violation of his oath of chastity (RV 1.179.5). ³ In addition to the Śākala recension that has come down to us, there is said to have been another with some minor differences. Called the Bās: kala recension, it had only seven Vālakhilya songs following [347] RV 8.48 (where the Śākala recension has eleven). Of those seven, the first two were inserted in the same position as in the Śākala text—after RV 8.48—but the last five were subsequent to RV 8.94. Moreover, the Kutsa collection in the first man: dala, RV 1.94–115, is said to have followed the : Parucchepa songs, RV 1.127–39. And there was allegedly a different song, called the Samjñāna song, at : the end of the entire collection, actually succeeding RV 10.191, the last song in ‘our’ Śākala text. ⁴ Both are subsumed under the term ‘songs’ in the following.

The Religion of the Rgveda. Thomas Oberlies, Oxford University Press. © Thomas Oberlies 2023. : DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780192868213.003.0002

22

    . 

by the Vedic tribes in the cultic worship of their gods. The deities were summoned to the sacrifice, with the help of these songs, by various priests (see pp. 209–10). On the occasion of these sacrificial rites, in which the most noble gift was the intoxicating Soma drink, the songs were sung to the gods in greeting, as edification and hero-worship, and in farewell. This specific use is reflected both in the content and structure of the individual songs and in the very organisation of the Rgveda itself : (see pp. 197–205). The songs of the Rgveda⁵ were created in individual families and were handed : down within each family for generations before these separate traditions were gathered into one collection. The entirety is now divided into ten ‘circles’ (man: dala), generally referred to as Books. Six of the ten are attributed by the : tradition to certain families. Specifically, it attributes Man: dalas II–VII to the : G:rtsamada, Viśvāmitra, Vāmadeva, Atri, Bharadvāja, and Vasis: t:has families, respectively. And this classification is indeed confirmed by the content of the Rgveda. Each of these ‘Family Books’ has many songs distinguished by mention of : a ‘family name’ and/or by a shared stanza or verse; either of these constitutes a type of ‘family seal’. In the second man: dala, for example, the G:rtsamadas are : repeatedly mentioned by name, and seven of its forty-three songs end with the same closing stanza: nūnám : sā ́ te práti váram : jaritré |duhīyád indra dáks: in: ā maghónī||śíks: ā stotŕ̥bhyo ́ : “Now shall this, thy generous mā t́ i dhag bhágo no|b:rhád vadema vidáthe suvī rāh Daks: in: ā-(cow), o Indra, give the milk of thy bestowal for the singer of praise! Seek to help the ones who glorify [you]! Fail us not as the apportioning one! May we, of heroic sons, speak the lofty [word] during the distribution”;

and another fifteen songs share the same final verse (b:rhád vadema vidáthe ́ : ). For the most part, these ‘family stanzas and verses’—as well as ‘family suvīrāh songs’, such as RV 3.53, 5.40, 6.47, and 7.33—[37] follow the Indra songs in the respective man: dalas (see next), which clearly demonstrates the high estimation in : which this god in particular is held. Together with the ninth man: dala, the songs of : which accompanied the pressing and cleaning of the holy and inebriating Soma, the Family Books represent the core of the Rgveda. One of the first addenda : comprises the collection of songs from the Kānva : family (RV 8.1–66) along with another collection from various smaller families in the first man: dala (RV : 1.51–191) that has close ties to the former. The rest of the songs in the first and the eighth man: dalas, as well as the various supplemental songs (see p. 23), were : apparently added to the family man: dalas later. That the tenth man: dala : : constitutes the end of the collection is clear not least of all from its language. And because the ⁵ The shortest of these has one, and the longest, fifty-eight stanzas. On average, however, they have between eight and twelve stanzas of usually four verses each.

 . 

23

liturgy, gradually becoming inflexible, ordained for all stations in the cult, the use of specific songs from among the ancient material, not permitting any continuation of the old sacrificial literature, poesy was left to seek out new topics that had previously been only incidentally touched upon. Thus we see, for example, an increase in the number of philosophical, especially cosmogonic, songs in this Book. And it is surely no coincidence that the tenth man: dala has 191 songs— : exactly the same number as the first.⁶ Within the Rgveda, the Family Books appear in ascending order of the number : of songs that form (or originally formed) each Book.⁷ This number increases from forty-three in the second Book to more than 100 in each of the seventh and eighth. Within these Books, in turn, the material is first grouped according to the gods to whom songs are dedicated, then ordered by number of stanzas in each song, and lastly arranged by the length of the metres. Man: dalas II–VII each open with a : series of songs to Agni, followed by a series to Indra; the subsequent series, dedicated to other gods in the pantheon, are arranged in descending order of the number of songs, and within each series, by number of stanzas. Where the latter are equal, the number of syllables in the metre is decisive,⁸ again in descending order. Infringements of these rules allow certain inferences pertaining to the relative chronology of the songs; for example, those [38] that do not fit the rules of arrangement were composed, expanded, or reworked after the Rgveda : collection had already been (for the most part) completed. Among these appended songs are, for example, RV 2.42–3, 3.52–3, and 6.74–5. Another aspect of the Rgveda’s internal structure is the juxtaposition of the : Family Books with the man: dalas which contain the ritual chants—RV I, VIII, : and IX. In addition to these Books, there are sections in the others which appear to deviate from the principle of descending order of stanzas, and in which the arrangement of the text can be corrected by breaking down the long songs into Tr: cas or Pragāthas. Unlike the hymns, which are recited, these sacrificial

⁶ Linguistically too, this Book is significantly younger than the others, and originated further east. Thus what had been r-words appear here with an l (in the otherwise rhotacistic language of the Rgveda, : for which compare, for example, the root √rudh with Old English (OE) lēodan and Goth liudan ‘grow’), as in √labh, RV 10.87.7, 130.7, lóman-, RV 10.163.5–6, or lohitá-, RV 10.85.28, as opposed to √rabh, róman- and rohitá-, the latter related to Gk. ἐρυθρός and Lat. ruber ‘red’, which provides evidence of the original r. And in place of the old nasal present k:rn: oti, we have the younger—and also colloquial (see pp. 25–6)—karoti (RV 10.19.2, 51.7, 145.2). Moreover, the vocabulary reveals conspicuous innovations, such as sapátna- ‘rival [in love]’, derived from the older sapátnī- ‘co-wife’. ⁷ The seventeen songs of Zarathustra are also arranged in the Avesta according to purely formal aspects, as they are gathered into five groups distinguished by stanza structure. These groups are arranged in descending order of the number of songs (7-4-4-1-1). ⁸ The most important of these metres are Jagatī, Tris: t:ubh, Anus: t:ubh, and Gāyatrī. RV 10.130.4–5 matches metres with godheads—Gāyatrī and Agni (see also RV 1.164.25c), Us: nih : and Savit:r, Anus: t:ubh, and Soma (and so on), a pattern also followed, with only very slight deviations, in Aitareya Brāhmana : VIII 6.3. Note that the metres are arranged here by number of syllables in ascending order, as seen in Aitareya Brāhmana : I 5: Gāyatrī (24), Us: nih : (28), Anus: t:ubh (32), B:rhatī (36), Virāj– Paṅkti (40), Tris: t:ubh (44), and Jagatī (48).

24

    . 

songs—most of which have two or three stanzas, favour the metre of the Pragātha and Gāyatrī, and are endowed with all manner of highlights from the magical arts—are chanted to particular melodies.⁹ Aside from some minutiae concerning primarily the phonological form of the text,¹⁰ the wording of the Rgvedic songs was handed down unchanged over : millennia, in an exclusively oral tradition,¹¹ before it was written down for the first time almost three and a half thousand years after its creation. This degree of fidelity in transmission, rarely seen in a work that began as an oral tradition, is not least owing to a belief widely held since the earliest times that the desired effect is produced only if the recitation is correct in every last detail. Linguistic criteria enable us to establish chronologies both of the Rgveda as a : whole and in the layering of its Books. The approximate dating noted previously, placing the earliest parts of the Rgveda at about 1800  (see p. 1) based on : archaeological evidence, is confirmed by the antiquity of the language. For example, just as in the Old Norse sátoð iþ Vǫlundr saman í hólmi? sáto við Vǫlundr saman í hólmi “Sat (2 pl.) you, you both (nom. dual) [and] [39] Vǫlundr, together on the island? We sat (pl.), we both (nom. dual) [and] Vǫlundr, (nom. sing.), together on the island”. (Vǫlundarkviða 40.41)

and in Old Irish Dulluid Pátricc othemiur hicrích Laigen; conráncatar ocus Dubthach ⁹ Almost all of the songs are included in the Sāmaveda, [348] which—ultimately—includes both text and melody. On all of this, see O, Kleine Schriften, Wiesbaden 1967, pp. 513–38. The question of just what O’s research means in practical terms for our knowledge of the Rgvedic ritual, : however, has never been addressed. In answering it, one should take into consideration that the ‘singers’ (as such) are absent from the oldest lists that name the sacrificing priests (see O, Religion, pp. 386, 392). See also p. 209. ¹⁰ The minor changes to the form of the original text resulted from, among other things, an ‘orthoepic diaskeuasis’ the effect and extent of which are easily discerned when we examine the metres. This editing cloaked the text of the Rgveda in a younger phonological form (for example with the : introduction of d:rdhá- for the older, sound-law compliant *d
:rdhá-; monosyllabic scansion of the gen. pl. -ām for the older disyllabic *-aam [realised in Greek as -ῶν]; the long root syllable in verbs of the nineth present class or long penultimate of the medial dual endings; and with the occurrence, at least to some extent, of younger sandhis, for example in the doubling of the final -n of the locative mūŕ dhan when it precedes a vowel). At the same time, a number of particularities were imposed on the text (such ́ : s-). In this regard, the metre ́ : s- for *sasāvā m as chardís- for *chadís-, pāvaká- for *pavāká-, and sasavā m can often reveal the original form. Thus śrīn: ītana, RV 9.11.6, measures ⏑ ⏑ , exhibiting the old *śrin: ītana (< *k^ri-nH-), which (presumably) has been altered under the influence of (perhaps) the root noun śrī -́ . And the previous pāvaká- measures ⏑ x in almost every instance and thus conceals the ́ is often behind the n:rn: ā m ́ of the transmitted text. older pavāká-, just as for example n
:rn: ām ¹¹ The Rgveda’s ‘frog song’ gives us a glimpse of how children learned the Veda: ‘Speaking the syllables : the one [frog] goes to the other, who [showing him how,] speaks as the son to father, [who is teaching him]. . . . When one among them speaks the speech of the other, like the pupil of the master, then is their [recitation] complete, like a joint that falls correctly into place’ (RV 7.103.3/5). See pp. 247–8.

 . 

25

“Patrick of Tara went to the region of Leinster; they met, [he] and Dubthach”. (Book of Armagh 18 a 1.11)

when the subject consists of two persons and one of them is represented by a personal pronoun, the latter is not explicit; rather, the verb is in the dual form and the other person is connected through ‘and’: ā ́ yád ruhā v́ a várun: aś ca nā v́ am, ‘When we both board (dual) and Varuna : the ship = When Varuna : and I board the ship’ (RV 7.88.3).¹² The tenth Book marks the close of the Rgvedic work (see pp. 22–3). Here we : find ourselves on the linguistic borderline between the Rgveda on the one hand : and the Atharvaveda and the Yajurveda, as well as the entire Brāhman: a and Sūtra literature, on the other. Scholars are unanimous in equating the period in which the latter works emerged with that of Painted Grey Ware (PGW) culture, the upper limit of which is about 1000 to 800 years . Thus the songs of the tenth man: dala would have originated around 1200–1100 . Their language is also : significantly younger than that of the other man: dalas, with the exception only of : the first. While this fact is quite clear in and of itself, it is clouded somewhat by the fact that the later poets consciously cultivated an antiquated form of expression. Some of what appears in Man: dalas I and X, which are demonstrably young, is : highly archaic. To give just one example: a neuter plural subject occasionally—just as in Greek¹³ and in Avestan¹⁴—takes a singular verbum finitum: dh:r:sn: áve dhīyate dhánā ‘for the bold the stakes [pl.] is set [sing.]’, RV 1.81.3.¹⁵ The antiquity of the language in the Rgvedic hymns, [40] however, is at least : partially ostensive. There are, in fact, certain features from which we may conclude that the spoken language of the time was much further developed. For example, some of the words that have permeated the archaic sacerdotal Vedic Sanskrit of these songs reveal phonological elements that characterise the vernaculars of a later period:¹⁶ víkat: a- ‘deformed’ (vík:rta-), durhan: āyú- ‘sorely raging’ (durh:rn: āyú-), śithirá- ‘loose’ (*ś:rthirá-), kuru ‘do [it]!’ (k:rn: u), múhur ‘sudden’ (*mŕ̥hur), árbhaga- ‘youthful’ (árbhaka-), vámsaga‘bull’ (vars: aka-), : akhkhalīkŕ̥tya ‘syllable-speaking’ (aks: ára-), jájjhatī- ‘laughing’ (jáks: atī-), and k:rcchrá- ‘distress’ (*k:rpsra-). The songs in which these words most frequently appear suggest discrete sociolects. The texts in question are spoken by women

¹² See W, Kleine Schriften, Göttingen 1953, p. 544 with fn. 1, and B, Kurze vergleichende Grammatik der indogermanischen Sprachen, Berlin—Leipzig 1933, p. 416. ¹³ Compare Iliad B 468: . . . ὅσσα τε φύλλα καὶ ἄνθεα γίγνεται ὥρῃ [349] ‘. . . as many as the leaves and blooms that emerge in Spring’. The ‘Heraclitean’ πάντα ῥεῖ ‘Everything flows’ also exhibits this phenomenon. ¹⁴ Compare Y 46.8: tā . . . yā īm hujiiātōiš pāiiāt̰ . . . kācit̰ ‘All [the deeds (pl.)], that will keep (sing.) him from the good life’. See also Y 28.2, 29.4 and 50.10. ¹⁵ Also compare RV 1.63.9, 91.19 = 162.8 = 9 = 14, 7.21.6, 10.76.6. ¹⁶ The corresponding ‘standard’ forms are given in parentheses.

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    . 

(vīraká- ‘darling hero’, RV 8.91.2, ulū ḱ hala- ‘mortar’, RV 1.28.6)¹⁷ or children (tatá- ‘papa’, RV 8.91.5, 9.112.3, nanā -́ ‘mama’, RV 9.112.3), or are clearly colloquial (kuru ‘do [it]!’, RV 10.19.2, sulābhike ‘o easily had [one]’,¹⁸ RV 10.86.7, sneháyat ‘left mired = brought down [with a weapon]’, RV 9.97.54). They are notably prevalent in Dānastutis (see p. 203), but primarily found in magic spells and charms (pulú-, RV 1.179.5, iyattiká-, °ka suffix, 1.191.11/15–16, kuru, 10.145.2), an indication that the spells were created or used outside those circles within which the majority of the hymns had been composed (see pp. 274–7).¹⁹ Far more numerous than the scattered vernacular expressions in the text of the Rgveda are words taken from languages that the Vedic invaders encountered on : their arrival in the region. Aside from proper nouns (for persons, animals, plants, locations, and rivers), the adoption of which is to be expected, most of these loanwords are designations relating to sorcery, magic, music, dance, and agricultural production and processing [41].²⁰

2.2 Indo-European and Indo-Iranian heritage in the text of the Rgveda : Throughout the Rgvedic period, approximately 1800 to 1100 , Vedic tribes : migrated eastward, even as far as the Ganges. While the Family Books can be mapped to the ‘Seven Rivers’ region (sápta síndhavah: ),²¹ the nucleus of the area settled by the Rgvedic tribes, the tenth man: dala : : reveals a distinct eastward shift in Rgvedic culture. : The songs of the Rgveda are composed in a highly poetic language that is : closely related to that of the ‘Chants’ (Gāθā) of the old, and ‘Venerations’ (Yašt) of the younger, Zoroastrianism²² (see pp. 47–8). The two languages are closely linked in their inflection, basic syntax, and largely identical vocabularies.²³ Just how similar they are may be illustrated by the fact that stanzas dedicated to Haoma, the ‘Zoroastrian’ counterpart (see pp. 62–3 and 68) of the Vedic drink offering, Soma ¹⁷ Among these is also the—clearly jocular—use of upalapraks: ín: ī for ‘mama’ (nanā )́ . Unlike the priests, who must carefully ensure that the slab upon which the Soma is pressed (úpara) does not slip (see pp. 231–2), with this usage they actually make the úpala, as it is termed here in the vernacular, ‘dance’. ¹⁸ With regard to content, this is directly reminiscent of the ayatnasādhyā yos: itah: of the Kāmasūtra, the ‘women who can be had with little effort’. ¹⁹ Remarkably—and this is significant in relation to the previous note—the Atharvaveda is apparently almost entirely free of vernacular words and constructions. ²⁰ The imposing number of such foreign words that was believed to have been uncovered by earlier research on the text of the Rgveda was reduced upon closer examination to some 250. For details see : Oberlies, review article: F. B. J. Kuiper, Aryans in the Rigveda, Indo-Iranian Journal 37 (1994) 333–49. ²¹ To the extent that Man: dalas IV, V, and VI can be said to belong to the west, II and III possibly to : the east, VIII to the west and middle, and VII to the east and middle of the region. ²² In the following the term Zoroastrianism will be used generally for this religion. The distinction—as made by Lommel and Gershevitch—between Zarathustrianism, a term for Zarathustra’s own teachings, and Zoroastrianism, incorporating the subsequent religious developments, will not be made here. ²³ This also applies to the vocabulary of the ritual. For example, yajāmahe ‘we worship’ (RV 1.83.5, 97.2, 7.59.12) corresponds exactly to the yazamaide formula of the Avesta. For more, see pp. 30–2.

 .  yō yaθa puθrәm taurunәm | haomәm van: daēta mas: ̌iiō | frā ābiiō tanubiiō | haomō vīsāite baēšazāi “Haoma makes himself available to the bodies of the mortal, who loves him like a tender son, for healing”, (Y 10.8)

can be translated phoneme for phoneme into Vedic: yó yáthā putrám : tárun: am | sómam : vandeta mártyah: | prá ābhyás tanū b́ hyah: | ́ sómo viśāte bhes: ajā ya.

The area of settlement of the Vedic tribes.

27

28

    . 

The same applies to a stanza of the Mihr Yašt, a hymn dedicated to Miθra (see ): tәm amauuan: tәm yazatәm | sūrәm dāmōhu sәuuištәm | miθrәm yazāi zaoθrābiiō “The mighty champion, the venerable, the strongest of all creatures, Miθra I will worship with sacrificial offerings”. (Yt. 10.6) [42].

To this, the Vedic would correspond as follows: ́ asu śávis: :t ham | mitrám tám ámavantam : yajatám | śū ŕ am : dhā m : yajai hótrābhyah: .

And Gāθā verses, too, can be transposed almost word for word into Vedic: yastā daēuuә¯n: g aparō mas: ̌iiąscā, Y 45.11,

in Vedic would be yás téna devā ń áparo mártiyām : ś ca.

The fact that the syllabic metre remains unchanged in such ‘transpositions’ indicates that it, too, was inherited from the [43] Indo-Iranian, to which both Vedic and Avestan can be traced. While at least an Indo-Iranian origin is established in the case of the eight-syllable verses and the stanzas formed of them, the hendecasyllabic verses²⁴ are echoed not only in particular Zoroastrian verse hymns, but also in a number of Sappho’s poems. And the verse structure here is so similar that Indo-European heritage may be assumed.²⁵ After all, the characteristics of the usually four-verse Tris: :t ubh—one caesura after the fourth or fifth syllable, two short syllables²⁶ or a short second syllable after the caesura, and then a trochaic cadence—are even more distinct in the Sapphic hendecasyllabic

²⁴ The typical four-verse form of Tris: t:ubh, however, is seen (only) the stanzas of Spәn: tā.mainiiū Gāθā (Y 47–50). ²⁵ In the field of Indo-European studies, it is even conjectured that the Indo-European laryngeals, those phonemes which usually do not correspond to any of its daughter languages’ own and thus as a rule can be posited only from their ‘effect’, have been retained to some extent in the text of the Rgveda : in the form of hiatus and lengths by position. Yet a note of caution [350] must be sounded. It is true that the most convincing explanation for the often di- or tri-syllabic reading of bhā ś - ‘shine’ ([índhānāso] b:rhád bhā́h: ⏑ ⏑ , RV 8.23.11) and vāt́ a- ‘wind’; the pentasyllabic hváyāmasi (RV 6.26.1, 33.4); and the ⏑ metered ví var (RV 1.62.5) and the spondaic jána- (RV 5.33.2, 6.11.4) (like vātāi in the Avesta, Y 44.4, also trisyllabic)—to give but a few examples—would seem to be found in the reconstruction of the precursors *bhéh₂os-, *h₂u̯ éh₁n¯to-, *ĝhuH-éi̯e-mesi, *Hu̯elt and *ĝónh₁o‑, from which /bhá.ās-/, /vá.āta-/, /hu.áyāmasi/, *ví.var and *ján.a- developed. Yet these (so-called) ‘laryngeal hiatus’ and ‘laryngeal-conditioned lengths by position’ served as exemplars for the composers of the Rgveda : ́ and dyā m ́ , which are often read when they needed metrically stretched syllables. For example, gām with two syllables, replicate the regular accusative ending in -a.ām (< *-eh₂m̥ ) of the sigmatic ā stems. ²⁶ To always place this after the fifth syllable is characteristic of Sapphic hendecasyllabic verse.

 . 

29

verse,²⁷ which appears in three-line stanzas extended at the end by one short verse, than in the cited Avestan verse. Many of the expressions, too, in Sappho’s poetry have equivalents in the songs of the Rgveda, as illustrated in the following lines : from Fragment 1: ποικιλόθρονʼ ἀθανάτʼ Αφρόδιτα

Immortal Aphrodite, on your many-hued throne

παῖ Δίος δολόπλοκε λίσσομαί σε

Guile-weaving daughter of Zeus, I beseech you

μή μʼ ἄσαισι μηδʼ ὀνίαισι δάμνα

Conquer not with song nor with sorrows,

πότνια θῦμον

Lady, my heart,

ἀλλὰ τυίδʼ ἔλθʼ αἴ ποτα κἀτέρωτα

Rather come to me here, if you ever in the past,

τὰς ἔμας αὔδας αίοισα πήλοι

hearing my voice, from afar

ἔκλυες πάτρος δὲ δόμον λίποισα

Heard it and leaving the father’s house

χρύσιον ἦλθες

came, the golden

ἄρμʼ ὐπασδεύξαισα κάλοι δέ σʼ ἆγον

chariot harnessed with you.²⁸ And you were brought by beautiful,

ὤκεες στροῦθοι περὶ γᾶς μελαίνας

swift sparrows over the black earth

(...) (...) [44] ( . . . ) σὺ δʼ ὦ μάκαιρα ( . . . )

but you, o blessed one,

μειδιαίσαισʼ ἀθανάτωι ροσώπωι

smiling,²⁹ with undying visage,

ἤρε ὄττι δηὖτε πέπονθα κὤττι

asked what I had again suffered, what

δηὖτε κάλημμι

I would again call

κὤττι μοι μάλιστα θέλω γένεσθαι

[and] of what I would wish the most that it would happen

(...) (...) ἔλθε μοι καὶ νῦν ( . . . )

Come again now to me ( . . . )

²⁷ Sapphic stanzas were adapted for Latin poetic language by Catullus (c. 11, 51) and most particularly by Horace (integer vitae scelerisque purus ⏑ ⏑⏑ ⏑ , Odes 1.22.15; ‘leading an unreproachable life and free of iniquity’). And in Odes 3.30.13–14, Horace even claims: princeps Aeolium carmen ad Italos/deduxisse modos (‘I was the first to lead the Aeolic songs to the Italian ways’). ²⁸ To the image of riding in a chariot of the gods, which may well be traced back to Indo-European tradition, was added in Indo-Iranian times that of the horses being harnessed to the chariot by songs (see p. 30). ²⁹ On Aphrodite’s smile, see p. 38 n. 25.

30

    . 

The Avesta—the texts of the older Zoroastrianism—and the Rgveda have many : characteristic phrases and constructions in common. In these, a veritable treasure of formulations from an earlier poetic language is made manifest; a language that extends back in time to the Indo-Iranian, in some cases even to the primordial Indo-European period. Among these poetic language elements, of which there are surely hundreds in the songs of the Rgveda, those that characterise poetic creation : (in the broader sense) comprise a large group. Greek, Iranian and Vedic are all familiar with the (artistic) ‘carpentering of words;’³⁰ ἐπέων τέκτονες, Pindar, Pyth. 3,112–114, ἐπέων τεκτάνατʼ ἀοιδάν, Pausanias 10,5,8; mąθrәm tašat, Y 29.7; mántram . . . átaks: an, (RV 7.7.6), ápūrvyā . . . vácām : sy³¹ āsā ́ . . . taks: am, RV 6.32.1.

Greek, Latin, and Vedic, with the ‘pouring of songs’; χέει φωνήν, Odyssey τ 521; fundis preces, Horace, Ep. 17.53; imā́ gíra . . . juhvā́ juhomi, (RV 2.27.1),

and the Iranian and Vedic, with ‘the harnessing of songs as horses to the chariots of the gods’, or ‘the harnessing of the horses by songs to the chariots of the gods’, which they ride to the sacrifice: at̰ vә¯ yaojā zәuuištiiә¯ n: g auruuatō, . . . vahmahiiā yūšmākahiiā / . . . yāiš azāθā mahmāi x́iiātā auuaŋ́hē, Y 50.7; yé te . . . brahmayújo . . . átyāh: / . . . tébhir ā ́ yāhy ́ , (RV 1.177.2), bráhman: ā te brahmayújā yunajmi hárī . . . āśū ,́ ³² arvā ṅ (RV 3.35.4)

[45] The latter two phrases place this poetry squarely in the realm of the cultic. From these come many more formulations that can be reconstructed for this or these poetic language or languages, of which just a few connecting the Vedic tradition with that of the Avesta may be mentioned here: —nú . . . prá ( . . . ) vocam “now I [shall] proclaim”, RV 1.32.1, 154.1 —at̰ vaxšiiā, Y 30.1, at̰ fravaxšiiā, Y 45.1 (cf. arma virumque cano, Virg. Aen. I,1) —ukthébhih: (/ uktáih: ) . . . hvayāmahe “With [solemn] dicta we call”, RV 1.47.10, cf. 1.184.1, 3.20.1, 7.56.18, 10.80.5 ³⁰ For details, see W, Indo-European Poetry and Myth, Oxford 2007, pp. 38–40. ³¹ Ápūrvyā . . . vácām : si is also formulaic (see pp. 31–2). ³² The formula ‘swift horses’ may also be inherited, as it is attested in Greek (ὠκέες ἵπποι, Il. Ε 257, Od. γ 496), Vedic (áśvāso . . . ā ́ śávah: , RV 10.78.5) and Avestan (aspāŋhō āsauuō, Yt. 17.12) texts. And the phrase constructed from this syntagma, ‘to grant ownership of swift horses’ (āśváśvyam : √dhā, RV 5.6.10; āsu.āspīm √dā, Yt. 10.3; see p. 30) is at least as old as the Indo-Iranian period.

 . 

31

—zbaiiā . . . uxδāiš, Y 46.14 ́ :rtásya “The wellspring of truth”, RV 2.28.5 —khā m —as: ̌ahe xā, Y 10.5. —pathā ́ . . . :rtásya “taking the path of truth”, RV 9.7.1 —as: ̌ahe paθō, Y 51.13, cf. as: ̌ahe pantąm, Yt. 10.86 —:rtásya pathā ́ námasā miyédhah: “taking the path of truth [and] reverence . . . the sacrificial offering”, RV 10.70.2 — . . . miiazdәm . . . , nәmaŋhā as: ̌āicā . . . , Y 34.3 —ŕ̥tám . . . . sapāmi “I foster the truth (= I compose a song)”, RV 5.12.2 —as: ̌әm . . . haptī, Y 31.22

This ancient tradition of a sacral form of speech is seen chiefly in the formulation of pleas: —sā ́ nah: .. práti . . . (suvitā ý a) . . . . gamyāh: “May this . . . come thence to us (for the sake of [our] wellbeing) . . .”, RV 5.41.18 —huuō nā . . . (yātāiiā) . . . paiti.jamiiā “May you there . . . come thence to us (for the sake of [our] plea)”, YH 36.2 —té syāma yé (and variations) “May we be those who . . .”, RV 4.8.5 —at̰cā tōi vaēm x́iiāmā, yōi . . . , Y 30.9³³ —áti dvés: ām : si tarema “We wish to cross over the hostilities”, RV 3.27.3 —yā daibišuuatō duuaēšā tauruuaiiāmā “with the help [of whom] we wish to cross over the hostilities of the enemy” Y 28.6, cf. Yt. 5.13/10.34 ́ am ā ́ pr̥¯n: a “Fulfil [our] wish”, RV 1.16.9, cf. 1.57.5/8.64.6 —kā m —pәrәnā . . . kāmәm “Fulfil the wish”, Y 28.10 —ávase ní hvayāmahe “We call hither for help . . .”, RV [46] 1.114.4/ . . . ávase havāmahe “We call upon for help . . .”, RV 2.16.1 = 3.26.2 = 8.86.4 = 99.8 = 10.66.4. —ustāna.zastō zbaiieiti auuaŋ́he “With palms turned to heaven, he calls . . . for help”, Yt. 10.85. For the ritual gesture see p. 71, zbaiiat̰ auuaŋ́he “[Them] he invoked for help . . .”, Yt. 13.28.

Inherited formulas and original poetry are combined harmoniously in the Vedic songs to form a new whole; ‘new songs’ are always based on age-old tradition: ‘Thus a new [song] is spoken to Indra and Agni in the manner of the fathers . . .’

³³ See L, Kleine Schriften, Wiesbaden 1978, pp. 364–6.

32

    . 

(RV 8.40.12).³⁴ And as the Vedic poets took the old songs, which had already won divine favour and were ‘dripping with honey and butter’ (RV 8.51.10), and gave them new form, they were creating—as they frequently point out—‘new songs’ that would meet with similar rewards: ‘new’ songs are consistently associated with ‘(re)new(ed) generosity’[346].

³⁴ Offering assurances that the song presented is new, the Vedic poet follows an old tradition [351]. Even Zarathustra emphasised that ‘he wants, o truth, to sing a [song] that had not existed [before], . . .’ (Y 28.3).

3 The Indo-European Religion 3.1 Inherited elements in the religion of the Rgveda : When the Vedic tribes first set foot in India, they brought with them religious views and cultic forms that were closely related to those of the people who would later become Zoroastrians, enshrining as they did a number of gods, myths and forms of worship very like those in the Avesta, the holy texts of Zoroastrianism.¹ And just as the languages used by these two peoples date back to a common precursor called Indo-Iranian, and even further back to Indo-European (see pp. 26–32), the Vedic and Avestan religions also perpetuated those of the Indo-Iranian and Indo-European periods. That these two forerunners can be posited is clear from the parallels between the Rgveda and the Avesta on the one hand, and from a : comparison of these two text collections with, for example, Homer and Hesiod or with the Edda on the other. Although a reconstruction of the religion of the ‘Indo-Iranians’—and even more so, that of the ‘Indo-Europeans’—is necessarily beset by a great deal of uncertainty, there are several reliable reference points. First of all, it is certain that in the Indo-European religion—the subject of this chapter²—there was a juxtaposition of gods, as ‘divine’ beings, with men, as ‘earthly’ beings; of ‘immortals’ with ‘mortals’:³ “For, by virtue of his dwelling place (on the mountain) [Rudra] watches the earthly beings, and by virtue of his omnipotence, the heavenly” (RV 7.46.2), “Turning hither with black vapours, bringing to rest the immortal and the mortal [beings], [48] the heavenly Savit:r passes slowly by in his golden chariot, observing the creatures” (RV 1.35.2);

¹ The Old Avestan texts were probably created between 1000 and 600 . ² The Indo-Iranian religion is dealt with in Chapter 4 (see pp. 47–71). ³ In contrast to the divine, immortal gods, men are regarded either as mortals or as earthly beings. The former designation is the most common in Indo-Iranian (Vedic Skt. mártyah: , Av. mas: ̌iiō) and Greek (βροτός, Iliad Λ 2, Odyssey ε 2), and the latter—derived from the PIE word for ‘earth’—in Latin (homō) and Germanic (Got. guma, Old High German gomo, G. [Bräuti]gam, Engl. groom). The Greek language, however, has also introduced neologisms, in designating men as θνητοί ‘mortals’—and, accordingly, the gods as ἀθανάτοι ‘immortals’ (ἔπε‛ ἀθανάτοισι μετηύδα—ὤ πόποι οἷον δή νυ θεοὺς βροτοὶ αἰτιόωνται ‘And he spoke among the immortals the words: . . . “How the mortals do blame the gods!” ’, Odyssey α, 31–2)—(see W, Vorlesungen über Syntax, Volume 2, Basel 1928, p. 286).

The Religion of the Rgveda. Thomas Oberlies, Oxford University Press. © Thomas Oberlies 2023. : DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780192868213.003.0003

34

    .  —“[Ahura] Mazdā . . . may perceive exactly what has been done by gods and men,⁴ and what will be done by them, this he will notice too” (Y 29.4); “The mortals before [a journey] ask the immortals for assistance” (Aogәmadaēca 41); —“For it is not seemly that an immortal god be thus mistreated for the sake of a mortal” (Iliad Φ 379–380); “I beg of you, Lady: Are you indeed a goddess or a mortal? If you are a goddess, as they who inhabit the broad heaven—to Artemis . . . I would soonest compare you. But if you are a mortal, as they who live on the earth . . . .” (Odyssey ζ, 149–153); “Utterly unlike the mortal men and the deathless gods . . .” (Hesiod, Theogony 296); —“In the night I⁵ am bright shining in heaven and among the gods, among the mortals I roam in the day, and other stars too fall from heaven to the earth. To Jupiter, who is ruler over gods and men, . . . we report their written names” (Plautus, Rudens, Antelogium 6–8 —noctu sum in caelo clarus atque inter deos, inter mortalis ambulo interdius, et alia signa de caelo ad terram accidunt—qui est imperator diuom atque hominum Iuppiter . . . eorum referimus nomina exscripta ad Iouem). [See also p. 35 n. 13 and p. 88.]

3.2 Father Sky and his family As noted previously, the sky was thought of as the home of the gods. In a (largely) anthropomorphic conception, the most important gods comprised a family, which reflects the prominence of this grouping as the central social and political institution of the Indo-European tribes. The leader of this family of gods, the pater familias, was the Sky god *D(i) i̯éu̯ s. At his side was his wife *Diu̯ ōnéh₂;⁶ their daughter was *H₂éu̯ sos, [49] the ‘Dawn’, the *Diu̯ ós Dhugh₂tēŕ ;⁷ their sons were *Diu̯ ós SuHnús, the ‘Son of the Sky’,⁸ and a pair of twins, the *Diu̯ ós Népōtoh₁ the ‘Offspring of the Sky’. As the head of the divine family, the ‘(Father) Sky’ or *D(i)i ̯éu̯ s (Ph₂tēŕ )⁹ was the most powerful godhead in the pantheon, characterised by unimaginable strength and courage. Yet he is also full of wisdom. From him emanates the order of the world, ⁴ See p. 49 fn. 13. ⁵ On the special language used by the gods, see p. 88. ⁶ She lives on in Dione (Διώνη), the wife of Zeus and mother, by him, of Aphrodite (Iliad Ε, 370–1). Thus in the Indo-European family of gods, it was not—as so often claimed—the ‘broad earth’ (*pl̥th₂u̯ íh₂- *dh(é)ĝh(o)m-) that stood at the ‘Heavenly Father’s’ side (as ‘Mother Earth’). Outside this family, she is simply his cosmographic counterpart. ⁷ In Greece, Aphrodite (Iliad Γ, 374), Helena (Odyssey δ, 227), and Persephone (Odyssey λ 217) are each called ‘daughter of Zeus’, making them ‘goddesses’ who have inherited the dawn (see pp. 37–8). It seems likely that Eos initially bore the same designation. And the Lithuanian Diẽvo Dukrýtė, too, the ‘Daughter of the Sky god’, is (or originally was) the dawn. ⁸ Presumably the Sky god had several sons. One of them—probably [352] the sky son (see, however, pp. 35–6 fn. 16)—lives on in Dionysus in the Greek and in Indra in the Vedic pantheon, the two being closely linked by an intimate connection with a divine inebriating drink (see p. 125). ⁹ That he is cultically worshipped may be demonstrated by the epiclesis already extant in IndoEuropean, *D(i)i ̯eu Ph₂ter ‘o heavenly father’, which lives on in Vedic dyáus: pítah: .

 - 

35

which he watches over in his omniscience: spanning the entire earth, he constantly watches¹⁰—smiling¹¹—everything men do, using his ‘eye of the sun’ by day¹² and the stars by night.¹³ Under his protection contracts are made, and to him—surely coupled with the earth—oaths are sworn.¹⁴ Breaches of the laws he has decreed are punished by strokes of lightning that fly from his weapon, and by devastating storms.¹⁵

3.3 The dragon slayer As the quintessential pater familias, the Sky god—the *g´énh₁tōr ‘creator’—had several male offspring. One was a great hero¹⁶ who slew a ‘dragon’, a daring deed celebrated in myth. The Rgvedic myth of V:rtra, which tells of the killing :

¹⁰ Thus the omniscience of the Sky god is based on the fact that he sees everything that happens on earth. ¹¹ This he does—according to RV 2.4.6—by means of his lightning bolts, which for their part are comparable to the smiles of a pretty girl (kalyān: yā yathā smitam : śam u nas santu vidyutah: ‘Like the smile of a girl shall the lightning bolts bring us luck’, Atharvaveda Paippalāda II 70,1). Iliad Θ, 38 (τὴν δ‛ ἐπιμειδήσας προσέφη νεφεληγερέτα Ζεύς ‘then the cloud-gatherer Zeus laughed and spoke unto her’) and Ennius, Annales 457f. Vahlen (Iuppiter hic risit tempestatesque serenae, riserunt omnes risu Iovis omnipotentis ‘Here Jupiter smiled, and with the smile of the all-powerful Jupiter all storms merrily smiled’), show that the image of the ‘smiling’ sky deity is possibly of Indo-European heritage. ¹² The sun is called the ‘eye’ of various descendants of the old Sky god: πάντα ἰδὼν Διὸς ὀφθαλμὸς καὶ πάντα νοήσας, ‘the all-seeing eye of Zeus’, Hesiod, Erga 267, quia Solem Jovis oculum appellat antiquitas, ‘because the old ones called the sun the eye of Zeus’, Macrobius, Saturnalia I 21,12, ́ citrám úd agād ánīkam : cáks: ur mitrásya várun: asyāgnéh: , ‘The brilliant face of the gods has : devānam arisen, the eye of Mitra, Varuna, Agni’, RV 1.115.1, námo mitrásya várun: asya cáks: ase, ‘Homage to the ́ eye of Mitra and of Varuna’, . . . cáks: uh: , 7.77.3), huuarә.ca xšaētahe auruuat. : 10.37.1 (cf. devānām aspahe dōiθrahe ahurahe mazdā, ‘for the bright sun, which has swift horses, the eye of Ahura Mazdā’, Yasna 3.13. Just as here the ‘all-seeing’ sun (ἠέλιός θ‛ ὃς πάντ‛ ἐφορᾷς, ‘And Helios, you who look on all and hear all!’, Iliad Γ 277) is called an ‘eye’, an ancient poetical expression also calls it a ‘wheel’. The ́ : . . . cakrám (RV 1.130.9, 174.5, 175.4, ́ ́ cakrám/sūryam latter is seen again in the Vedic sūryasya/sū raś 4.17.14, 5.29.10, 6.56.3), alongside the Greek ἡλίου κύκλος and the Old Nordic sunnu . . . hvél. In Latin the image is retained, but the expression has changed: solis rota, Lucretius 5.432. ¹³ While it is true that in RV 10.10.8 the stars (presumably) are in general referred to as ‘spies of the gods’, they fulfil this [353] function chiefly for Varuna : (see RV 1.25.13, 7.61.3, 87.3, 9.73.4), just as they do in the Avestan tradition for Miθra (Yt. 10.45). And the old Sky god lives on in both (see p. 50 and 55). In the Roman equivalent, it says: noctu sum in caelo clarus atque inter deos, inter mortalis ambulo interdius, et alia signa de caelo ad terram accidunt—qui est imperator diuom atque hominum Iuppiter, is nos per gentis alios alia disparat, qui facta hominum moresque pietatem et fidem, noscamus. . . . eorum referimus nomina exscripta ad Iouem. “At night I am shining brightly in heaven and among the gods, among the mortals I wander in the daytime, and other stars too fall from the sky down to the earth. Jupiter, who is ruler over gods and men, distributes us among the peoples, one here, one over there, so that we can experience the deeds of men, their deportment, their sense of duty and their honesty. . . . Their names, written down, we report to Jupiter.” (Plautus, Rudens, Antelogium 6–15) ¹⁴ Heaven, earth, and sun seem to form the (or an) ancient trinity of the gods of oaths. See pp. 111–12. ¹⁵ Parjanya is (or was) presumed to have split off from the Sky god; the gods (supposedly) related to him are (or were) traced back to an Indo-European god of storm and thunder. For more on this, see pp. 129–30. ¹⁶ He lives on in Heracles, Thor, and Kәrәsāspa, among others, as well as—merged with the IndoIranian ‘smasher of the ramparts’ (see pp. 36 and 54)—in Indra. Another heroic act connects Indra to

36

    . 

of a serpent by Indra (see pp. 167–9), corresponds to various myths in other Indo-European traditions: Thor’s slaying of the Midgard Serpent that had wrapped itself around the earth; the conquest of the Lernaean Hydra by Heracles;¹⁷ and the slaying of a horned snake by the hero Kәrәsāspa, in Germanic, Greek and Iranian traditions, respectively (see pp. 57–8). The Avestan version of this myth¹⁸ may give an impression of the enemy of the ‘dragon slayer’: “Kәrәsāspa, the young, curly-haired cudgel wielder, . . . slew the horned snake, the devourer of horses and people, the poisonous one, the yellow one, on which poisonous liquid raised itself up to the height of a spear . . . .” (Y 9.10–11 = Yt. 19.40) [50].¹⁹

That the Vedic myth, moreover, tells of releasing the life-giving water that had been enclosed by the serpent (see p. 167), is due to a blending of the dragon slayer with the ‘crusher of ramparts’, whose great deed was in fact the liberation of the water (see p. 54). In Iranian mythology the two deities remain distinct, and their heroic deeds likewise kept separate (see pp. 54 and 57–8).

3.4 The divine twins Two of the ‘offspring of (God) Heaven’ were twins: the morning and evening stars, Hesperus and Lucifer, brothers of the heavenly daughter (see p. 37) and, like her, possessed of exceptional beauty. One of them, Lucifer, helps the sun over the horizon in the morning, after the other, Hesperus, uses his ship to rescue it in the evening from the sea in which it had set.²⁰ And so they are worshipped as Thor, the son (originally) of the Sky god Týr: each of them slays a stone monster: Thor kills the Hrungnir, a giant made entirely of stone, and Indra, the ‘stone’ sky—his own father (see p. 126). An atrocity like this is also carried out by Thor, who however kills together with Týr also Hymir, Týr’s father. ¹⁷ Just as Heracles summoned a helper, Iolaus, who stopped the heads of the Hydra from growing back by singeing the stumps with burning tree trunks (Hesiod, Theogony 313–18), Indra sent for a carpenter who aided him in the fight against Viśvarūpa by chopping off his three heads with an axe (see Kāt:haka XII 10: 172.5–9 and Maitrāyanī II 4.1: 38.3–5). : Samhitā : ¹⁸ SÆø, in Smashing Urine: On Yasna 48.10. Zoroastrian Rituals in Context (ed. by M. S), Leiden—Boston 2001, pp. 253–81, claims to have identified an older version of this myth in the form of an allusion [354] in Y 48.10. ¹⁹ Kәrәsāspa and Indra are the heroes of another myth that can be reconstructed for the IndoIranian period: both of them kill Gandarәβa/Gandharva who lives in the celestial ocean (see p. 57). : ²⁰ The Dioscuri, like the Aśvins, also rescued castaways. One of their forms of epiphany is said to be St. Elmo’s Fire, the electrical discharges that appear on a ship’s mast, providing a glimmer of hope in the moment of direst danger: παῖδες . . . Δίος ἠδὲ Λήδας, . . . Κάστορ, καὶ Πολύδευκες/οἲ κὰτ‛ εὔρηαν χθόνα καὶ θάλασσαν, παῖσαν ἔρεχεσθ‛ ὠκυπόδων ἐπ‛ ἴππων, ῤήα δ‛ ἀνθρώποις θανάτω ῤύεσθε, ζακρυόεντος/ εὐσδύγων θρώισκοτες ὂν ἄκρα νάων, πήλοθεν λάμπροι πρό[τον‛ ὀν]τρ[έχο]ντες/ἀργαλέαι δ‛ ἐν νύκτι φάος φέροντες, νᾶϊ μελαίναι, “Sons of Zeus and Leda [ . . . ] Castor and Pollux, you who come over the wide earth and the whole sea on fleet-footed horses, easily you rescue the

 - 

37

deliverers from any plight and helpers to all the needy—σωτῆρας . . . ἀνθρώπων ‘deliverers of men’ as they are called in Hom. Hym., Diosc. 6—and the subject of myths that have been associated with them throughout the ages (see p. 104). It must be noted that the birth of twins was considered an abnormality, and consequently a threat to the community. This explains why twins were often banished and made to spend their lives roaming. What had been denied them, however—a home—they created for themselves: they founded cities. Thebes was founded by Amphion and Zethus, Ascra by the Aloadae, and Rome by Romulus and Remus. It often came to pass that one of the twins was killed (often by the other) in the process, in a kind of ‘building sacrifice’, as for example Remus (see pp. 61 and 186–7). If this killing of a twin for the purpose of founding a city may be linked with the evisceration of Yima and Ymir and the sacrifice of Yama, of which the Rgveda seems to tell (see p. 187), [51] a mytheme is revealed : to us which existed as early as the Indo-European period relating that man and the world were created based on the killing of a twin or even, in some cases, from the twin who was killed.

3.5 Daughter of the Sky Another subject of myth is the ‘Daughter of the Sky’, the youthful dawn, the approach of whom heralds the coming of the morning star that precedes her (see p. 36):²¹ because of her ‘fiery’ beauty²² she is abducted—by whom, remains obscure—but is rescued by her brothers, the heavenly twins. While the Rgveda : retains only traces of this myth (see p. 105), it finds a lively perpetuation in a number of Greek tales. Take, for example, the liberation of Antiope by Amphion and Zethus, and the freeing of Helen²³ by her brothers Castor and Pollux, the Tyndaridae, after she had been taken by Theseus:²⁴

men from horrible death, leaping on the tips of their well-benched ships, shining from afar [ . . . ], bringing light to the black ship in the dire night.” (Alcaeus, fr. 34; see D. P, Sappho and Alcaeus, pp. 265–8) See also O, Religion, p. 214 fn. 1. ²¹ Another myth told of her imprisonment in a stone dungeon, her release, and her ascendance to heaven. This tale lives on in the Greek myth of Persephone (see J, Eleusis, Das indogermanische Erbe der Mysterien, Innsbruck 2000). ²² Erotic ‘desire’ kindled by such great beauty has been directed at the Daughter of the Sky since time immemorial. In the Rgveda it is called vánas and is characteristic of Us: as (RV 10.172.1), while in Rome : it has, in a manner of speaking, taken on a life of its own as a separate goddess of love. Thus we have Venus—her name etymologically related to the Vedic word vánas—beside Aurora, just as in Greece we have Aphrodite, a separate love goddess alongside Eos. ²³ Helen is particularly closely associated with the abduction motif, as she was taken first by Theseus (see also Alcman, fr. 12) and then by Paris (Iliad Ζ, 289–92). ²⁴ Horace called her fratres Helenae lucida sidera, ‘brothers of Helena, bright stars’, Carmina I 3, referring to her astral nature.

38

    .  “For when of old the Tyndaridae, to win back Helen, invaded the Attic land with a great host and depopulated the settlements, as they knew not where Helen was held in hiding, then, they say, the men of Dekeleia (or some say Dekelos himself ), enraged by the insolent robber Theseus . . . revealed all to the Tyndaridae and led them to Aphidnai, which place then Titakos, a native, delivered unto the Tyndaridae.” (Herodotus, Hist. IX, 73) (ὡς γὰρ δὴ τὸ πάλαι κατὰ Ἑλένης κομιδὴω Τυνδαρίδαι ἐσέβαλον ἐσ γῆω τὴν Ἀττικὴν σὺν στρατοῦ πλήθει καὶ ἀνίστασαν τοὺς δήμους, οὐκ εἰδόντες ἵνα ὑπεξέκειτο ἡ Ἑλένη, τότε λέγουσι τοὺς Δεκελέας, οἱ δὲ αὐτὸν Δέκελον ἀχθόμενόν τε τῇ Θησέος ὕβρι . . . ἐξηγησάμενόν σφι τὸ πᾶν πρῆγμα κατηγήσασθαι ἐπὶ τὰς Ἀφίδνας, τὰς δὴ Τιτακός, ἐὼν αὐτόχθων, καταπροδιδοῖ Τυνδαρίδῃσι)

This myth lives on as well in the Germanic saga of Herwig and Ortwein’s rescue of Kudrun, who had been abducted by Hartmut. Helen’s divine counterpart is Aphrodite, and she too perpetuates *H₂éu̯ sos,²⁵ who, as the actual goddess Dawn, is inherited by Eos, daughter of the sun god Hyperion (see p. 34 fn. 7). The beauty of the dawn, however, is associated with quite sinister traits— ultimately in consequence of spending her nights in the underworld [52].

3.6 Daughter of the Sun Other traits of Helen’s come to her from the ‘Sunʼs daughter’, goddess of the morning twilight. Her Rgvedic counterpart, Sūryā, is likewise in a close relation: ship with the divine twins, the Aśvins. This is the theme of a myth which has two versions in the Rgveda. In one, the Aśvins are the spouses of the Sun’s daughter,²⁶ : who they won in a chariot race or who chose them herself.²⁷ In the other, they court Sūryā on behalf of Soma—here, the moon—who takes her for his wife. The first version corresponds to the myth of Leucippides’s abduction by the Dioscuri, apparently for the purpose of marriage, and to the tale handed down in Latvian ²⁵ The smile of the dawn, mentioned repeatedly in the Rgveda (cf. RV 1.123.10), is apparently : inherited. After all, this is often said of Aphrodite, too (see p. 34 fn. 7): [355] . . . ἐφ‛ ἱμερτῷ δὲ προσώπῳ/ αἰεὶ μειδιάει καὶ ἱμερτὸν θέει ἄνθος ‘On her sweet face a smile ever beams’ (Hom. Hymn. Aphr. 3; on Sappho, fr. 1,14, see p. 29). ²⁶ The fact that the ‘Sons of the Sky’ marry the ‘Daughter of the Sun’ makes it difficult to imagine that the one they marry is the dawn, as she—being the ‘daughter of the sky’—is their sister. And in that case we would be dealing with a kind of incest myth. ²⁷ This apparently happens in an act of Svayam : vara, the ‘selection [of the future husband] by [the bride] herself [and not by her parents]’ (see p. 253 fn. 316 and 317). Interestingly, Euripides reports in his Iphigenia in Aulis that Helen chose Menelaus to be her spouse: δίδωσ‛ ἑλεσθαι θυγατρὶ μνηστήρων ἕνα . . . ἣ δ‛ εἵλεθ‛ ὅς σφε μήποτ‛ ὤφελεν λαβεῖν Μενέλαον “(Tyndareos) allowed his daughter to choose one of her suitors . . . And her choice fell on Menelaus—would she had never taken him!” (68–71). Because Helen’s name appears on a Laconian inscription with an initial digamma (Fελεναι), her name could belong to the root *√u̯ elh₁ to ‘choose oneself ’—‘choosing [her spouse herself]’—from which Skt. vará (see previous mention) is also derived.

 - 

39

folk songs about the engagement and marriage of the sons of god with the daughters of the sun.²⁸ It seems the myth of the bride abducted by exceptionally beautiful sons of the sky was already known in Indo-European times—the abducted one being either the ‘Daughter (or Daughters) of the Sun’,²⁹ or the dawn (or dawns).³⁰

3.7 Heavenly nymphs Related to the Vedic Apsarases, water nymphs of extraordinary beauty who can also be dangerous to men,³¹ are the Iranian Ahurānīs, the waters that ‘belong to Ahura Mazdā’ (according to YH 38.3), apparently as his daughters.³² Because the latter, in turn—according to a trilingual in Xanthos’s sanctuary dedicated to Leto—were counterparts of the Greek nymphs and were considered ‘Daughters of Zeus’ (κοῦραι Διὸς, Hesiod, fr. 171), the asexual impregnation of the Apsaras Urvaśī by Mitra and Varuna³³ might mask a case of incest, something that has : been often attested in Greece.³⁴ And this indicates that the Vedic ‘nymphs’ were also considered daughters of the Sky god, who in the Indian version lives on in Mitra and Varuna : (see pp. 50 and 55) [53]. While the members of the Indo-European family of gods are, as a rule, gods of particular elements or realms—this being the finding yielded by the individual languages³⁵—there were also gods outside of the family, to whom that rule did not apply. These include ‘dwarves’ who fight at the hero’s side, and a god of the roads and borderlands who is responsible, for example, for lost things, especially for herd animals that have wandered off, but also for escorting the dead to the world ²⁸ There seems to have been some overlap, however, between ideas associated with the ‘dawn’ and those with the ‘sun-daughters’, and the latter apparently won the upper hand. Thus the goddess ‘Dawn’ no longer plays a significant role there. ²⁹ This lives on, or these live on, in the Latvian ‘Sun Daughters’ (see preceding footnote), in the Greek Leucippides and in the Vedic Sūryā. ³⁰ The question of whether the Daughter of the Sun and the Daughter of the Sky, the latter being the dawn, must be distinguished with regard to the Indo-European era—especially in light of the circumstances found in the Rgveda—or, instead, we should assume a (single) Sun Maiden, as claimed for : example in S, The Sun Maiden’s Wedding, Ann Arbor 1993 (UMI), has yet to be clarified. ³¹ They can seize men and make them insane, like the Greek nymphs whose victims become νυμφόληπτοι ‘possessed (by nymphs), mad’. ³² In Younger Avestan texts the name Ahurānī is often followed by the genitive ahurahe ‘[daughter] of Ahura’, so the previous rendering of Ahurānī would appear to be justified. ³³ The two gods discharged their semen into a crock when they caught sight of Urvaśī the Apsaras (RV 7.33.11ff.). This is how she became the mother of the wise Vasis: t:ha and thus the first ancestor [356] of a renowned priest clan. Agasyta was conceived in the same act of insemination, and is accordingly considered the twin brother of Vasis: t:ha. Their history is interwoven with that of Yama and thus with that of all ‘mankind’ (see RV 7.33.9/12). See also pp. 183–4. ³⁴ The most widely known tale of such a case of incest is that of Callisto: impregnated by Zeus, she gave birth to Arcas, ancestor of the Arcadians. ³⁵ See O, Vedaforschung, Stuttgart—Berlin 1905, p. 60, and P. T, Kleine Schriften, Wiesbaden 1995, pp. 990–1.

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    . 

beyond (see pp. 40–1). There is also a ‘Scion of the Waters’ that watches over a fiery element inside itself. And finally, there is a god of pestilence and healing, who brings illnesses but can also remedy them (see p. 44).

3.8 Dwarfish helpers There seem to be extremely disparate ideas linked to a god who fought at Indra’s side:³⁶ Vis: nu, reports that he lives in the mountains, holds up : of whom the Rgveda : the sky and watches over the highest hoarded treasure, that he prepares the seeds and protects them and provides for good birth, and that he can take on various forms. The triad is characteristic of him, and he has a very close relationship with Soma, as he prepares the drink for Indra. How these very different traits all fit together in one deity is evident in Germanic mythology, where such heroassistants are well known. These are the ‘dwarves’ who fight at the hero’s side. They forge a marvellous weapon for him and prepare his mead. They live in the mountains and under the rocks and turn to stone when touched by a ray of sunlight. They are very helpful, and reward men with wonderful gifts, which often come in threes. They strive for the favours of beautiful girls and women. And four of them hold up the dome of the sky. This is indeed a striking set of similarities with Vis: nu. : A significant difference is that Vis: nu : would be just one [54] ‘dwarf ’, while for Germanic mythology, their plurality is characteristic.³⁷ If Vis: nu : is a continuation of an early ‘dwarf figure’, this would be a plausible explanation both of Indra’s command to him to ‘take broader strides’ (RV 4.18.11 = 8.100.12) and of the fact he has demonstrably been thought of as a dwarf since the time of the Yajurveda-Samhitās and Brāhmanas, : : as well as the prescription in these texts that a dwarfish animal be sacrificed to him (vāmaná) (see pp. 137–8).

3.9 The god of roads and borderlands Pūs: an, lord of pathways and roads, messenger, and conductor of the dead to the afterworld (psychopompós) among the gods, is another who has a close relationship with Soma. He is the god of shepherds and their flocks and is the protector of animals.³⁸ This is why he is characterised by a shepherd’s crook, and a male goat is his share in the horse sacrifice.³⁹ He guards men against straying from their path

³⁶ Next to Vis: nu, : Trita is the assistant to Indra (see pp. 135–6). ³⁷ Because the hero usually has only one helper—as Heracles, for example, had Iolaos in his battle against the Lernaean Hydra (see p. 36 n. 17), and Thor his Týr—the singularity of the ‘dwarf ’ Vis: nu : might be an indication that in the Rgveda two traditions overlap. : ³⁸ The myth of Hermes’s cattle theft seems to be directly connected with this function of Pūs: an’s. ³⁹ O, Religion, p. 73, surmises, with all due caution, that ‘Pūs: an’s he-goat might hint at the original goat figure of the god’. That would be one more thing he had in common with Pan.

 - 

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and can bring back what was lost and uncover what was concealed. Hence is he the god of tracking.⁴⁰ And he is a friend to the poet and a patron of the singer. Pūs: an is clearly the counterpart of the Greek god Pan,⁴¹ whose greedy concupiscence and numerous love affairs are reminiscent of Pūs: an’s desire to wed his own mother, and of his erotic relationship with his own sister (see p. 184).⁴² And Pan’s love of wine can be compared to Pūs: an’s relationship with Soma, which he lets flow for Indra. The names of both gods seem to be extensions of the same Indo-European word. Yet Pūs: an bears a very strange similarity to Hermes,⁴³ with whom he shares some of the functions mentioned previously.⁴⁴ For the latter is, in the epic poems, the messenger of the gods; in the Homeric hymns, he is the creative trickster who invents sacrifices and music; all in all a god of the borderlands, roads and transitions: patron of heralds and messengers with his emblem of a serpent-like staff,⁴⁵ of shepherds and herds, of thieves, and also one who escorts [55] the dead into the next world (psychopompós). And another specific detail of the Pūs: an cult illustrates the similarity of Hermes to Pūs: an: Pūs: an’s preferred ‘nourishment’ is the karambhá (RV 6.56.1, 57.2), a kind of porridge, which is why already in the Rgveda he is referred to as ‘having bad teeth’ or being ‘gap-toothed’ (kárū:latin, RV : 4.30.24).⁴⁶ Hermes, in turn, is known for loving sweet cakes above all else, which is why these are the preferred sacrifice to him.⁴⁷ Pūs: an’s bad teeth and Hermes’s love of cakes—the convergence seems to be more than mere coincidence.⁴⁸ This makes it doubly interesting that Pan is closely connected to Hermes, who is of course said to be Pan’s father. Thus it seems that Pūs: an, Pan, and Hermes manifest a god of roads and borderlands in Indo-European religion.

⁴⁰ See S, Kleine Schriften, Göttingen 1933, p. 188 fn. 1. ⁴¹ The Roman equivalent of Pan is Faunus. ́ ⁴² This may be indicated by kāmena k:rtá- ‘he who is prompted by desire’ (see H. O, Noten on RV 6.49.8) in RV 6.49.8 and 6.58.3–4. ⁴³ It is not clear to which goddesses J W refers when he states that ‘the Erinyes are among the oldest figures in the Indo-European religion [and] in Vedic songs appear to be closely related to Hermes’ (Über den Ursprung des Brahmanismus, Basel 1877, p. 22). Because he mentions that these goddesses ‘become godheads of death’ and because Saranyū : is considered the mother of Yama (see p. 177), he might have conflated the Erinyes with Saranyū, as did the nature-mythology school— : the realm of which his ‘Vortrag gehalten zu Basel am 17 November 1876’ approaches—based on (erroneous) etymological speculations (see R, Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen und römischen Mythologie, Vol. I, Leipzig 1884–86, p. 1317, and Wü, [357] RE Suppl. VIII [1956] 84). ⁴⁴ And like Hermes, Pūs: an is also the patron of conveyance of a bride from her old to her new home (cf. RV 10.85.26). ⁴⁵ This serpent staff, “which can make men fall asleep or wake up, in accordance with the god’s will” (B, Griechische Religion der archaischen und klassischen Periode, Stuttgart 1977, p. 245), is highly reminiscent of Pūs: an’s ‘shepherd’s crook’. ⁴⁶ O, Religion, p. 236 fn. 3 refers to Śatapatha Brāhmana : I 7.4.7, where the god is described as ‘toothless’. ⁴⁷ Of course only late sources attest this idea (see E, Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft. Vol. VIII, Stuttgart 1912, coll. 763). ⁴⁸ What is more, the wig-like hair or the Krobylos in representations of Hermes brings to mind Pūs: an’s kaparda (RV 6.55.2, 9.67.11) (cf. O, Religion, p. 237 fn. 1).

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    . 

3.10 The ‘Scion of the Waters’ Apām : Napāt is the god of the water that is mixed with the pressed Soma in the Rgvedic ritual (see p. 234). The water is fetched from a stream that flows near : the place of sacrifice in what is called the Aponaptrīya ritual, performed on the morning of the day of pressing. In the process, Apām : Napāt, who ‘drives the racers’, must be appeased with an offering (see pp. 102–3). This deity appears in the Avesta as well, where it is connected with very similar concepts: this is the god who ‘lives in the water’ and ‘shines’ (Yt. 19.52), Apąm Napāt, who ‘possesses swift horses’ (Yt. 5.72, 19.51–2) and ‘thrives through the poured offering’ (Yt. 19.52), ‘distributes the water allotted to the [individual] places’ (Yt. 8.34)⁴⁹ and captures the xvarәnah from its place in the Lake Vouru.kas: ̌a (Yt. 19.51).⁵⁰ As its function of legitimising authority was clearly passed to the latter from Haoma (or its ‘predecessor’, the *Sáu̯ma)—to which it thus largely corresponds (see pp. 19–20)—in a veritable separation process, both Rgveda and Avesta point : back to an underlying Indo-Iranian myth according to which the ‘Scion of the Waters’ protects a smouldering element [56] (probably the *Sáu̯ma) from being taken without authorisation. This in turn apparently stems from an old IndoEuropean myth, which is discernible in the Roman saga of the mysterious flooding of the Alban Lake: During this period many omens were reported, of which however the most were not truly met with belief and were paid no heed, because each was reported by only one person and because due to hostilities with the Etruscans, they had no haruspices to expiate the omens. The worry of all was directed at but one of these: that the lake in the Alban Forest had swelled to a monstrous height, without rainfall nor other cause that would have removed the semblance of the supernatural. To discover what the gods would presage by this omen, messengers were sent to the Oracle of Delphi. Yet fate offered an interpreter quite nearby, an old man from Veii, who . . . announced in the manner of a seer, . . . ‘If the water of the Alban Lake overflows, then, and if the Roman diverts it in the proper way, he will be granted victory over the people of Veii’. Until this happened, the gods would not forsake the walls of Veii. He then described the instructions for diverting the water. But the senators held the informant to be . . . too little reliable . . . and determined to wait for the return of their envoy and the dicta of the Pythian ⁴⁹ Together with Vaiiu, the Frauuas: ̌is and Satauuaēsa, he provides this assistance for Tištriia (cf. also Yt. 8.4). ⁵⁰ Specifically, it is the so-called axvarәtәm xvarәnah, the ‘uncapturable’, which bears this name because in the battle between good and evil that surges back and forth, it initially cannot be captured by either side. And then it is seized by Apąm Napāt, who takes it (at first) into his care (see O, Zum Verhältnis von Apąm Napāt- und Χυarәnah- im Avesta, Zarathushtra entre l’Inde et l’Iran, Études indo-iraniennes et indo-européens offertes à Jean Kellens, ed. E. P and X. T, Wiesbaden 2009, pp. 189–96).

 - 

43

oracle. . . . The outcomes of the other wars, especially of that against Veii, were still uncertain. The Romans had already buried all hopes of men’s possibilities and directed their gaze to the dicta of the fates and the gods. Then the messengers returned from Delphi with the dictum of the oracle, which was in accord with the answer given by the captured seer: ‘Roman, beware of holding the Alban water in the Lake, beware of allowing it to find its own path to flow into the sea. You should divert it and guide it through the fields and, divided into the brooks, let it dissipate [57]. Then boldly take the enemy’s walls and know that through these sayings of fate, which are proclaimed to you now, you are given victory over the city which you have for so long held under siege. When the war has been concluded, you as victor should bring a handsome gift to my halidom, and arrange that the local cults that had been given up are re-instituted such as they were.’ And now they began to hold the captured seer for an important man, and the military tribunes, Cornelius and Postumius, began to call him in for the expiation of the Alban sign of a miracle and the proper method of appeasing the gods. In the end it was also discovered what the gods meant by the accusation that the ceremonies had been neglected and a customary celebration not held: that it was certainly nothing else but the fact that incorrectly elected officials had not properly announced the Feriae Latinae and the sacrifice on the Alban Mount. The only possible means of expiation was that the military tribunes should resign their office, the auspices to be taken anew, and an interregnum appointed. This was decreed by the senate. . . . Now the games and the Feriae Latinae had been held again, now the water had been diverted from the Alban Lake to the fields. . . . That was the fall of Veii, the most powerful city of the Etruscans (Livy, lib. 5)

This myth is also attested in the Old Irish tale of Boann and Nechtan: Nechtan mac Labrada, husband of Boann, had in his castle a secret spring which nobody could look upon without losing their eyes, excepting only his cupbearers Flesc, Lam and Luam. One day Boann, in a fit of daring, went around the spring three times to test its power.⁵¹ Three waves burst forth from the spring and destroyed one of her eyes, one of her legs and one of her arms. To hide this ignominy, she hurried to the sea. But the water chased after her, and she drowned in it. Thus was the river Boann created. [Dindsenchas: Boand]

The Indo-European myth thus deals with a smouldering element that is hidden in the water and tended by a divine guardian,⁵² possession of which is sought by

⁵¹ In another version of the tale, Boann does this to ‘obliterate the traces of her guilt’, for she had an illicit affair with the god Dagda and bore a son by him. ⁵² The Indian version (i.e. the Aponaptrīya ritual) is distinct from the Roman, Old Irish, and Iranian myths in that Apām : Napāt is not only the fiery water guardian, but also the smouldering element itself.

44

    . 

mortals as it bestows power. Such an undertaking, however—the myth continues—holds great dangers: if attempted by a person without authority, the result is a devastating flood.

3.11 The god of healing Rudra is the ‘God of Healing’ in the Rgvedic pantheon (see pp. 132–3). He clearly : has a counterpart in Apollo, the god of pestilence who strikes from afar and has the power to bring healing, spends his time in the north, beyond the reach of mortals, behind an immense mountain range among the pious Hyperborean folk. He has a particularly close connection with song, music and the art of poetry, all of which appease this angry god. Among the gods on Mount Olympus he plays the beautiful phorminx, a stringed instrument; the god of pestilence is simultaneously the master of the healing song. While it is true that in many old cultures ‘the most primordial and at the same time “normal” type of a healing god is the ambivalent one’, and ‘gods of this profile are to be met with almost everywhere . . . especially the divine hunters and conquerors of death are predestined for this role’, yet ‘what Apollo and Rudra have in common’ goes ‘beyond the general characteristics of type’.⁵³ Two particular commonalities between these gods are their link to the mole, who plays an important role in the traditional art of healing, and their prominence in the institution of initiation rites for young males. There is some likelihood that we can ‘reconstruct the main characteristics of an Indo-European pestilence and healing god’ from these two deities [59].⁵⁴

3.12 The ‘heavenly’ drink of the gods The conception of a ‘drink of the gods,’ *médhu ‘mead, sweet drink’ as early as the Indo-European period clearly stems from the Indo-Europeans’ conception of the gods as ‘physical’ beings (the most important among them even having human form) who suffer hunger and thirst just as men do.⁵⁵ And because heaven was thought of as the place where these gods lived, it seems that the Indo-European religion already regarded it as the home of their drink, where it gushed forth from a spring.⁵⁶ And as it was also the basis of divine ⁵³ L, Apollon—Asklepios—Hygieia. Saeculum 39 (1988) 8. ⁵⁴ ibid. ⁵⁵ Perfectly analogous to the notion of a special food is the idea that the gods spoke a language [358] that was all their own (see p. 88). Moreover, there are speculations about the gods having a special kind of bodily flesh—for example, in the Middle Kingdom of Egypt—and a special kind of blood—recall Homer’s ichōr (ἰχώρ). ⁵⁶ It is possible that the belief in a tree that grows there and drips mead—arguably the World Tree— also reaches back to the Indo-European period (see p. 162 fn. 27). See S ¨ , Indogermanisches in der Völuspá, Numen 14 (1967) 186–7.

 - 

45

immortality⁵⁷—here too, probably already for the Indo-Europeans—it was also termed *n¯mr̥ to- ‘giving of life force’. It was an object of desire from all sides, since it was believed to bestow mysterious powers and even immortality,⁵⁸ and this led—again, very likely as early as Indo-European times⁵⁹—to the emergence of a myth about ‘stealing the mead’, in which a bird (or a god in the shape of a bird) plays a decisive role (see pp. 159–63).

3.13 The cult In spite of all efforts to reconstruct the rites and rituals of the Indo-European religion, what Hermann Oldenberg noted almost a hundred years ago is still basically true today: We are not well placed in the current state of research with regard to a comparison of cult forms that reconstructs the Indo-European situation, if the intention of such is to determine a property that is particularly characteristic of the Indo-European people. There is no doubt that the Vedic and the Greek rituals of sacrifice share many and profound similarities. But the Semitic sacrifice is similar to both, to say nothing of parallels with more distant [60] peoples.⁶⁰

Yet at least two rituals of the Indo-European period can be reconstructed with near certainty: one is the horse sacrifice, and the other is the ritual honouring and feeding of divine guests. Notwithstanding considerable differences in details, the Vedic Aśvamedha ritual and the Roman October Horse ritual—both well attested—together with some evidence of a similar ritual among Greek, Slavic, Germanic, Celtic, and Iranian tribes, would seem to make it quite likely that the horse sacrifice traces back to Indo-European times. Moreover, judging from its origin, it seems to have been a sacrifice of the royal cult, intended to guarantee fertility and prosperity to the ruler and his realm (see pp. 242–4).

⁵⁷ As it says in RV 9.106.8: ‘You are what the gods drank for immortality’. ⁵⁸ The mead of poets is also an object of desire, and Germanic mythology has many tales about those who have possessed it. And many champions strove to obtain Haoma and xvarәnah (see pp. 19–20); some successfully, others in vain. ⁵⁹ For more on which myths ‘can be traced back to the Indo-European age’ with some certainty, (O, Religion, p. 34), see p. 159. ⁶⁰ O, Religion, p. 34 fn. 2.

46

    . 

The Rgvedic Gharma sacrifice (see pp. 246–50) and the Greek Theoxenia point : back to the veritable ‘hospitality’ shown the divine twins and the divine hero, when they had been invoked for assistance and answered the call. The grass, called stibás (στιβάς), strewn on the ground in the Greek ritual is too reminiscent of the Barhis (see p. 217) to rule out the possibility of its inheritance from an older time [351].⁶¹

⁶¹ It has been surmised that the use of grass is a relic of an older tree cult.

4 The Indo-Iranian Religion 4.1 Younger inheritance in the religion of the Rgveda : The layer of beliefs and cultic forms inherited from the Indo-European age was overlaid by another in the period when Vedic and Iranian tribes were one community. By comparing the Rgvedic with the Old Iranian religion, the contours : of that younger layer can be discerned. Such a comparison must first and foremost examine what has been added, but also explore the fate of the Indo-European heritage. In the case of the Old Iranian religion in particular, this evaluation is fraught with difficulties. Why this is so becomes clear in the brief introduction to the religion of Zarathustra¹ presented in the next section, which is followed by a more detailed treatment of the major characteristics of the Indo-Iranian religion revealed by said comparison.²

4.2 Zarathustra’s religion After separating from (those who were later known as) the Indo-Aryans,³ probably west of the Caspian Sea, a number of Iranian tribes migrated southward and settled in Bactria, the region in which Afghanistan is located today; this is northwest of the Hindu Kush, the mountain range that forms a natural border of the Vedic territory. The religion of the Iranians was closely related to that of the Vedic tribes yet would soon undergo an almost revolutionary change brought about by one man,⁴ to whom the oldest texts of the Old Iranian [62] religion are attributed. The ‘chants’ (gāθā) of Zarathustra are abrupt, even brusque; always vehement, usually short; with one obscurely implied thought or fragment of a thought placed

¹ At its centre is the worship of Ahura Mazdā, which is why it is called daēnā māzdaiiasni in the younger Avesta. ² This is not the place, however, to present everything such a comparison uncovers (such as the slaying of ‘bent-walking Arәzō.šamana’ by Kәrәsāspa, spoken of in Yt. 19.42, behind whom the ‘limping smith’ could be hidden [see p. 176]). One notable commonality additional to those outlined in the following is that in both traditions, a three-day period must elapse before ‘things’ can transition from one state to another (see p. 118 with fn. 219). ³ One part moved to India, while the other turned towards the west and ultimately took up dominion of the Mitanni empire (see p. 1). ⁴ Zarathustra was well acquainted with their religion, and even [359] called himself zaotā ‘the priest who pours the libation’ (Y 33.6) and mąθrān ‘poet’ (Y 50.6).

The Religion of the Rgveda. Thomas Oberlies, Oxford University Press. © Thomas Oberlies 2023. : DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780192868213.003.0004

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    ̣ 

next to another, and so give an altogether inadequate impression of the religion inherited from Indo-Iranian times. This very heritage, moreover, was res non gratum in Zarathustra’s view, and should be eradicated. And yet, however drastic the alterations in the religious perceptions connected to the name of Zarathustra may have been, those mythical beliefs and cultic practices that survived from the past into the Zoroastrian religion—and which connect it to the Vedic religion— endured indelibly. And in time, old deities like Apąm Napāt, Haoma, Miθra, and Vaiiu (see pp. 53–60) made their way into the changing belief system of Zoroastrianism. Central to Zarathustra’s teachings is the commandment to do good—in word and deed—hic et nunc. Good is, above all, the world order established by Ahura Mazdā in his wisdom. And man must take an active part in maintaining it. This is possible—thus Zarathustra’s very specific concept—in the realm of a ruler who governs with ‘good thinking’,⁵ where the people live together in peace in accordance with that order.⁶ First and foremost, however, good is realised by consciously deciding for it. One of the essential ideas of Zarathustra is that humans can choose between good and evil, the two primordial powers (Y 45.2).⁷ Whether a man is good or evil in thought, word, and deed depends upon his decision between these ‘twins’, often barely to be distinguished from one another and yet so very different (Y 30.3, 45.2).⁸ He who has chosen the ‘bounteous spirit’ (spәn: ta mańiiu) stands on the side of ‘truth’ (see pp. 51–3), of right-mindedness, of good thinking, and he who chooses the ‘evil spirit’ (aŋra mańiiu) is on that of ‘untruth’. When the individual dies, his good and [63] evil deeds are balanced against one another. Those for whom ‘bad deed, bad word and bad thinking’ predominate (Y 49.4) become guests in the ‘house of lies’ (Y 46.11, 49.11). Those, on the other hand, who during their lifetimes were devoted to the truth, cross Cinuuat ̰ bridge, the ‘bridge of the (one who is) layering (it) (Yima)’,⁹ and enter the house of Ahura Mazdā, the ‘Lord Wisdom’ (Y 46.10–11, 49.10).¹⁰

⁵ He also pleads: ‘Good rulers should rule over us, bad rulers should not rule over us, with the works of good insight, o right-mindedness’ (Y 48.5). ⁶ In such an earthly paradise based on the power of ‘truth’ (see pp. 51–3), ‘with good thinking the ruler establishes good dwellings and peaceful conditions’ (Y 29.10). ⁷ The division into good and evil is marked even in the vocabulary of (both early and late) Zoroastrianism, in that there are often both ahurish and daēuuish designations for one and the same denotatum: puθra-/hunu- ‘son’, vaγδana-/kamәrәδa- ‘head’, dōiθra-/aši- ‘eye’, uš(i)-/karәna- ‘ear’, āh-/zafar- ‘mouth’, zasta-/gauu- ‘hand’, pad-/zbaraθa- ‘foot’, maēsman-/mūθra- ‘urine’, asman-/ diiau- ‘heaven’, √i, √gam/√duuar ‘to go, to run’, √xvar/√ghas ‘to eat’, √zan/√hū ‘give birth’. See p. 88 fn. 55. ⁸ This would seem to be a continuation of the (or an) old twin myth: one of the twins is the embodiment of good, the other, of quintessential evil, and the two are locked in irreconcilable enmity which ends, not infrequently, in the killing of one by the other. ⁹ On the role played by Daēnā, see pp. 56–7 with fn. 51. ¹⁰ In addition to this ‘eschatology of the individual’ the Gāθās teach—but this is not uncontroversial among experts in the field—an eschatology of the world as a whole, a final judgement, and this in two versions. One is formed from the ancient Indo-European custom of determining truth through an

 - 

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Ahura Mazdā stands—as evidenced by the formula from ‘pre-Zarathustrian’ times, mazdā̊scā ahurā̊ŋhō, ‘O Mazdā and ye [other] Ahuras’ (Y 30.9)—at the fore of a group of divine beings who are ‘one in will’ with him (Y 51.20) and who work with him to achieve ‘good, desirable rule’ (Y 51.1). While it is true that, for Zarathustra, these Ahuras¹¹—among whom are for example As: ̌a ‘truth’ (see p. 53), Ārmaiti ‘right-mindedness’ and Vohu Manah ‘good thinking’—are no longer a class of deities alongside the ‘gods’,¹² they do—like the Rgvedic : Asuras—trace back to such a class, opposed in the Indo-Iranian religion by that of the *Dai ̯u̯á. Zarathustra knows these old Indo-Iranian ‘gods’ as well.¹³ Concerning them, however, he proclaims: ‘All you gods are seeds from bad thinking’ (Y 32.3). Those who he is criticising are not a priori evil and bad, yet because they made the wrong choice between good and evil (Y 30.6), they are— unlike Ahura Mazdā and his companions—not to be worshipped by men. That Zarathustra saw in the Daēuuas an embodiment of bad, of the ‘lie’, may be directly connected with the cult dedicated to them, as its central elements—consuming Haoma and killing animals—could not be reconciled with his vision of all creatures of god in peaceful cohabitation:¹⁴ ‘Were the Daēuuas—I ask [you, o Ahura Mazdā] —good in ruling, as they looked upon [the deeds], with which for them the Karapan and Usij priests gave over the cattle to bloodlust?’ (Y 44.20), ‘[Ahura] Mazdā utters evil [words] to them, who destroy the life [64] of the ox . . .’ (Y 32.12). For Zarathustra, benevolent treatment of the ox,¹⁵ thought to have been created by Ahura Mazdā himself,¹⁶ was the very expression of good: not visiting needless violence upon animals and having respect for their lives because they are

ordeal [360] by fire (see p. 94 fn. 98)—and presumably also from the concept of the ‘universal conflagration’: at the end days, a river of molten metal shall pour over the earth and must be crossed by all creatures, in the process of which all ‘mendacious ones’ die, while the ‘truthful ones’ are not harmed by the fire’s heat (Y 30.7, 31.3, 32.7, 51.9). The other, a belief in an apocalyptic battle between good and evil at the ‘final turning point of existence’, which will ultimately be won by good (Y 43.5, 51.6), was formed around the Indo-Iranian myth of the battle between powers that are benevolent towards life and those hostile to life (see p. 167 fn. 33). From this battle, just as from the ‘purifying fire’, the world that emerges is perfect—the consequence of the ‘making magnificent’ (fras: ǒ .kәrәiti), as mentioned in the last stanzas of Y 34, 46, and 50—from which all lies will have disappeared and the truth will be made real. ¹¹ Not until the younger texts were these beings called Amәs: ̌a Spәn: ta. ¹² For Zarathustra the lords are those divine beings mentioned here in the previous endnote. They are ‘one in will’ with Ahura Mazdā (Y 51.20) and work with him to achieve a ‘good, desirable rule’ (Y 51.1). ¹³ Like other texts from Indo-European traditions (see p. 33 fn. 3) the Gāθās also place people in contrast to gods, for example with the expression daēuuāiš-[cā] mas: ̌iiāiš-cā ‘by gods and men’, Y 29.4, 34.5, 48.1 (cf. 45.11). The fact that the Indo-Iranian ‘gods’ live on in the Daēuuas is shown by further phraseological congruencies between Avesta and Rgveda: vīspa- daēuua-/víśva- devá- ‘all the gods’, : daēuuo.zušta-/devájus: :t a- ‘wished for by the gods’. ¹⁴ And thus also in Y 48.10 ‘bad rulers’, ritual priests, Haoma, sacrifice and the eating of meat are all mentioned together. ¹⁵ This certainly does not mean that cattle are not also slaughtered. But he decisively rejects their (mass) senseless killing, as Zarathustra sees it, in the sacrifice. ¹⁶ Y 12.7, 44.6, and 51.7 state that ‘Ahura Mazdā created the cow’ (gąm tašō).

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    ̣ 

at men’s mercy and without defence,¹⁷ shows good ethical conduct more clearly than any other behaviour. ‘I renounce thievery and violence against the cow . . . I want freedom of movement and freedom of dwelling for those who deserve respect, who live upon this earth with their oxen’ (Y 12.2–3) is part of the pledge to be made by believers when they commit to Mazdayasnian teachings¹⁸—‘I declare myself a Zarathustrian Mazdā worshipper, opposed to the Daēuuas, as a follower of Ahura teachings’ (Y 12.1).¹⁹ And just as the worship of Ahura Mazdā and the grazing of the cow are mentioned together (YH 35.7), so too are those who do not keep cows, Daēuuas, and lies mentioned in one breath in (Y 49.4). Thus is a traditional religion discarded as a ‘lie’, and ‘theology’ takes precedence over ‘ritual’ to justify the rejection. And what is more: the old ritual is made a medium for this theology. Specifically, in the sacral fire tended in accordance with ancient custom, Ahura Mazdā shows himself to Zarathustra—‘Him, [Ahura Mazdā], may you, [o fire], seek to bring to us through the praises of our worship’²⁰ (Y 45.8)—and from him, the prophet receives his proclamation.

4.3 The Indo-Iranian religion The juxtaposition of *Dai ̯u̯ás and *Ásuras is also a hallmark of the Vedic religion and thus points to a structuring of the pantheon that was already part of the IndoIranian religion, which had itself inherited the juxtaposition of two classes of gods from Indo-European times (see pp. 163–7). As compared to the Indo-European religion, additions to the Indo-Iranian include both the great *Ásura—who in Zoroastrianism lives on in Ahura Mazdā and in the Vedic [65] religion, in Varuna—and the gods around him. They were no added, however, ex nihilo but : rather some of these gods, if not in fact all,²¹ emerged from the old ‘Father Sky’²² who, although the most important god of the pantheon back in pre-Indo-Iranian ¹⁷ And thus he also has the cow complain that he, the powerless prophet, of all men is his protector: ‘Then the soul of the ox lamented: “[Woe is me,] I who have contrived to bear (= what I have to accept as protection) the powerless speech of a weak man, from whom however I also desire . . .” ’ (Y 29.9). ¹⁸ One can compare the ‘Creed’ spәn: tąm vә¯ ārmaitīm vaŋυhīm varәmaidī, hā.nә¯ aŋhat ̰ ‘Your beneficent right-mindedness, so good, we have chosen, may it be ours’, Y 32.2, and ārmaitīm . . . vәrәnē, hāmōi astu mōi astu ‘I choose the right-mindedness, may it be mine’, Y 12.2, to índram agním : ́ . . . v:rn: e ‘Indra, Agni I choose for me’, RV 3.12.3, and asmākam astu kévalah: ‘Ours alone shall [Indra] be’, RV 1.7.10, which yields an Indo-Iranian formula (a comparison of Avestan vә¯ . . . x ́iiāmā mazdā ahurā ‘We want to be yours, Ahura Mazdā’, YH 40.4, with the Vedic táva smasi ‘Yours are we’, RV ́ : táva smasi ‘You are ours, we are yours’, RV 8.92.32, leads to another such 1.57.5, and tvám asmākam ‘creed formula’) [361]. ¹⁹ Y 31.15 characterises the ‘deceiver’ as one who ‘finds not his living without doing violence to beast and man of the non-deceiving shepherds’. ²⁰ On this belief, see pp. 68–9. ²¹ That would be seven. ²² The opinion that the Ādityas and the Amәša Spәntas belong together is held by (among others) O, Religion, 28/34, whereas T, Die vedischen Āditya und die zarathustrischen Amәša Spәnta, Zarathustra (ed. B. S), Darmstadt 1970, 397–412, rejects any connection between the two groups of deities.

 - 

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times, had lost significance even before the Iranian and Vedic tribes separated. And while certain of his characteristics (such as strength, wisdom, and omniscience) and functions (such as the granting of victory in battle, and the monitoring of societal norms and the legal system) were transferred to ‘younger’ deities, the functions associated with the Sky god’s wisdom were vested in one god—of an apparently unknown name²³—from whom Zarathustra’s Ahura Mazdā and the Vedic Varuna : were equally descended. That these two deities belong together is demonstrated in particular²⁴ by the etymological relatedness of the name (Ahura) Mazdā and the epithet médhira ‘wise’ which is applied to Varuna : (RV 1.25.20), and the metrical formula miθra.ahura bәrәzan: ta in the younger Avesta ́ (Yt. 10.113/145), which may be seen as corresponding to the Vedic mitrāvárun :ā (see p. 55). The most significant commonality between the two deities, however, is the extremely close relationship that they have with ‘truth’,²⁵ in Indo-Iranian times called*Hr̥tá/*Hárta: that which is ‘[by word and deed] conjoined’. Wherever fixed principles control the course of nature or human action, both Zarathustra and the Vedic poets attribute this to a very strict world order, which therein shows its effect and which all things obey.

4.4 Excursus: ‘Truth’ and ‘reality’ Which beliefs were connected with the concept of :rtá in Rgvedic times may be : shown by an incident in the fight between Kutsa and Śus: na reported in the : Rgvedic [66] myth (see pp. 180–1). Indra and Kutsa, together on a war chariot, : are enjoined in battle against the demon, who is in appearance deceptively like the mortal champion. The object of this deceit is Kutsa’s wife, who upon their return wants to know who is who: ‘Move along home . . . Loyal in his allegiance to you is Kutsa. Sit yourselves down at your home place, you two of identical appearance. The woman who knows :rtá shall labour to know you one from the other’ (RV 4.16.10). In other words, Kutsa’s wife knows who of the two is really her husband. So she knows the objective reality behind the ephemeral contingency of appearances. Even if one translates :rtá as quoted in the previous passage as ‘truth’, it is not in that instance the subjective truth that is in the foreground. This meaning of ²³ Most probably, however, he was called *Ásura ‘Lord’. ²⁴ Also the epithet applied equally to both Ahura Mazdā and Varuna, : vouru.cašāni- (Y 33.13) or urucáks: as- (RV 1.25.5/16, 8.101.2), which apparently comes from the ‘all-seeing’ Sky god (see pp. 34–5 with fn. 10), points to the unity of the two gods, as is further suggested by such statements as RV 1.25.11, ‘From there Varuna : looks attentively at everything, what is done and what will be done, without being deceived,’ and Y 29.4 ‘What has been done [by humans and gods], this may Ahura Mazdā know exactly and also that which they may yet do’ (cf. also Y 45.4, in which Ahura Mazdā is called vīspā.hišant ‘perceiving everything’). The same applies to ‘externalities’ that they share: each has an eye that is the sun (Y 1.11; RV 1.50.6) and a mantle which is the sky (Yt. 13.2, cf. YH 36.6; RV 8.41.10, cf. 1.25.13). ²⁵ See G, Die Amәša Spәntas, Ihr Wesen und ihre ursprüngliche Bedeutung, Vienna 1916, 194–8.

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    ̣ 

the word, however, certainly existed as well, as seen in particular when untruth and lies are named as opposite to it: ‘We who [up to now] have spoken the truth, we would whisper untruth’ (RV 10.10.4), ‘Brahmanaspati, [the “Lord of : Formulation”], is a killer of lies, a preserver of the great truth’ (RV 2.23.17). Thus the concept of :rtá encompasses both the objective reality and the subjective truth:²⁶ the :rtá is a given, proper order, in accordance with which the world and men must behave. Objective reality is most clearly visible in events that, whether great or small, are repeated continually and always in the same manner. In the view of the Vedic people, the invariability of such phenomena indicates the existence of an order which steers and controls them. That the sky does not fall to the earth, but rather arcs itself above her day after day; that the earth in her turn stands permanent and bears everything; that each new day the sun makes her way across the sky, always preceded and followed by dawn and dusk; that the moon waxes and wanes in its regular rhythm; that moon and stars travel the night sky in their predicted paths; that light and darkness alternate in constant succession; that the seasons of the year [67] follow upon one another always in the same order; and that all rivers flow in their beds—all these are signs that a higher order is at work. And it is most clearly seen where the repeated events are most marvellous, most incomprehensible; for example when the ‘dark cow gives white milk’, the ‘raw’ [cow] yields the ‘cooked potion’ or when Agni is born from the churning of the wood in which he slumbers. This ordering of all that happens, manifested in the sky by the sun, moon, and stars with their regular movements, is in direct relation to the ordering of society. Man must uphold this order in his dealings, which in turn must conform with an ethical standard, which he must follow if he is to reap the blessings that the cosmic order holds in store, including most especially light, warmth, and rain. His ethical standard finds its highest expression in the observance of truth, the conformity of what is said and what is thought with an objective circumstance. In the cult, which is intimately connected with the order of the universe through its procedures and routines that mirror cosmic events,²⁷ this truth is proclaimed in prayerful hymns. ²⁶ In the discussion of what exactly is meant by ‘truth’—Lü does not explicitly state anywhere in his Varun: a what he understands it to be (see G, Besprechung von Lüders, Varuna, : Oriens 13/14 [1960/61] 400)—truth, the objective reality, has been all too frequently mingled with truthfulness, the opposite of lies and deceit (on these principles, see H, Wahrheit und Gerechtigkeit, Antike und Abendland 15 [1969] 159–86). Also, the seeming equivalence of :rtá with satyá, which for Lü was one of the decisive reasons for interpreting :rtá as meaning ‘truth’, is merely superficial. In fact, in the Rgveda satyá primarily denotes the present, visible, and genuine reality, which—unlike :rtá—is attrib: uted first and foremost to the earthly sacrificial fire (see e.g. RV 1.1.6) and that Indra who is actually fighting at the side of the Vedic warriors (see e.g. RV 2.15.1; for details, see Kö, From transcendent order to reality: early [362] developments in the Indian concept of truth, Indologica Taurinensia 21/22 [1995/96] 197–214). ²⁷ Thus Agni is ignited early in the morning with the rising of the sun, ‘under the yoking of the :rtá’ (RV 3.27.11); thus the three Soma pressings correspond to the three phases of the day—morning, midday, and evening, as well as the three seasons; and thus the trickling of the Soma through the strainer ‘re-enacts’ the falling of the rain from the sky.

 - 

53

This is what lends the cult its efficacy, by which in turn the order of the world and society is upheld. While :rtá, unlike the Avestan as: ̌a, was not personified, it was on the other hand ‘materialised’, although this was apparently already the case in Indo-Iranian times. After all, it has not only ‘paths’,²⁸ but also a ‘site’: in the highest heaven it rests in eternal, sunlike clarity. And this site is the actual centre of the world. It is also where the sun, Agni and Soma have their true locus, to which they always return.²⁹ The belief in an order that controls and steers the world and society was connected, already in Indo-Iranian times, with the god from whom Ahura Mazdā and Varuna : originated (see p. 50). The importance of the role [68] played by this order of all happening is what gave Ahura Mazdā the all-encompassing sovereignty that he possesses for Zarathustra. Like Varuna : he is not a god of creation, but rather the one who orders the world, and each of them belongs to a group of gods who oversee the upholding of this order.³⁰ Due to its close connection to worldly power, the as: ̌a of the Avesta has a somewhat more tangible, more concrete form than :rtá in the Veda. Through it, the notions of order, right, and truth are more firmly bound with those of luck and healthy thriving, of light and life, than was the case in the Rgveda.³¹ But there too, among the gods who are : most closely connected with :rtá, with Mitra, and Varuna, : there were those who had special significance especially for the leader and ruler. More so than any other, they are the ‘Lords of the :rtá’, his ‘guardians’, ‘chariot drivers’, and ‘leaders’ (RV 1.23.5; 5.63.1, 7.64.2; 7.66.12; 7.40.4), and more than any other ‘they have ordained the autumn, the month and the day, the sacrifice and the night . . .’ (RV 7.66.11). In addition to Mitra and most particularly Varuna, : it is Agni who is tightly linked with :rtá (cf. RV 3.10.2, 4.10.2). And the same applies to the sun as well, which is called ‘the shining, visible face of truth’ (RV 6.51.1). Both are inherited from the Indo-Iranian. On the Avestan side, too, the as: ̌a and the fire and the sun firmly belong together (see Y 34.4, 43.4; – 32.2).³² From this we may conclude that already in Indo-Iranian times, the fire and the sun were considered ‘symbols’ of the ‘truth’.

4.5 The god of victory The Indo-Iranian god of victory, *Ur̥traghná ‘[god] dam breaker’, is a single aspect ˆ independent entity. The original existence of of the PIE Sky god which became an ²⁸ ²⁹ ³⁰ ³¹ ³²

On the ‘Paths of :rtá’ see T, Opera Maiora, Kyoto 1995, 124–5 fn. 1. See Lü, Varun: a, II, Varun: a und das Rta, : Göttingen 1959, 589–605. In the Rgveda, the Ādityas owe their very existence to :rtá (RV 10.85.1). : See O, Aus Indien und Iran, Berlin 1899, 185. See N, Die Amәs: ̌a Spәn: tas im Avesta, Wiesbaden 1982, 106–7.

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    ̣ 

this function is evidenced not only by Zeus but in particular by the Germanic Týr, granter of victory and god of [69] the Thing, a traditional form of civil or martial assembly (see pp. 35–6 fn. 16). *Ur̥traghná lives on in the younger Zoroastrianism ˆ as Vәrәθraγna,³³ and in the Rgveda—merged with the dragon-slaying hero : (see pp. 35–6)—as Indra.³⁴ The ‘heraldic animal’ of both these deities, the falcon, as well as their ability to turn themselves into various animals,³⁵ may also have come from the Sky god. An important function of *Ur̥traghná—as evident from ˆ the corresponding texts (cf. RV 10.89.9 and Yt 10.70–2)—was the assistance he provided to *Mitrá, the god of contracts, in the fight against and punishment of contract breakers. However, as *Mitrá himself takes over this punishment (see also p. 55), and that as early as in Indo-Iranian times, there are traits of the *Ur̥traghná inherited by Indra on the Indian side that migrated to Miθra: both, for ˆ example, have ‘strong arms’ (Av. uγra.bāzu, Ved. ugrábāhu), in which they would wield a ‘club’ to strike down opponents (Av. vazra, Ved. vájra) while standing on their battle chariots.³⁶ *Ur̥traghná, moreover, was connected to a myth which tells of life-giving water that ˆwas held pent-up by a monster, and of its release through this god.³⁷ On the Iranian side, the myth was transferred to Tištriia,³⁸ while on the Indian side it merged with the ‘dragon slaying’ story to become the Vr: tra myth (see pp. 64 and 167–9), the protagonists of which are Indra, god of war, and the ‘serpent’ V:rtra. Their counterparts on the Iranian side are Tištriia and Apaoša, the demon who enclosed the water of Lake Vouru.kas: ǎ (see p. 64). Although V:rtra was quite certainly a new creation in Vedic mythology,³⁹ it seems that the Indo-Iranian mythology also told of an opponent of *Ur̥traghná who held the waters captive [70]. ˆ ³³ As is well known, the Avestan Vәrәθraγna has many traits in common with Indra, with the notable exception of the ‘dragon slaying’, because in pre-Indo-Iranian times the figure of the dragon slayer was still separate from Vәrәθraγna. That the Armenian Vahagn also appears as a slayer of dragon-like monsters can be attributed to the influence of foreign mythologies (see B/ R, V:rtra et V:rθragna, Étude de Mythologie indo-iranienne, Paris 1934, 75–80). ³⁴ Mentioned twice in the Young Avesta (Vīdēvdād 10.9, 19.43), twice called Daēuua, Indra very : probably does not prove the Indo-Iranian age of the deity. He was most likely an ‘import’ from adjacent India. This is strongly supported by the fact that in both instances, alongside Indra the Daēuuas : Sauruua and Naŋhaθiia are named, deities who are also otherwise unknown in the Avestan pantheon but who, on the Indian side, have well-known counterparts in Śarva and Nāsatya. It is also notable that the group of gods mentioned in the Mitanni contracts, which includes Indra and Nāsatya, is clearly Indo-Aryan. ³⁵ Indra’s (see p. 91) and Vәrәθraγna’s animal forms—for example the boar that draws Miθra’s chariot (see G, Die Amәša Spәntas, Ihr Wesen und ihre ursprüngliche Bedeutung, Vienna 1916, 69–71)—are comparable to Odin’s falcon form [363] and the transformations of Zeus. And Tištriia’s metamorphoses must be numbered among these as well (see p. 64). ³⁶ Their cudgels, too, are identical in all details. ³⁷ In another releasing-of-waters myth, his role is played by the ‘ancestors’ (see p. 59). ³⁸ Regarding questions of the dependency of the two myths and the texts that tell of them, in one the Tištar Yašt, and in the other the Wahrām Yašt, see in detail P, Tištriia, Part II, The Iranian Myth of the Star Sirius, Rome 1995, 34–45. ³⁹ There, the notion of the ‘rampart’ (v:rtrá) was ‘mythologised’ into the serpent Vr: tra, which then merged with the (Indo-European) ‘dragon’ (see B/R, V:rtra et V:rθragna, Étude de Mythologie indo-iranienne, Paris 1934, 177–84, and T, Kleine Schriften, Wiesbaden 1984, 406–9).

 - 

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4.6 The god of contracts *Mitrá, the Indo-Iranian god of contracts, is another who may represent an autonomised function of the old Indo-European Sky god. This is indicated by⁴⁰ the fact that he rewards the honouring of a contract with rain and thus with fertility of the land and well-being of the people⁴¹—and this already in the IndoIranian religion,⁴² in which he already stood next to *Ásura, as a comparison of the ́ parallel phrases miθra.ahura (Yt. 10.113/145) and mitrāvárun : ā shows. In IndoIranian times as well—as also revealed by the comparison of Rgveda and Avesta : (see RV 5.63.1 and Yt. 10.67ff., 124ff.) —*Mitrá was conceptualised as a warrior god who will himself take action against a defaulter to ensure that a contract once concluded is also honoured (see pp. 109–10).

4.7 The god of hospitality The Vedic Aryaman and his Avestan counterpart Airiiaman trace back to an Indo-Iranian god, *Aria̯ mán, who oversees the granting and maintaining of hospitality. On both the Indian and Iranian sides, he developed over time into the quintessential tutelary deity, and is invoked in areas far beyond that of his origins.

4.8 The dawn In addition to ‘Father Sky’, who lives on equally in Ahura Mazdā, Vәrәθraγna and Miθra, the only member of the Indo-European family of gods to play a significant role in the old Zoroastrian religion⁴³ is the dawn, the Indo-Iranian *Hušás, while the ‘Wife of Father Sky’ had apparently lost all meaning already in pre-IndoIranian times.⁴⁴

⁴⁰ Other indications include the fact that the sun is called ‘Mitra’s eye’ (see p. 35 fn. 12), and surely also that Miθra is referred to as ‘thousand-eared, ten-thousand-eyed, on far-seeing lookout, sleeplessly watching’ (Yt. 10.7). These characteristics may very well have been transferred from the ‘all-seeing’ Sky god (see pp. 34–5). One might also note here the Greek εὐρύοπα Ζῆν ‘the far-seeing Zeus’, seen repeatedly in Homer. ⁴¹ See T, Kleine Schriften, Wiesbaden 1995, 1110–11. ⁴² The comparison of the Rgveda with the Avesta reveals the use of Indo-Iranian contract termin: ology. For example, the Vedic mitrám : √praś ‘to conclude a contract’ (‘Many [things], that I have not [yet] done, I must [now] do: With one I must fight, with the other I must conclude [a contract]’, RV 4.18.2) is echoed in Avestan: miθrәm mā janiiā̊ . . . mā yim druuatat ̰ pәrәsā̊ŋ́he mā yim Χυādaēnāt ̰ as: ̌aonat ̰, Yt. 10.2. ⁴³ Regarding his son, who lives on in Kәrәsāspa, see pp. 35–6. ⁴⁴ On the water nymphs, see pp. 39–40.

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    ̣ 

[71] In the Zoroastrian religion, the dawn is closely connected with Huuar(ә¯ ), the ‘sun’, and the early light. After all, it is Ahura Mazdā’s divine order that causes the sun to bring light and life to the world, in a sequence that repeats every morning. Drawn by first light, a ‘young bull’, the dawn drives up over the horizon: ‘When, o wisdom, will the young bulls⁴⁵ of day bestir themselves towards the world, to hold fast to the “truth”?⁴⁶ . . . . But the deceitful hinders them, the drivers of the “truth”, the bulls, from bestirring themselves to field and land’ (Y 46.3–4). In Zarathustra’s ‘pastoral’ perception of the world this will surely have simultaneously evoked the image that the ‘bulls of the days’, as ‘herd leaders’ (Y 46.4), are followed by cattle. And thus the ‘cow’, who in Y 32.10 is mentioned together with the sun, would be the ‘dawn’, just as in the Rgveda, too, Us: as is repeatedly referred : to as a cow (RV 1.164.17, 4.5.9). Like this notion, the idea that the chariots of the dawn are drawn by young bulls is also mirrored in the Rgveda (RV 6.64.5, 7.79.1, : cf. 9.83.3),⁴⁷ and therefore is also likely of Indo-Iranian heritage. In Greek mythology, too, the horses that draw the chariot⁴⁸ of the dawn from Okeanos to the sky⁴⁹ are repeatedly designated ‘swift-footed foals’ (Odyssey ψ 241–6). Here too, in other words, the chariot is drawn by young animals. Hence this IndoIranian conception may well be of Indo-European heritage. For Zarathustra, the dawn is a visible sign of Ahura Mazdā’s heavenly order (see p. 52). The mythological notions associated with this goddess since ancient times, however, play a subordinate role in his view, at least as far as can be determined now. Yet these too lived on, although transferred to two separate goddesses:⁵⁰ Daēnā⁵¹ and her ‘image’ Cistā (see Yt. 10.126) take their proverbial ⁴⁵ These young bulls, which are highly reminiscent of the holy cattle of Helios (on the latter, see B, Griechische Religion der archaischen und klassischen Periode, Stuttgart 1977, 273), are likely symbolic of ‘first light’ (see H, Gathisch und Jungawestisch, Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde Süd- und Ostasiens 2 [1958] 22–5). They ‘correspond’ in a way to Sūryā, the goddess of the dawn, whose appearance is heralded by Us: as (see pp. 146–7). Because Y 46.3, unlike Y 50.10, speaks of multiple young bulls, it has been surmised that the dawns themselves are meant. It is unlikely, however, that the concise expression in Y 46.3 is to be construed differently to that in Y 50.10 [364]. ⁴⁶ This likely means that the ‘young bulls’, through their daily appearance, maintain the world order ordained by Ahura Mazdā. ⁴⁷ Other instances are documented by H, Vedische Mythologie, Volume I, Wroclaw 1927, 38–9. ⁴⁸ The chariot with which the dawn drives up over the horizon is not only indirectly referred to, but also explicitly mentioned: roseis Aurora quadrigis, iam medium aetherio cursu traiecerat axem ‘Aurora and her rosy chariot had passed the zenith of her ethereal path’, Virgil, Aen. VI 535–6, cum primum crastina caelo, puniceis inuecta rotis Aurora rubebit ‘When tomorrow’s Dawn, riding her crimson chariot, reddens in the sky’, ibid. XII 76–7. ⁴⁹ Compare Theocritus, Eidyllia II 147–8: . . . ἵπποι, Ἀῶ τὰν ῥοδόπαχυν ἀπ’ Ὠκεανοῖο φέροισαι “[ . . . ] the horses of Dawn so that they drive the rose-armed from the sea”. ⁵⁰ Thus she suffered a fate similar to that in the Greek version, where she was inherited by Eos, Persephone, and Helen (see pp. 34 fn. 7 and 38). ⁵¹ Daēnā, the free soul of man, receives the soul of the deceased in the form of a beautiful girl who ) in the East of the has just reached the marriageable age, at the foot of the Cinuuat ̰ bridge (see world, leading upwards from the peak of Mount Hukairiia, and—if the person in his lifetime was dedicated to upholding the ‘order’—guides it to the paradise beyond (see Vīdēvdād 19.30 and Hādōxt Nask 2.7–9; cf. also p. 286 fn. 52).

 - 

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erotic beauty, their function as guides,⁵² and their relationship to ‘the next world’ from the (Indo-Iranian) goddess of the dawn, *Hušás. This is further attested by a large number of epithets that these two Avestan goddesses have in common with the Vedic Us: as [72].

4.9 The dragon slayer The old Zoroastrian texts say nothing at all regarding the son of the Sky god, the mighty ‘Dragon Slayer’ Kәrәsāspa (see p. 36). He is among those gods inherited from the past who are not mentioned again until in the younger texts of the Avesta, primarily in the Yašts (see p. 26). These mention the ‘Son of the Sky’ not only as the killer of the ‘dragon’, but also as the one who strikes down Gandarәßa : (Yt. 5.38, 19.41).⁵³ The latter is the guardian of the Haoma in Lake Vouru.kas: ̌a, the ‘celestial ocean’ (see pp. 65–6),⁵⁴ in which he, the ‘one who lives in the water’ (Yt. 15.28), makes his home. He is attacked when the hero seeks to steal the Haoma, which gushes forth from a spring there (Yt. 5.38). In the Rgveda, this : heroic act—which like the Gandharva (see pp. 117–19) can claim Indo-Iranian age—is another that was transferred from the Indo-Iranian ʻDragon Slayerʼ to Indra (see p. 118). In addition to Kәrәsāspa, the Old Iranian mythology speaks of Θraētaona, another ‘dragon slayer’, he too apparently having evolved from the IndoEuropean sky son. He was born to his father Āθβiia because the latter pressed the Haoma, being the second mortal to do so (see following details). Θraētaona, the ‘most victorious among . . . men’ (Yt. 19.36), ‘slays . . . Dahāka, the three-mouthed, three-headed, six-eyed, having a thousand skills . . . who is evil for living beings, the deceitful one . . . who was brought forth by the evil spirit (Aŋhra Mańiiu) . . . to the ruin of the living beings of [the world of] truth’ (Y 9.8), and ‘carries off his two beloved ones’ (Yt. 5.34). This characterisation of the serpent Dahāka is to a large extent in agreement with that of Geryon on the Greek side, and of Viśvarūpa in the Veda (see p. 124 fn. 247 and (p. 135). That Viśvarūpa, however, was killed both by Trita and by Indra (see pp. 175–6) is

⁵² The epithet viśvapíś ʻentirely ornamentedʼ referring to her chariot (RV 7.75.6) is found in the Avesta referring to that of Miθra (Yt. 10.124), a god who clearly has solar features (see p. 111 fn. 185). ⁵³ Yt. 5.38 and 19.41 describe him as ‘yellow-heeled’. Interestingly, Sintarfizzilo (Old High German) and Sinfjo˛ tli (Old Norse), ‘he of the sinter-coloured [i.e. bright yellow] ankles’ is a ‘pseudonym for the wolf ’ (see M, Sintarfizzilo—Sinfjo˛tli, Zeitschrift für deutsches Altertum und deutsche Literatur 66 [1929], 24). ⁵⁴ It is not explicitly stated that the Gandarәßa guards the Haoma, yet because he is mentioned in : the context of the ‘Glory’ that floats in Lake Vouru.kas: ̌a (Yt. 19.41), and the Glory took the place of the Haoma (see pp. 19–20), that may well be the background of this Avestan myth, just as it certainly is in the Rgveda [365]. :

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    ̣ 

probably a more recent feature. And the one who slew the monster in Indo-Iranian times was more likely *Trita/*Trait[au̯]ana⁵⁵ alone;⁵⁶ [73] he who also robbed the monster of the cattle—who in the Avesta, however, are instead women.⁵⁷ From Dahāka,⁵⁸ Θraētaona⁵⁹ also rescues Pāuruua, helplessly floating on the sea, a deed also spoken of in the Veda (RV 1.158.5). The characteristic of giving aid to those in trouble was likely transferred to Θraētaona from the ‘sky son’. A special characteristic of this function is that he and Θrita (see Yt. 13.131; V 20,2f.) are also known as ‘healers’ of disease, a trait they share with Trita (see p. 136).⁶⁰ Θrita also has in common with Trita the pressing of Haoma (see pp. 135–6).⁶¹ The latter characteristics apparently accrued in the Indo-Iranian era to the figure, already known in Indo-European times, of a cultural hero who is thought to live somewhere ‘outside’ and far away,⁶² in and from which place he achieves much that is beneficial to the world and its men (see p. 135 with fn. 311).

⁵⁵ The difficult question of the relationship between Θrita and Θraētaona (and Āθβiia) on the one hand and Trita and Traitana on the other cannot be answered here. Apparently, however, we must assume two champions for the Indo-Iranian period, *Trita *Āptya and *Trait(au̯)ana, father and son, of whom the first was ‘split’ into Θrita and Āθβiia in the Iranian religion, with Θraētaona taking the place of *Trita The reason for this may be the Haoma pressing and its reward: to every one of the mythical pressers, a heroic son was born. Thanks to his name, Θrita was moved to third place on the list of these pressers, but Θraētaona, his heroic son, ‘stayed’ with Āθβiia, the name of the Haoma presser ‘gained’ from the byname Θrita. ⁵⁶ See O, Religion, 141–2. The synoptic table in L, Priests, Warrior and Cattle, Berkeley 1981, 123, likewise makes it appear questionable whether any god at all ‘originally’ played a role in this myth, as W. B’s interpretation (see p. 135 fn. 311) of the myth also suggests. ⁵⁷ See O, Religion, 142. In spite of claims to the contrary, ‘Trita (in the Rgveda) does not : win the waters’ (G, die Amәša Spәntas: Ihr Wesen und ihre ursprüngliche Bedeutung, Vienna 1916, 63; as well as L, Der arische Kriegsgott, Frankfurt 1939, 61), but rather cattle. Hypotheses based on this—such as that from K, Les saisons des rivières, Festschrift für Anders Hultgård, Berlin— New York 2001, 471–80—would thus seem to be invalid, at least with regard to the Indo-Iranian religion. It is striking, however, that Yt. 5.34 refers to two beloved ones, which recurs in RV 5.30.9 in the context of the releasing of the water. ⁵⁸ This is the explanation from J/O, Traitana und Θraēta(o)na, Indo-Iranian Journal 45 (2002) 221–9. ⁵⁹ While on the one hand J/O, Traitana and Θraēta(o)na, Indo-Iranian Journal 45 (2002) 221–9, Yt. 5.61–5 construe this—in keeping with the literal sense—as meaning it is Pāuruua who turns Θraētaona into a vulture and saves him, T on the other hand, in Kleine Schriften, Wiesbaden 1995, 848–54, interprets the passage to mean it is Θraētaona in the form of a vulture who rescues Pāuruua (see also K, Les Bras de Miθra, Mysteria Mithrae [ed. by U. B], Leiden 1979, 713 fn. 20). T’s explanation, which must therefore assume imprecision in the grammar of the text, is supported by the fact that transformation into an animal is an attribute which in particular marks the ʻSon of the Skyʼ. This can then be compared to the rescue of Bhujyu by birds, as is spoken of in RV 1.116.4 [366]. ⁶⁰ See G, Die Amәša Spәntas: Ihr Wesen und ihre ursprüngliche Bedeutung, Vienna 1916, 60–1. ⁶¹ As the (originally) second mortal to press the drink that brings immortality (see p. 136), *Trita Āptya is integrated, on the Iranian side, in the ‘myth’ of the creation of man (see pp. 60–1). ⁶² To see Trita Āptya as the ‘representative of the third heaven’, as J, Elysion, Entstehung und Entwicklung der griechischen Religion, Innsbruck 2005, 287–98 does primarily on the basis of etymological conjecture, is not in accord with what the Rgveda says about him. :

 - 

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4.10 The god of war The characteristics of the Rgvedic Vāyu, who is very closely connected to Indra, : and of Vaiiu on the Iranian side, who appears together with Miθra (Yt. 10.9, 12.4, 13.47), point directly to an ancient god of battle and war named *Hu̯aHiú̯ , who rides in on a chariot drawn by magnificent horses to stand at the side of warriors in combat and decide the outcome of the battle in their favour. In the Avesta, moreover, Vaiiu also has clear-cut characteristics of a god of fortune, seemingly a development only of the Iranian deity.⁶³

4.11 Warrior ancestors A form of assistance similar to that provided by war gods⁶⁴ is given by the ancestors—a belief held as early as Indo-Iranian times. This relationship was established through a sacrifice made in primordial times⁶⁵ [74] that also enabled a certain god—it cannot be said which—to release the pent-up waters. And only that release made life possible in this world. On the Vedic side, the feat of the Aṅgiras, in whom these—also certainly warlike—ancestors live on, is connected with the crushing of the Vala (see p. 170).⁶⁶ Thus it follows that the references in the Vala myth to the release of waters might stem from this tradition of the warrior ancestors and not, as always previously assumed, from the myth of the slaying of V:rtra (see p. 167).⁶⁷

4.12 Messenger of the gods The Avestan Nairiiō.saŋha,⁶⁸ a messenger of the gods—chiefly of Ahura Mazdā—and the Rgvedic Narāśamsa : : both trace back to an Indo-Iranian god, ⁶³ Vaiiu is both a psychopomp and a god of death. This gives rise to the conjecture that, congruent with his war-god nature, he guides the souls of those killed in war to the afterworld, where he is their commander, not unlike Wōdan-Odin, who is joined in Valhalla by those who fall in battle (M, Die Religion der Germanen, Wissenschaft und Kultur, Vol. 2: Die Religionen der Erde in Einzeldarstellungen, Leipzig— Vienna 1929, 130) and who shows fundamental characteristics of a god of death. ⁶⁴ In addition, these ancestors give men the gift of heroic sons, another notion that was already predominant in Indo-Iranian times (see p. 289). ⁶⁵ When it is said of the Frauus: ̌is, who inherited these Indo-Iranian ancestors, that they were ‘standing upright’ when they made the water flow (Yt. 13.76–8), this is in reference to a sacrifice they performed. And this corresponds to the sacrifice with which the Aṅgiras fortified Indra for his crushing of the Vala (see RV 1.121, 2.20). ⁶⁶ K, Les Fravas: ̌i, Anges et Démons (ed. J. R). Louvain 1989, 112, is certainly not correct in claiming that the Aṅgiras fortified Indra to slay V:rtra (as also id., Les saisons des rivières, Festschrift für Anders Hultgård, Berlin—New York 2001, 474). ⁶⁷ This means the Indo-Iranian tradition had two myths of releasing waters: that mentioned previously and also the release by *Ur̥traghná (see pp. 54–5). ⁶⁸ Regarding the Avestan form ofˆ the god’s name, compare śámsā : náryā, RV 1.185.9.

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    ̣ 

*Hnárām-ćámsa : (‘glorification of the men’). He embodies the recitation of the priests and communicates within the cult between men and gods, through which he both established and ensured the connection between them.

4.13 The goddess of ‘abundance’ The Indo-Iranian religion already had a goddess of ‘abundance’, *Pŕ̥Handhi, who, like the Rgvedic Puramdhi and the Iranian Pā̆rendi : : : that originated from her, was responsible for blessings and wealth.⁶⁹ Because it is said of both Puramdhi and : Pā̆rendi that they rode on fast chariots (RV 9.93.4; Yt. 8.38, 10.66)—pointing to : the hope that they will rapidly appear—the same was surely believed of the IndoIranian goddess as well [75].

4.14 The race of men Questions regarding the creation of human beings and the reason for their mortality were addressed as far back as the Indo-Iranian religion. According to one answer, the ancestor of men was a divine being, *Gai̯Ha Martii ̯a by name.⁷⁰ Unlike the other gods, however, this one was not born a perfect being,⁷¹ but as a circular monstrosity.⁷² As far as we can comprehend this myth, it makes no mention of how the ‘birth’ of *Gai ̯Ha Martiia̯ s’s offspring—men—came about. Another anthropogonic myth, also from the Indo-Iranian period, contrasts this non-sexual reproduction with conception by man and woman. According to this second myth, *(H)i ̯amá had a twin sister named *(H)i ̯amī.́ The first man⁷³ resulted from an incestuous pairing of the two—a frequent motif in the context of twins.⁷⁴ ⁶⁹ The Rgvedic goddess is often mentioned together with Bhaga and Pūs: an, in other words with gods : who also provide goods; and the Iranian, with Aši, the goddess of ‘reward’. ⁷⁰ On the Iranian side this lives on in Gaiia Marәtan, ‘from whom (Ahura Mazdā) created the family of the Aryan people’ (Yt. 13.87), and on the Indian side, in Mārtān: d: a/M:rtám Ān: d: ám. The counterpart of the [367] Avestan name is that of the poet who composed RV 10.64. Because the Bundahišn describes Gayōmart as ‘light like the sun’ and Mārtān: da : is identified with the sun god in the postVedic literature, *Gái ̯Ha Mártii ̯a might have already been such a one. In that case, he would belong together with *Uiu̯ásu̯ant (see p. 185). ⁷¹ Accordingˆto the Vedic myth his mother is Aditi, from whom—also according to RV 10.64.13— men are descended. Significantly, in the second to last stanza of this song the poet refers to himself as Gaya, and in the last, as Amartya Gaya. ⁷² A clear indication of his (later) position between gods and men. ⁷³ In this myth, *(H)i ̯amī ́ in Indo-Iranian times has apparently ‘replaced’ *Mánu, who is the twin brother of *(H)i ̯amá and also the first man. But this constellation too, apparently inherited from IndoEuropean times, was preserved in the Indo-Iranian religion (see p. 177). ⁷⁴ This is apparently based on a belief that during the many months of pregnancy, sexual contact occurred in the womb, or almost had to occur. This calls to mind Isis and Osiris, who were married while still in the womb (see also p. 186).

 - 

61

A third answer tells of two sons—also twins—born to the sun god⁷⁵ *Uiu̯ásu̯ant, ˆ who was both the first mortal—by virtue of his daily ‘setting’ and ‘rising’—and also the first sacrificer.⁷⁶ One is *(H)i ̯amá, the ‘twin’, king of a golden age (see p. 68). With his birth, however, Death enters the world as a final and irreversible fact. And so *(H)i ̯amá is the first to die without returning, the first (specifically: irreversibly) deceased person.⁷⁷ As such, he is the first to walk the path to the afterworld. Once there, he establishes a kingdom,⁷⁸ a heavenly paradise, where he rules as king over all those who must share his fate.⁷⁹ The other twin is *Mánu, the first ‘man’.⁸⁰ With these twins, the Indo-Iranian anthropogony is in line with Indo-European mythology. Specifically, *Mánu indubitably has a counterpart in the Germanic myth in Mannus, the son of a ‘twin’, Tuisto. Tacitus, Germania II 9ff., reports [76] that the Germanic people handed down old songs that celebrated the earth-born Tuisto, whose son Mannus was the founder of their tribe.⁸¹ In the Indo-European concept of the origin of man, it seems the ‘man’ killed the ‘twin’—as was the case with Romulus and Remus—and from the murdered twin emerged the world and the beings who populated it (see pp. 37 and 186–7).

⁷⁵ Even his name, ‘he who is characterised by glowing’, shows him to be such. The misgivings of H, Aufsätze zur Indoiranistik, Vol. 2, Wiesbaden 1976, 430 (and accordingly in Vol. 3, Wiesbaden 1992, 722), are unfounded. ⁷⁶ Whereas Vivasvant in the Rgveda is considered to be the first sacrificer (see RV 1.58.1, : 10.21.5), in the Avesta Vīuuaŋυhant : is the first to press the Haoma: ‘Then said Zarathustra: “Worship [be to] the Haoma! Which mortal pressed you as the first of the boney life? [And] what reward was he granted, what success has become his?”—Then I was answered by this, the . . . Haoma: ‘Vīuuaŋυhant : was the first mortal of the boney life to press me, [and] this reward was granted him, this success became his, that to him a son was born, the glorious Yima, whose herds are good, who is the most rich in “Glory’ among those beings who see the sun among the mortals’ ” (Y 9.3–4). ⁷⁷ Although it is often claimed that the Avestan Yima also embodies the first man type, this cannot be supported by the evidence of Iranian texts, but rather is clearly an [368] extrapolation of the Indian deity Yama. It must be noted, however, that Yama does not embody this type either (see p. 68 fn. 117 and p. 186). ⁷⁸ Presumably this heavenly kingdom and Vara/Vala are ultimately the same afterworld that lies on and beyond the horizon (see pp. 65–6, 68 and 170–1). ⁷⁹ On the development of this myth in Zoroastrianism, see K, Le Hōm Stōm et la zone des déclarations, Paris 2007, 23–30. ⁸⁰ As Manu left only very slight traces on the Iranian side, no assertions can be made regarding the see pp. 186–7. Indo-Iranian myth connected with his figure. On the Rgveda, : ⁸¹ That passage says: In ancient hymns . . . they celebrate Tuisto, a god sprung from the earth. To him they ascribe a son Mannus as the origin and the founder of their race. To Mannus they ascribe three sons, from whose names the tribes are to be known as . . . Ingaevones, . . . Herminones, and . . . Istaevones’ (celebrant carminibus antiquis . . . Tuistonem deum terra editum. ei filium Mannum, originem gentis conditoremque, Manno tris filios assignant, e quorum nominibus . . . Ingaevones . . . Herminones . . . Istaevones vocentur) Tacitus, Germania II 9ff.

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    ̣ 

4.15 The intoxicating libation The divine and intoxicating drink *Sáu̯ma has a central role in the Indo-Iranian religion. It replaced the older mead, while inheriting its characteristic features.⁸² These included a number of myths that are intertwined around it and that tell of its origin, how it is guarded, and how it was forcibly stolen (see pp. 44–5). According to these myths, *Sáu̯ma comes from heaven where, within the celestial ocean (see pp. 65–6), it either bubbles up from a spring or grows on a tree. It was guarded from gods and men in this ocean by a being called *G(h)andharu̯á, who fought the ‘dragon slayer’ when the latter attempted to take possession of the divine libation (see p. 57). But an archer, too, in the Rgveda called Kr: śānu and in : the Avesta, Kәrәsāni,⁸³ is there to prevent the theft. Yet a falcon succeeds in stealing it.⁸⁴ Thus did the *Sáu̯ma come to earth, where it is pressed for the first time by *Uiu̯ásu̯ant, who by this act comes to share in the gods’ immortality, ˆ having previously been mortal (see p. 188). In Indo-Iranian times these myths were augmented by ‘reports’ telling of the ‘natural’ descent of *Sáu̯ma from the celestial ocean⁸⁵ to earth and of its first pressing. Here the mythical celestial home of the gods’ drink is joined by a second—apparently real—place of origin: the mountain (see pp. 161–2), where in the [77] highest heights, ‘even higher than the flight of the falcon’ (Y 10.11), it arrives—as it is believed—with the rain, which was brought by the east wind from the celestial ocean to the earth.⁸⁶ There is furthermore little doubt that the myth of a battle between two generations of gods, whereby one succeeds the other in ruling, was known in the Indo-Iranian religion, together with the associated myth of the theft of the ⁸² In the Veda, but not in the Avesta, the pressed drink is called mádhu. O, Religion, 364–6, presents substantial reasons for the fact that this is not ‘the Indo-European name of the mead (medhu) inherited by the replacement drink’, but rather ‘that this is . . . much more a case of a poeticfantastic turn of phrase’. Yet the one does not necessarily preclude the other. ⁸³ There, however, he became ‘a tyrant who is hostile to the priests’, ‘who is driven from command by Haoma’ (Y 9,24). ⁸⁴ In the Avesta, the theft of the Haoma by the falcon is perceptible only in traces, although these are distinct. For example, it says he ‘is formed by the artisan god and . . . set down upon the high Haraitī’ and that he was ‘carried by birds to the rock Upāiri.saēna “higher than the flight of the falcon” ’ (Y 10,10–11). Of Vәrәθraγna it says that ‘he arrived in the shape of the bird Vārәγna . . . who is the swiftest of [all] birds, who is the only living being to escape the flight of the arrow . . . seeking . . . his food’ (Yt. 14,19–20). Thus the falcon in the Indo-Iranian myth—just as in the [369] related Germanic myth of Suttung’s mead—can be none other than the god himself, who had taken the shape of this bird (see O, Religion, 73, 169). ⁸⁵ In the Avesta, xvarәnah largely took the place of Haoma (see pp. 19–20) which—as Y 45.5 shows quite clearly—was thought to come out of, or from, Lake Vouru.kas: ǎ (see p. 65 fn. 100). And so the beliefs relating to *Sáu̯ma were transferred to xvarәnah: It floats in Lake Vouru.kas: ǎ (Yt. 5.42, cf. 13.65, 19.56), which is what Yt. 8.34, with its epithet ‘placed in the water’ likely refers to. From there, even when it is guarded by Apąm Napāt and by the Gandarәßa (see also pp. 42–4 and 57), the attempt is made to steal it : away. And when it ‘hurries away from Yima’, it does so ‘in the form of a bird of prey’ (Yt. 19.35). ⁸⁶ In the Avesta this is spoken of in Yt. 8.32–4, while in the Veda, Maitrāyanī III 1,5 : Samhitā : (6.17–20) suggests the existence of this belief.

 - 

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divine intoxicant, that elixir without which the younger gods could not have triumphed (see pp. 159–67 (with fn. 33)). That this drink gives vigour and strength, victory and power, to him who possesses and imbibes it, and that it legitimises his authority, is the topic of numerous myths intertwined around the *Sáu̯ma even in Indo-Iranian times. Just as old is the belief that he is himself a warrior god who is—like those whom he inspires to battle—a ‘resistance crushing’ hero.⁸⁷ Additional characteristics that distinguish the Haoma in the Avesta and Soma in the Rgveda were surely already attributed to *Sáu̯ma as well. Among these are : the fact that it bestows physical health and long life and even forestalls death; that it ensures the continuity of the family line,⁸⁸ and that it confers great strength.

4.16 The celestial river The question of whether the Indo-Iranian world view included a river—or even several—in heaven must remain unanswered. While the Areduuī Sūrā Anāhitā of the Avesta is doubtless such a one,⁸⁹ the indications in the Rgveda in this regard— : which would refer primarily to Sarasvatī—are not unambiguous.⁹⁰ The Areduuī Sūrā Anāhitā, for whom ‘[the Lord of] Wisdom has prepared a path—not a path in the interior, but over the radiant sun’ (Yt. 5.90), flows from Mount Hukairiia in the Harā range down to Lake Vouru.kas: ̌a,⁹¹ the celestial ocean (Yt. 5.3–4, 96). Hence the request ‘to descend . . . from the stars to the . . . Earth’ (Yt. 5.85), which it fulfils (Yt. [78] 5.88). The Sarasvatī is apparently its Rgvedic : equivalent.⁹² Both bring rain, both govern not only fertility in general, but in particular virility, conception, and birth, and both bestow the gifts of eloquence and wisdom. Due to these commonalities, the few indications of heaven as the location of the Sarasvatī may be considered meaningful: ‘Sarasvatī, who has filled the earthly [spaces], the broad [heaven]space and the middle space

⁸⁷ For the Avesta, compare Y 9.30 and 11.7; for the Rgveda, 8.46.8, 9.25.3, and 10.25.9. : ⁸⁸ These beliefs, and the notion that *Sáu̯ma imparts victoriousness, have led in the Avesta to the belief that to him who presses the Haoma will be born a son who becomes a powerful conqueror (see pp. 57 and 135–6). ⁸⁹ Also the Homeric—if formulaic—διιπετέος ποταμοῖο denotes a ‘river unfurling in the sky’ as celestial (see J, Elysion, Entstehung und Entwicklung der griechischen Religion, Innsbruck 2005, 238–46). ⁹⁰ The idea of a celestial river in the Rgveda on the other hand is well attested (see p. 66). : ⁹¹ According to Bundahišn 13.5, the Us.hindauua mountain in the middle of Lake Vouru.kas: ̌a : receives water via a golden canal from Mount Hukairiia. This concept is very likely a continuation of the old-world view that has the Arәduuī Sūrā Anāhitā flowing from Mount Hukairi into Lake Vouru.kas: ̌a. ⁹² See L, Anahita – Sarasvati Kleine Schriften, Wiesbaden 1978, 305–13. The name Anāhitā ‘the unbound one’ is seemingly not unlike that of the goddess Aditi (see Gō, Vasis: t:ha and Varuna : in RV : VII 88, Indoarisch, Iranisch und die Indogermanistik [ed. B. F and R. P], Wiesbaden 2000, 160–1,  V, Avestan Vowels, Amsterdam 2003, 66–7, and K, Le problème avec Anāhitā, Orientalia Suecana 51/52 [2002/03] 317–26).

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    ̣ 

[between heaven and earth], shall protect us from revilement, resting in [these] three seats . . .’ (RV 6.61.11–12), ‘Hither from lofty heaven, from the mountain let Sarasvatī, deserving of sacrifice, come to our sacrifice’ (RV 5.43.11), ‘Clear from the mountains, coming from the ocean [of heaven] . . .’ (RV 7.95.2).

4.17 The star Sirius As previously mentioned, the myth in the Avesta about the release of the water by Vәrәθraγna was transferred to Tištriia, the star Sirius. In the form of a white stallion, Tištriia fought a black horse that was Apaoša, the ‘non-thriving’, in Lake Vouru.kas: ̌a (see p. 54). After defeating him, he was aided by another star, Satauuaēsa (piscis austrinus), in causing the water from this lake to flow to earth (Yt. 8.20–3). In addition to that of a white stallion, he can appear in any of a number of other forms, which he took over from *Ur̥traghná.⁹³ All of these can most likely be traced back to the Sky god (see pp. ˆ53–4). Related to Tištriia— including etymologically—is the Vedic Tis: ya, whose epithet pús: ya, ‘he who fosters thriving’, which later became the name of the ‘god’, may indicate that as early as Indo-Iranian times *T(r)ištrii ̯a, ‘he who belongs to the triple star’, was worshipped as a god who brings rain and hence increases the land’s fertility. And at that time, there was another myth connected to *T(r)ištriia̯ that told of the descent of *Sáu̯ma [79] from the heavens. In this tale, Sirius, a house of the moon, contains a cow whose milk is the divine libation, which—presumably—reaches the mountain together with the rain that *T(r)ištriia̯ sends to earth (see p. 62).⁹⁴

4.18 Cosmography The previous pages have repeatedly touched on central cosmographic beliefs in the Avestan and Rgvedic religions—including with regard to *Sáu̯ma and : xυarәnah (see pp. 19–20 and 42). These beliefs are continuations of those held in earlier times, which in turn follow on those of the Indo-European period. Here, however, following a few introductory remarks on their structuring of the world, they shall be presented separately, in order to more clearly delineate where there were differences and where they complement and reaffirm one another. In the cosmography of the Indo-Europeans—to the extent this can be reconstructed—‘father heaven’ was juxtaposed with the ‘broad earth’ (see p. 34 fn. 6). ⁹³ See B/R, V:rtra et V:rθragna, Étude de Mythologie indo-iranienne, Paris 1934, 197. [370] ⁹⁴ For details regarding this myth, which is only roughly discernible in both its Vedic and Avestan versions, see J, Häuser des Mondes, Chomolanga, Demawend und Kasbek, Festschrift für Roland Bielmeier zu seinem 65. Geburtstag, Vol. II, Halle 2008, 483–503.

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This simple conception of the world lived on in the Avesta (‘I . . . placed that heaven above, bright and radiant, which reaches [down] to this earth and spans around it, like a bird [surrounds] its egg’, Yt. 13.2–3)⁹⁵ and also in the Rgveda, as seen : ́ ́ ́ in the latter’s designations of ‘heaven and earth’ (dyāvāks: āmā, dyāvāp:rthivī ,́ ́ ́mī) as ‘the two countenances’ (ks: on: ī,́ ródasī). dyāvābhū Alongside this notion was a second, which presented an answer to the question of the ‘in between’. This too can be shown for the Indo-Iranian period, probably inherited from Indo-European times. After all, the idea of a cosmos divided into three parts is seen in both traditions, with each assuming a space⁹⁶ between heaven and earth. These very basic beliefs were, as the great concordance of the Vedic and Avestan [80] cosmographies shows, broadened into a proper world system already in Indo-Iranian times—but presumably even earlier. In the perspective of the Avesta, the earth is surrounded by a wide and deep river called Raŋhā. It flows around the earth at a great distance and separates it from the underworld and from heaven.⁹⁷ Heaven arches from the riverbanks to span the earth, which is envisioned as a flat disc. Across the middle of the sky stretches a huge lake, which goes by the name of Vouru.kas: ̌a, ‘broad of bays’, and in its centre rises the mountain Us.hindauua (Yt. 8.32). The rain originates in this : sea and falls from there to the earth (see p. 62). This sea, in which the xυarәnah ‘floats’,⁹⁸ is fed by a river, the Arәduuī Sūrā Anāhitā, which flows above it in the realms of light in the sky and finally flows into it, down from Hukairiia (Yt. 5.3–4, 96), the highest point of the Harā range (see Yt. 10.88, 12.24). This river surrounds ‘the eastern and western lands’ (Yt. 19.1). Haoma grows on Hukairiia⁹⁹ (Y 10.11, Yt. 9.17, 10.88, 90),¹⁰⁰ and falls to earth with the rain carried by the east wind.¹⁰¹ From this, we gather that Mount Hukairi lies in the eastern part of Lake Vouru. kas: ̌a.¹⁰² Because Yima worships Arәduuī Sūrā Anāhitā with a sacrifice from high atop Hukairi (Yt. 5.25), Yima’s kingdom is apparently there as well, in the eastern ⁹⁵ On this passage, see H, Ein unbeachtetes Wort im Avesta, Asiatica, Festschrift Friedrich Weller, Leipzig 1954, 289–92. ⁹⁶ On the Iranian side, too, the world is divided into three layers, with the space between heaven and earth designated Vaiiu (for details, see L, Die Yäštʼs des Awesta, Übersetzt und eingeleitet, Göttingen 1927, 145–9). ⁹⁷ See K, Les Bras de Miθra, Mysteria Mithrae (ed. U. B), Leiden 1979, 711–12. ⁹⁸ Lake Vouru.kas: ̌a is guarded by the Frauuas: ̌is (Yt. 13.59) and is home to the Gandarәßa and Apąm : Napāt. The latter two, if not all three, seem to have been guardians of the xvarәnah at least originally. ⁹⁹ See p. 62. ¹⁰⁰ Yt. 12.17 would seem to indicate a belief that Haoma ‘grows’ on a tree that stands in the middle Lake Vouru.kas: ̌a (see p. 162). This is explicitly articulated in a far younger text passage, Bundahišn 24.1. According to that text (16.5), the Ardvisūr spring is also located near this tree. ¹⁰¹ The wind, the mountain peak of the Harā, Lake Vouru.kas: ̌a, and Haoma—in that order—are named in the litany Y 42 as objects of worship. Where it says in Yt. 13.65 that ‘the waters rise from out of Lake Vouru.kas: ̌a and the xvarәnah’, this is surely another notion originally connected with the Haoma/*Sáu̯ma which was transferred to the ‘Glory’ (see p. 62 fn. 85). ¹⁰² Although the Harā mountain range circles the entire earth (see above), its position in the east is mentioned in particular (see Yt. 10.118).

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part of the Harā range that forms the boundary between heaven, earth, and underworld (see p. 68).¹⁰³ The Rgveda has a very similar conception of the world.¹⁰⁴ Again the flat earth, : although here square in shape, is surrounded by a great river. The name of this river, clearly corresponding to the Avestan Raŋhā, is Rasā. Because the earth was thought of as floating on water, the Rasā is apparently the ‘visible’ part of a sea that extends under the earth, like the Okeanos of the Greeks. Beyond the Rasā rises a mountain range that encircles the earth and which, together with the Rasā, forms the boundary separating heaven, earth and underworld. There lies the gateway to the underworld, but also to heaven, with the former apparently thought of as being in the west and the latter, in the east [81] (RV 7.6.3–4). Over this mountain range, and evidently from the gateway in the east, the dawn and sun rise in the morning, to then set in the evening beyond the western rim of the range, apparently through the entrance to the underworld which is located there. The earth is canopied by heaven, which rises in three planes above the midspace. In it there stretches a vast sea that lies behind the firmament:¹⁰⁵ ‘Agni, you go to the flood of heaven . . . to the waters, which are in the realm of light beyond the sun, and are beneath (the same)’ (RV 3.22.3),¹⁰⁶ ‘They, whose sovereign is the sea, come from the middle of the salty flood cleansing themselves without taking rest. May the heavenly waters, for which Indra . . . dug [the channel], help me here’ (RV 7.49.1). The rain comes from this sea,¹⁰⁷ and so does the celestial river¹⁰⁸ Sarasvatī, which flows from there to earth (see p. 63). In the third and highest heaven, the Soma spring Svàrn: ara, out of which the Soma flows, lies on a rock in the middle of the celestial sea. It comes to earth with the rain, where it is pressed at the sacrificial ¹⁰³ This is well supported by the fact that the conditions in the Harā range (see Yt. 10.50, 12.23) are very similar to those in Yima’s kingdom (see Y 9.4–5). ¹⁰⁴ It seems that for the (Rg)Vedic man, each element of this mythical cosmography had, or in some : cases was based on, a real counterpart in nature. In the Milky Way, the ‘shimmering world’ (svargá loká) in later times, he presumably saw the celestial river, the Sarasvatī (see however pp. 63–4). In the special position of the Milky Way [371] in the sky, in turn, he recognised the ‘celestial mountain’. And the heavenly Soma pail revealed itself to him in Ursa Major. ¹⁰⁵ Aitareya-Upanis: ad I 2 speaks of »celestial waters above the firmament«—The starting point for this belief seems to be quite clear: the falling of the rain from heaven gave rise to the notion of a celestial sea, which also explained the blue colour of the sky. This assumption made possible a notion of the circulation of water—through evaporation it rose to the heavenly sea, from which it fell again as rain (cf. RV 5.55.5: ‘You Maruts, you make [the water] rise from the sea, you make the rain pour forth . . .’). Furthermore, this conception also explained the existence of water underground. After all, it was plain to see that the ‘celestial ocean’ reached all the way to earth and touched it at the horizon, and from there spread, as they thought, beneath the earth. ¹⁰⁶ The stanza quoted is understood in the same way in the Vedic tradition (see Kaus: ītaki-Brāhmana : XXIV 5 and Śatapatha-Brāhmana : VII 1,1.24). ¹⁰⁷ Apparently they imagined the formation of rain as beginning with smoke: it rose to heaven, ‘clothed [itself] in water’ up there (RV 1.164.47), and then brought the water to earth (see also RV 1.79.2). ¹⁰⁸ Whether the Rgvedic cosmography also had celestial rivers (numbering seven, as always), as : particularly L¨ , Varun: a, I, Varuna : und die Wasser, Göttingen 1951, 153–5, so stridently claimed, is questionable (see H, Aufsätze zur Indoiranistik, Vol. 1, Wiesbaden 1975, 49–50). See also pp. 63–4.

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site before being sent back up again to replenish its source—often referred to as a sea (RV 8.65.2). The dome of the heavens rises from the mountain range that girds the earth. The fact that it does not fall down led to the idea that the sky is made of something solid. Unlike, for example, in ancient Iran or ancient Greece, where apparently the daytime sky was more the subject of attention and was thought to be ‘metallic’ (aom asmanәm . . . aiiaŋhō kәhrpa Χυaēnahe ‘that heaven . . . with the appearance of shining ore’, Yt. 13.2; σιδήρεον οὐρανὸν ‘the iron sky’, Od. ο 329, χάλκεον οὐρανὸν ‘the brazen sky’, Iliad Ρ 425), in Rgvedic India the night sky was the : basis for explaining from what types of material the firmament was made. Because the night sky seems to be one with the mountains which—visibly, during the day—surround the world, it must be made of dark [82] stone, and the stars are affixed to it ‘like pearls on a black horse’ (RV 10.68.11).¹⁰⁹

4.19 The realm of the dead and its rulers In *(H)i ̯amá, the son of *Uiu̯ásu̯ant, we encounter the Indo-Iranian god of the dead. He rules as the king inˆ his heaven beyond, which according to its description in the Avesta¹¹⁰ and in the Rgveda,¹¹¹ already in Indo-Iranian times was conceived : of as a realm of desire, as a classic locus amoenus (see p. 285). He was the first to tread the path that leads there, which is now guarded by his two dogs.¹¹² His epithet ‘rich in herds’ which is given him repeatedly in the Avesta (Yt. 5.25, 9.8, 13.130, 19.31, Y 9.4), apparently alludes to the large number of dead that populate his kingdom. The same meaning is likely behind his designation as ‘he who makes the creatures go together’ (RV 10.14.1). That he was seen as a kind of ‘shepherd’ may also be indicated by the hallmarks attributed to him in the Avesta (horn and whip, Vīdēvdād 2.6) and Rgveda (flute, RV 10.135.7). And although the Avesta’s : ¹⁰⁹ The description in Yt 13.3 is quite similar: ‘Ahura Mazdā donned the sky as a mantle adorned with stars’. When this text is compared with Y 30.5, keeping in mind that in the younger Avesta, Ahura Mazdā, and Spәnta : Mainiiu are equivalent (L, Die Religion Zarathustras, nach dem Awesta dargestellt, Tubingen 1930, 18), one might surmise an allusion to a stonelike heaven: ‘The most holy spirit, clad in the hardest stones, chooses for himself the truth’. ¹¹⁰ In Y 9.4–5 it says: ‘[To him was born King Yima] . . . [who] by reason of his authority made both herds and men [unto death] blossoming in the full vigour of youth, the waters and plants never drying, inexhaustible the food to eat. During the reign of mighty Yima there was neither cold nor heat, neither ageing nor death and [also] [372] not the famine created by the Daēuuas; in fifteen-year-old forms the two went about, father and son, so long as Yima of the many herds, son of Vīuuaŋυhan, : ruled.’ Also compare Yt. 15.16, 17.30, and 19.32. ¹¹¹ RV 9.113.8–9, 10.14.9, and 10.135.1 manage to convey a fairly precise impression of Yama’s realm (see pp. 282–3). ¹¹² When the Avesta speaks of the ‘bridge of (Yama) who is layering (them)’ (see p. 48), this amounts to the same as when RV 10.14.2 says he was ‘the first to find the path’. As is made clear in RV 1.38.5, he guides the dead to the afterworld (see p. 282). And in the Zoroastrian religion, the dead must cross the Cinuuat ̰ bridge to reach the next world. The two dogs of Yima’s ‘guard’ this ‘bridge’ (Vīdēvdād 13.9), while those of Yama watch the path (RV 10.14.11).

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description of him as sun-like¹¹³ has no direct counterpart in the Rgveda,¹¹⁴ as the : offspring of the sun god Vivasvant he can certainly be assumed to have sun-like features, even if there is only little explicit mention of this in the Rgveda itself : (see pp. 282–3). Also of Indo-Iranian age is the myth of incest with his twin sister *(H)ia̯ mī,́ she having apparently joined him at that time, and thus the idea that *(H)i ̯amá is the first ancestor of men (see pp. 60–1).¹¹⁵ The fact that the Avesta tells of the killing of Yima by his brother Spitiiura (Yt. 19.46) supports indications in the Rgveda : that Yama was immolated and suggests that there was in primeval Indo-Iranian times a belief in a twin who was sacrificed,¹¹⁶ out of whom then the world emerged (see p. 37 and p. 187 with fn. 135). [83] Unlike in the (Rg)veda, Yima in the Avesta is clearly thought of as the king : of a golden age.¹¹⁷ And such is his function in the myth of the flood, the IndoIranian origin of which is attested in both the Veda (see p. 187 fn. 139) and the Avesta. In the Avestan version, Yima builds the sanctuary of the Vara, in which at the end of the ‘golden age’ the creatures find proǰection from the hard winters and survive the consequent flooding. This ‘cave’ is reminiscent, in more than just its name, of the Vala rock in the Rgveda. Here too the sun, moon, and stars, and— : apparently—also the Haoma are enclosed.¹¹⁸ If *Uará (thus surely also already present in Indo-Iranian times) is the kingdom ˆof *(H)i ̯amá, then this is— primarily, at least—a horizontal afterworld, located in the East and stretching across the world-encircling mountain range.

4.20 The cult in the Indo-Iranian period The focal point of the cult in the Indo-Iranian period was sacrifice to the gods, performed with recitation and chants, in which they were offered food and drink ¹¹³ The Avestan yimō xšaētō (Yt. 19.34) lives on in the New Persian ǰam-šēd ‘sun’. ¹¹⁴ The Avesta has Yama in the fullest bloom of youth. There, his fifteen years (Y 9.5) are the ‘ideal’ age. Vәrәθraγna also appears in the form of a ‘youngling of fifteen years’ (Yt. 14.17), and the girl in the Haδōxt Nask (2.9) who embodies the ‘soul’ of the dead is also called ‘fifteen years in growth’. Unless the ‘youth’ in RV 10.135 is—somehow—meant to be Yama, there is apparently no counterpart for this characteristic in the Rgveda. : ¹¹⁵ See O, Religion, 532. ¹¹⁶ At the same time this averts the danger that is heralded by the birth of twins. And occasionally, in particular in Greek and Roman myth, the notion seems to play a role that this also amounts to offering a type of ‘building sacrifice’ that inaugurates the founding of a new city: twins often establish cities to create for themselves the home that was denied them, after they were driven out of the community and had wandered long in the wilderness (see p. 37). It is possible that Yima’s ‘unhappy’—or ‘unsteady’ (see H, Der Zamyād-Yašt, Edition, Übersetzung, Kommentar, Wiesbaden 1994, 194 fn. 72)—‘wandering about’ (Yt. 19.34) belongs in this context. ¹¹⁷ Only post-Vedic texts, in particular the Mahābhārata, also see Yama as the king of a golden age (see O, Religion, 533). ¹¹⁸ See P, Exegetische Beiträge zum Avesta, Wörter und [373] Sachen (Neue Folge) 1 (1938) 176–7 (also cf. M, Introduction to Ancient Iranian Religion, Minneapolis 1983, 178).

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to ‘strengthen’ them (see below). One especially significant offering was the*Sáu̯ ma libation—pressed from a certain plant in a manner very similar to the Vedic ritual—that replaced the earlier mead (see p. 62). The Haoma ritual was coupled with animal sacrifices, also as early as Indo-Iranian times: ‘. . . when [Grә¯ hma und Kavis] set themselves as help to the deceitful one, and, when the ox to be killed is named, as a help [to him], that enflames the dūraoša [Haoma]’ (Y 32.14). The two rituals, also in Indo-Iranian times, are observed in worshipping the gods called *Daiu̯ ̯á, ‘the Divine Ones’ (see p. 49).¹¹⁹ This consisted in giving over the sacrificial gifts to the flames. In prayerful hymns, the singing of which was an integral part [84] of these rituals, the gods were ‘summoned’.¹²⁰ If they then appeared—with their chariots, to which the horses had been harnessed by the songs (see p. 30)—they were feasted (see p. 198). This would—such was the early belief—strengthen and invigorate them:¹²¹ ‘. . . May the sacrifice and the Soma strengthen Indra, may [also] the poetic formulations, the songs, and the recitations strengthen him’ (RV 6.38.4), ‘Him shalt thou seek to strengthen¹²² with the venerations of our devotion,¹²³ the Ahura Mazdā . . .’, Y 45.10 (tә¯ m nә¯ yasnāiš ārmatōiš mimaγžō, yә¯ . . . mazdā̊ . . . ahurō), ‘Ahura, receive strength through [my] devotion, . . . speed through goodly offering . . .’, Y 33.12 ( . . . ahurā ārmaitī tәuuīšīm dasuuā/ . . . . vaŋhuuiā zauuō ādā).¹²⁴ Fire as the foundation of the Haoma ritual and animal sacrifice¹²⁵—also of Indo-Iranian heritage¹²⁶—was, however, separated from this association by Zarathustra and made the focal point of a separate fire cult. That cult, however,

¹¹⁹ This coupling seems to have also been the reason for the general rejection of the Haoma ritual by Zarathustra. ¹²⁰ Y 45.8 speaks of how the gods ‘cause one to come to them’, RV 10.61.17 of their ‘turning [one] hither’, and RV 1.52.1 of ‘twisting [one] hither’—similar concepts (see pp. 198–9 and 204) for which different expressions are used. Concerning the Avesta passage cited here it is worth noting that—also in view of the future tense varәšiia- (< *u̯ arź-ši ̯a-)—there seems to be no reason not to construe ā. vīuuarәšō as a 2nd sing. conjunctive of the desiderative of √varәz (PIE *√u̯ erĝ) ‘to have an effect on; to affect’ (also B, Altiranisches Wörterbuch, Straßburg 1904, col. 1377). A different interpretation is found in H, The Gathas of the Zarathustra, Vol. II, Heidelberg 1959, 64, K/ P, Les text vieil-avestiques, Vol. II, Wiesbaden 1990, 306, and  V, The Avestan Vowels, Amsterdam—New York 2003, 226, where vīuuarәša- is seen as the verbal noun for the desiderative of √var ‘choose’, which would be comparable to cixšnuša-, Y 43.15. ¹²¹ The Rgveda also frequently says that the gods grow through songs (RV 5.31.4, 6.44.13), because : they are strengthened by them (RV 5.22.4). See pp. 204–5. ¹²² mimaγžō can be identified as the 2nd sing. conj. of the desiderative of the root √mag (cf. B, Altiranisches Wörterbuch, Straßburg 1904, col. 1135), a continuation of the Indo-European *√magh ‘can, [to be] able to’. ¹²³ Also in the Rgveda, Aramati plays a certain role in the success of the sacrifice (see RV 5.43.6, : 7.36.8, 42.3, 10.64.15). ¹²⁴ In the Tištar Yašt it is Ahura Mazdā whose sacrifice fortifies Tištriia for the battle against Apaoša (Yt. 8.23–4). ¹²⁵ The Avestan Ātar and Vedic Agni, notwithstanding their different names, are continuations of the Indo-Iranian god of fire (see p. 99). ¹²⁶ O, Religion, 342–5, 360, however, seeks to make it appear probable that, based for the most part on Herodot’s message concerning the animal sacrifice of the Persians, ‘the pre-history of the Vedic sacrifice points to a type of sacrifice without a sacrificial fire, thus also attributable to Indo-

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did not worship the god [of] ‘fire’,¹²⁷ but rather Ahura Mazdā¹²⁸, who showed himself in the fire, and his ‘most bounteous spirit’: ‘Verily you are the fire of Lord Wisdom. Verily you are his most bounteous spirit’ (YH 36.3). The worship of fire served primarily to call to mind the world order established by Ahura Mazdā: ‘[I shall apportion the sacrificial offering to] your fire. [In doing so] let me think of the offering of worship to the [your] order’ (Y 43.9). The background of what is, as far as can be seen, a specifically Zoroastrian version of the ‘sacrifice’ is the close association of fire with ‘truth’ (as: ̌a) a connection that is of Indo-Iranian heritage, just as on the Rgvedic side :rtá is closely connected with fire (see p. 53). Because : Ahura Mazdā is thought to be present as the sacred fire is kindled, the lighting, consecration and transubstantiation of this fire are the central acts of the Zoroastrian ritual.¹²⁹ These were most likely reformed out of less ‘sublime’ acts of the Indo-Iranian cult, among which was also the fetching of wood.¹³⁰ [85] Of the priests who performed the Indo-Iranian *Sáu̯ma ritual we can with certainty discern Jh́ áu̯ tar, as he lives on in the Hotr: of the Vedic and the Zaotar of the Avestan ritual. Being, as his name says, the ‘bringer of libations’ he was probably already in Indo-Iranian times the one whose obligation it was to perform the recitations. He was assisted by other priests, who were responsible for the specific ritual acts. Their identity, however, cannot be explained with the same certainty. Of one thing there seems to be no doubt, namely that the *Sáu̯ma ritual did not have singers as such.¹³¹ Sacrificial offerings in Indo-Iranian times were not only *Sáu̯ma and meat, but also—and perhaps especially, in view of how highly the cow was valued—milk products. In the Rgveda the site of the fire is also called the ‘footprint of the : plentiful sustenance [from the cow]’ (see pp. 218–19). According to a myth which is merely alluded to in the Rgveda (see p. 150), Idā, : : the daughter of Manu who took the form of a cow, she ‘on whose hands, on whose feet there is ghee’ (RV 7.16.8, 10.70.8), left a trail of ghee when she walked. ‘The same’ footsteps are followed by the one who walks around Ahura Mazdā’s fire: ‘[I will harness for you the swiftest steeds of your laudation . . . ] At the same time let me walk in the steps that are known as the steps of Īžā around you [Ahura Mazdā and Amәs: ̌a Spәntas,] : with hands held high’, Y 50.8 ( . . . mat ̰ vā̊ padāiš yā frasrūtā īžaiiā̊, pairijasāi mazdā ustānazastō). And apparently—the formulation of the stanza makes this European times’ (ibid. 345 fn. 1) and that this was the only sacrifice in Indo-Iranian times alongside which or in place of which a sacrifice with such a fire appears in the Rgvedic religion. On the ‘double’ : sacrifice system of the Rgveda, see pp. 221–2 [374]. : ¹²⁷ L, Die Religion Zarathustras, nach dem Awesta dargestellt, Tubingen 1930, 263, refers to the ‘dethroning of the fire god by Zarathustra’. ¹²⁸ Because Ahura Mazdā and Varuna : are closely related and because it is said frequently in the Rgveda that Varuna : : (like Mitra) is Agni, the conception of the divine epiphany in fire could trace back to the Indo-Iranian age. ¹²⁹ See N, Der Yasna Haptaŋhāiti, Wiesbaden 1986, 156. ¹³⁰ See L, Die Religion Zarathustras, nach dem Awesta dargestellt, Tubingen 1930, 261–2. ¹³¹ See O, Religion, 383–7.

 - 

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probable—with this cultic detail, the associated myth was also inherited from Indo-Iranian times. The same applies to the other ritual act mentioned here: the gesture of holding out the hands with palms turned upward while praying. For the formula see p. 31.¹³² That the priest was standing up¹³³ is also inherited from the Indo-Iranian era (cf. frauuas: ̌aiiō . . . әrәδβā̊ hištәn: ta, Yt. 13.76, with ūrdhvá . . . hotar . . . tis: :t ha/stīrn: é barhís: i samidhāné agnā ́ ūrdhvó adhvaryú . . . asthāt, RV 4.6.1/4).¹³⁴ And the ‘sacrificial grass’ mentioned in the half-stanza cited here, which ‘is spread out before the kindled fire’, has a counterpart in the Iranian Barәsman. The always concomitant [86] verb star ‘spread out’ shows that it did not originally denote the ‘grass bundle’ that was to be held in the hand of the reciting priest in the ritual prescribed in the Avestan texts, but rather the ‘sacrificial grass’ that was laid out as described by Herodotus in his presentation of the official Persian animal sacrifice: ‘Having cut the sacrificial animal limb from limb and boiled the flesh, he spreads the softest grass, clover usually, and places all of the flesh on it’ (ἐπεὰν δὲ διαμιστύλας κατὰ μέρεα τὸ ἱρήιον ἑψήσῃ τὰ κρέα, ὑποπάσας ποίην ὡς ἁπαλωτάτην, μάλιστα δὲ τὸ τρίφυλλον, ἐπὶ ταύτης ἔθηκε ὦν πάντα τὰ κρέα 1.132). As in this case, an Indo-Iranian terminology can be reconstructed for the other ritual acts named previously [358].¹³⁵

¹³² Greek (χεῖρας ἀνασχών) and Latin (palmas tendens) each use different vocabulary for the same prayer posture. For the Latin, we call to mind Horace, carm. 3,23,1–4: caelo supinas si tuleris manus. ́ RV 6.1.6, ācyā ́ jānu, ́ RV ¹³³ The kneeling posture for prayer is younger (abhijñú, RV 1.72.5, jñubādh, 10.15.6), and was not customary until the Brāhmana : period. ¹³⁴ Also compare RV 10.20.5. ¹³⁵ See O, Religion, 342–3 fn. 3, and G, Die Religion der Iranier, Wissenschaft und Kultur, Vol. 2, Die Religionen der Erde in Einzeldarstellungen, Leipzig—Vienna 1929, 243.

5 Conceptions of Gods in the Rgvedic Religion : 5.1 Poetic license, aspects of ritual, and religious reality Using the Rgveda as the textual source for a portrayal of its religion is an : endeavour fraught with difficulty, for a number of reasons (see also p. 207). After all, this text emerged at the end of a highly developed culture in western and northwestern India to which it is essentially our only point of access. Moreover, both the cultural conditions in which it emerged, and its very language exude a breath of profound antiquity. The same can be said of the ritual for which the songs of the Rgveda are for the most part—if not in fact entirely : (see p. 198 fn. 7)—composed. For although it is quite similar to what came later, it also shows considerable differences. Because it centres around the Soma sacrifice, and thus sheds light almost exclusively on those gods who are worshipped in and with that offering, the text is all but silent on many other aspects of the Rgvedic religion—from lesser godheads, ‘spirits’, and demonic beings to magic : and sorcery, and more. The cultic activities that form the background and external setting of the songs are for the most part merely alluded to by the poets. And of course not all of these references can be understood. The merest intimations, creative and meticulously crafted as they are, suffice for the poets even in the aretalogies (see pp. 201–2) drawn upon in glorification of the gods. After all, the actual audience for the songs are the gods themselves, and the poets deem [88] a few well-chosen words to be enough for them, as the gods already know of their own heroic deeds, their own greatness and glory. The poets’ way of speaking in bare allusions is intertwined with a propensity for exaggeration and a marked penchant for keeping formulations as obscure as possible. It was the firm belief of the Vedic poets that the gods enjoy untangling complex intellectual puzzles, interpreting clever innuendoes, and solving intricate riddles, as ‘they love’—according to proverbial declarations in younger Vedic texts—‘that which is concealed’ (Aitareya-Brāhmana : III 33) and ‘hate the obvious’ (B:rhadāranyaka Upanis: ad IV 2,2). The poets are exceedingly : fond of concealing their thoughts, evoked as often as not by strict asceticism,¹ in

¹ On the significance of asceticism (tapas) in the Vedic religion, see O, Religion, 402–5.

The Religion of the Rgveda. Thomas Oberlies, Oxford University Press. © Thomas Oberlies 2023. : DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780192868213.003.0005

     ̣   

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bold, sometimes bizarre raiment; playing with obscurely implied secrets; revelling in mysteries; and speaking in veiled allusions in a language that is often intentionally obscure: we hear of the ‘umbilicus of immortality’, of ‘secret names of the cows’, of the ‘first-born of truth’, and ‘the highest heaven of speech’. Hidden context, even bordering on the impossible, that nonetheless apparently provides the key to ‘understanding’ phenomena in which the fundamental powers of the sacrifice are seen in tangency with basic powers of nature, held a powerful allure for the imagination of the Vedic poet. Sadly for us, the mysteries that so fascinate him are often insinuated with but a single phrase or word. The riddles posed for us in all this are made considerably more complex by one particular characteristic of the songs of the Rgveda—a characteristic, in fact, of the : literary genre to which almost all of the Rgvedic hymns belong (see p. 204): that of : invoking one god. Only one god (at a time) is praised in a given song as being incomparable and above all others, with the effect that all other gods within the scope of that song fade into the background or disappear altogether. This ‘serial monotheism’ led [89] to the postulation—significantly, from none other than the Vedist M Mü—of what is called henotheism, said to be a phase in religious evolution marked by a belief in individual gods who alternate in prominence as they take turns in the position of highest god. Yet this ‘monotheism of the moment’ is anything but a separate form, let alone stage, of religious belief.² Any god overshadowed by the one celebrated in a given song can come into glory in another song, praised as the ‘highest’, ‘most powerful’, ‘most incomparable’ god.³ If the ritual demands it, such a switch can occur within a single song.⁴ Furthermore, the ritual use of the songs often joined gods in pairs. Indra in particular is often part of a divine couple, and in the process many of the beliefs connected specifically with him are transferred to other gods. Thus for example Agni can be called—using ultimately the same words as for Indra—‘Lord of the Dwelling, who with his might slays V:rtra’ and ‘poet who distributes the spoils of Pani’ : (RV 6.13.3).⁵ The same can apply vice versa to Indra: he is called, like Agni (RV 7.11.1), ‘the sign of the sacrifice’ (RV 10.104.6). In this manner, oft-repeated statements about the nature of gods are overlaid by a great number of other remarks ascribing to them attributes which they are accorded only through transference—scattered formulations of the moment, random ideations of the poets. The task then is to discover what is truly characteristic; what is constant and enduring. Yet this does not absolve us of the duty to search for possible instances of overlap among the various statements and notions. If, for example, it is said of both Agni and Indra that ‘through combat’ they ‘made ² See also O, Religion, 102 fn. 1. ³ That this praising-above-everything always uses the same or similar words is to some extent a result of the formulaicity of the language, while it is also the reason for it. ⁴ See O, Die Literatur des alten Indiens, Stuttgart 1923, 28. ⁵ See O, Religion, 3, 100.

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    ̣  

a wide realm for the gods’ (RV 1.59.5, 7.98.3), then it is the joint attribute of waging battle that makes these statements possible. As if the task of elucidating the religion of the Rgveda were not made arduous : enough by all this, we are furthermore dealing with—very probably [90]—not the one religion of the Rgveda, but with a multiplicity of Rgvedic ‘family religions’. : : This complication is mitigated, however, by the fact that the differences between the ‘family religions’ and ‘family cults’ were apparently minor.⁶

5.2 Conceptions of gods in the Rgvedic religion : The Rgvedic religion is a well-nigh classic instance of polytheism; a form of : religion which envisages the activities of multiple gods conceived of as persons. Of its three constitutive elements—conceptions of gods, myths, and cult—this chapter describes the first briefly and systematically in the following, and then traces the specific forms of these conceptions in the religion of the Rgveda. : The complexity of the world, so threatening to mere mortals, calls for a model through which it can be interpreted, understood, and thus made predictable, even controllable. Such models may be biomorphic, technomorphic, or sociomorphic, depending on the underlying idea complex. The sociomorphic interpretation is a paradigm that takes everyday life as a model for understanding the world and postulates social relationships even outside the system of human relationships. In this way, the structure and sequence of what happens in the world is interpreted as a relationship; as a kind of social role-play. The sociomorphic interpretation of ‘the world’ culminates in the concept of a polytheistic pantheon with a fully developed mythology (see Chapter 6). Traditional conceptions of gods represent one basic type of [91] sociomorphic interpretation among types that vary along a broad spectrum and differ, sometimes starkly, according to their anthropomorphic, theriomorphic, mixed-form, or aniconic manifestations. What all of these interpretations have in common, however, is that social relationships are conceptualised with them.⁷ The deities thus conceived of can be typologically divided into domain gods, functional gods, and ‘great personal gods’,⁸ according to the areas of life and experience a particular god covers and in what way he discharges that responsibility. While domain and functional gods ‘embody’ and ‘guarantee’ a limited area or a specific function and are thought of as being present directly in their sphere of effect and function—such that their existence is guaranteed by the very actuality ⁶ See O, Religion, 91–3. ⁷ This is fundamental to cultic activity—and rituals in particular are what generate and sustain conceptions of god. ⁸ The term ‘großer persönlicher Gott’ (great personal god) appears to have been coined by U, Götternamen, Frankfurt ³1948, 330–42. It is used here as well faute de mieux.

     ̣   

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and reality of these areas and events—the ‘great personal gods’ have lost this connection. Thus ‘are . . . [those] gods designated . . . to whom are ascribed mobility, an individual range of activity, and a certain underlying design’.⁹ They each command multiple domains and functions, either themselves or through delegation of their power. While they are in turn given epithets that associate them with specific domains and functions, thus virtually ‘demoting’ them to the status of domain and functional gods, those epithets characteristically denote freedom of action and a surfeit of power. Taken together, these criteria provide the basis for developing a typology by means of which three types of god can be distinguished. Each is the result of a long process of differentiation in specific socio-cultural phases of society:¹⁰ [92] God type I

God type II

God type III

Nature, place, or domain god

Functional god

Great (personal) god

Existence identical with presence or recurrence/identity of appearance and being

Distance from area commanded

Controls areas through orders and commands, ultimately through contingent delegation of power

Bound to specific place/ immobile (place god)

Limited mobility; controls the sphere of command through direct intervention

Full mobility

No alternative epiphany

Typical manifestation; always appears in the same form(s)

Schemes of epiphany become open

Direct communication possible

Communication possible

No direct communication possible

No choice of actions

Choice of actions

Basically open range of actions

on the level of complex cultures, a god is responsible for a typical, more or less precisely differentiated area of life and experience (or multiple such areas) which he creates and/or guarantees and provides for, and regarding which he has comprehensive knowledge.¹¹ These areas of effect and function divide the entire world into ‘spheres’ of responsibility. In polytheistic religions, in which as a rule ⁹ G, Gottesnamen (Gottesepitheta) I. Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum 11, Stuttgart 1981, col. 1210 [375]. ¹⁰ The domain gods in the Rgvedic religion are almost all—ultimately—inherited from the Indo: European religion (on the members of the old god families, see pp. 34–5) and thus can look back on a longer history than the other two types. ¹¹ In the case of Sky gods this knowledge can become a kind of omniscience, as they are able to see everything (see p. 35 fn. 10).

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people select their gods as needed according to an open schema, the choice of a particular god to invoke in a particular situation is based primarily upon these different areas of effect and function. Furthermore, gods are not predominantly a cognitivistic [93] means of explaining the ‘world’; rather they are quite clearly, in the most widely varying cultural contexts, themselves a part of the world which they share with mortals and make the world not only in a certain sense ‘comprehensible’, but also ‘inhabited’, perhaps even ‘homelike’. This applies in particular to the domain gods and to gods who are associated with particular places, regions, or areas. This latter characteristic—a strong connection to place—otherwise so common in the gods of polytheistic religions is lacking, however, in the Vedic gods, of whom Bhāratī and Sarasvatī (see pp. 148–9) are among the few who distinctly exhibit locality-related traits.¹² Yet it is not only the area of effect and function that makes up the identity and individuality of a god, but also his iconography—in particular the ‘divine image’— his name(s) and epithets, his ‘social prestige’, and also his allocation to particular times of day and seasons of the year, which is often based on the cultic calendar (see pp. 225–6). It is important to keep in mind, however, that in the aniconic Rgvedic religion, the place of an image representing the god is taken by the priest : who ‘embodies’ that god (see pp. 210–11),¹³ and that this religion has only very few gods with ritually fixed epithets. Exceptions include for example Agni Dravin: odā (RV 1.96.1), Agni Jātavedas (RV 3.20.3, 10.15.12), Agni Kravyād (RV 10.16.9), Agni Vaiśvānara (RV 6.8.6, 7.5.4), Sām : tapanāh: /G:rhamedhāsah: / Svatavasah: —Marutah: (RV 7.59.9–11)¹⁴ and Soma Pavamāna (RV 9.40.4, 94.5).¹⁵

5.3 Basic structure of the Rgvedic pantheon : Restricting the number of gods who are active and are characterised by an action paradigm is a constitutive element of polytheistic religions. This limitation is usually set through the formation of a pantheon. Internally structured, the pantheon allows us to determine the relationships [94] of its gods both to each other and to the actions of each. The organisational principles applied in this structuring ¹² See O, Religion, 91 with fn. 2. Nevertheless, the environment in which a person finds himself at a given moment also plays a significant role in the selection from among Vedic gods (see pp. 82–6). ¹³ RV 4.24.10 also speaks not of an idol of Indra, but of a song addressed to the god (see also p. 208 fn. 53). ¹⁴ This is a sequence of the names of the Maruts that is also found in the younger ritual (cf. Vājasaneyi-Samhitā XXIV 16, Taittirīya-Samhitā I 8,4.1 and Āpastamba-Śrautasūtra VIII 9.5). It : : is interesting to note that the ritual in question is the Sākamedha sacrifice. The last stanza of song RV 7.59 (see p. 225 fn. 156) is also used in that ritual, alongside the aforementioned stanzas (see Kāt:haka XXI 13: 54,6 ff., Maitrāyanī IV 10,5: 154,7 ff., Taittirīya-Samhitā IV 1,13.3 f., Śāṅkhāyana: Samhitā : : Śrautasūtra III 15,5 ff.)—all of which indicates quite clearly that this Cāturmāsya sacrifice was of the Rgvedic age (see p. 225). : ¹⁵ See O, Kleine Schriften, Wiesbaden 1967, 717, and Religion, 62 fn. 1.

     ̣   

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correspond to basic experiences of the world (of work) and political order. Sex, genealogy and relatedness, locality, cooperation and opposition, friendship and enmity, love relationships and animosities, division of labour, division of power, and hierarchy are schemas of order found across all polytheisms. Many pantheons have male gods alongside female goddesses, born beside unborn gods, place and domain gods next to great supraregional gods, (great) ruling gods next to (minor) ruled gods, gods who cooperate alongside gods who are hostile to one another, conquerors next to the conquered. The simultaneous use of multiple categories enables a system of classification and interpretation that can be refined to almost any degree. The hierarchical order—the ranking of ‘great’ rulers and ‘minor’ ruled gods, of ‘old’ disempowered and ‘new’ power-wielding gods—is made plausible, often in dramatic concretion, through battles between gods (see pp. 81–2 and 163–7).

5.3.1 Ancient potentates and ‘present-day’ rulers The pantheon of the Rgvedic religion, too, which says of itself that it comprises : thirty-three gods—‘They are in your secret, o you self-purifying Soma: all heavenly ones, the thirty-three’, RV 9.92.4¹⁶—has internal structures like those outlined previously. Undoubtedly the most important are two adversarial groups— the Devas on one side and the Asuras on the other: ‘I would today devise this as the first of my speech, by which we as gods may conquer the Asuras’ (RV 10.53.4); ‘The gods, when they had smashed the Asuras,¹⁷ came protecting their own godhood’ (RV 10.157.4). Within the Asuras, [95] the Ādityas form their own group. In general, belonging to the one group or the other, Devas or Asuras, is a fixed property, yet there are also gods who belong to both—if only in succession: ‘These are the Asuras among the gods, [Mitra and Varuna]’ : (RV 7.65.2); ‘Mitra and Varuna, the great rulers of all, the two gods [and] Asuras, who are endued : with truth,¹⁸ proclaim the lofty truth’ (RV 8.25.4). Mitra and Varuna : belong first to the Asuras and then to the Devas, like the other Ādityas, because they ‘defected’ to the other side: ‘Eight sons has Aditi, born of her body. She went to the Devas with [only] seven. Mārtān: da : she put aside. With seven sons did Aditi go to the first generation [of the Devas].¹⁹ She brought Mārtān: da : for progeny, but also for death’ (RV 10.72.8–9). ¹⁶ Apparently in the Old Iranian religion the gods also number 33, as mentioned in the Rgveda for : example in 1.34.11, 3.6.9, 8.28.1, 30.2, and 57.2, which would mean the origin is Indo-Iranian. After all, Y 1.10 speaks of the ‘33 tutelary spirits of order [of the world]’ ( . . . yōi hәn: ti as: ̌ahe ratauuō θraiiasca θrisąsca). ¹⁷ This is why Indra and Agni are also called ‘Asura killers’ (RV 6.22.4, 7.13.1). See O, Religion, 161 fn. 1. ¹⁸ On the term ‘truth’, see pp. 51–3. ́ : pūrvyé yugé from stanza 2 ¹⁹ The pūrvyám : yugám in this stanza clearly takes up the devānām (see p. 79).

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This basic arrangement of the pantheon overlaps with others, which in turn are interlaced with one another. So for example the Asuras are older, the Devas are younger; the Asuras rule no longer, the Devas are the currently ruling gods; the Asuras inhabit the borderlands of the world, the Devas dwell (for the most part) in heaven. That there are old—and consequently also younger—gods is already expressed in the Rgveda: ‘Even the ancient gods have always measured : their powers according to your sovereignty, that comes from the Asuras’ (RV 7.21.7). That these ‘ancient gods’ are the Asuras cannot be inferred with certainty from the text cited, yet other indications in the Rgveda do make it seem likely. : There are also multiple post-Rgvedic texts emphasising that the Asuras are the : elder brothers of the Devas: ‘Of two different kinds are Prajāpati’s offspring, Devas and Asuras. Of these two, the Devas are the younger and the Asuras, the elder’ (B:rhadāranyaka Upanis: ad I 3,1).²⁰ Similarly, what is probably the most important : indigenous Sanskrit dictionary, the Amarakośa, which likely originated in the sixth century , notes that the ‘Asuras are the old gods’ (asurā . . . pūrvadevāh: . . . I 1.1,7). Buddhist texts say this as well: ‘Sakka (= Indra), the king of the gods, spoke to Vepacitti, the king of [96] the Asuras: “You, o Vepacitti, are the old gods” ’ (Samyutta Nikāya I 480,12).²¹ : As ‘old’ gods, primordially related to the giants in Germanic and the Titans in Greek mythology (see pp. 163–7), the Asuras possess special knowledge—the wisdom that comes with age—and an arcane power that is theirs by its very name, māyā:́ ²² ‘[Mitra and Varuna] : . . . you cause the heavens to rain through the magical power of the Asura. . . . You protect the vows with the help of the Asura’s power: with the help of order you rule over the whole world, you have set the sun in the sky as a shining chariot’ (RV 5.63.3, 7).²³ With this power of his, Varuna : brings order to the world that had been created by Indra but left in a raw state (see p. 84): ‘I shall proclaim this great power of the renowned Asuric Varuna, :

²⁰ They are brothers because both were created by Prajāpati, the Asuras specifically before the gods (see for example Maitrāyanī IV 2,1: 21.2–7 and Śatapatha-Brāhmana : Samhitā : : I 2,4.8). In the B:rhadāranyaka-Upani s: ad (Kānva : : recension) I 3,1, too, is stated: ‘Of two types indeed are Prajāpati’s offspring, gods (Devas) and Asuras. Of these, the gods are the younger, the Asuras the elder’. ²¹ The Jātaka also mentions the ‘old gods’ (Ja V 18,10* [376] = pūrvadevāh: , Jātakamālā 103,17), which the comment marks out as the Asuras (pubbadevā ti asurā, 19,24’). ²² In the case of Ahura Mazdā, wisdom was eponymous, and the ‘gods’ around him, the Amәs: ǎ Spentas, are the embodiments of concepts that are closely related to wisdom. The giants in Germanic : mythology, too, having been born before time, are considered to be very wise. The giant Mímir is Odin’s advisor, and Hymir, father of Týr, is called hundvíss, ‘much-knowing’. This knowledge, applied practically, together with their prodigious physical strength, makes them great master builders. Moreover, they in particular are endowed with the gift of transformation. Little is known in this regard concerning the Titans, the fourth of these groups of gods, but the special knowledge that characterises Prometheus, son of the Titan Iapetus, is likely a related feature. ²³ The question remains open, however, as to whose miraculous power—perhaps that of the Asura Dyaus?—is spoken of here (see  B, Dyâus Asura, Ahura Mazdā und die Asuras, Halle 1885, 54–6).

     ̣   

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that he, standing in the midspace [between heaven and earth], measured out the earth with the sun as with a measuring rod’ (RV 5.85.5). The concept of these two groups of gods, the Devas and the Asuras, is tightly interwoven with cosmogonic and cosmological conceptions. The idea that the world was created in two phases, which are embodied by these two groups of gods, is a foundational belief. Because there was ‘nothing existent and nothing non-existent, because neither the airy space, nor the heavens beyond it, existed’,²⁴ where ‘darkness was hidden by darkness’, there was in the beginning—as in so many cosmogonies—only a ‘featureless briny tide’ (RV 10.129.1/3) that existed beyond heaven and earth, beyond Devas and Asuras (RV 10.82.5–6). There in the all-encompassing darkness (RV 10.129.3) the ásat was formed—how, is not said—a prima potentia, from which would emerge everything that was to exist in the future. The formation of the world from this chaos, this rudis indigestaque moles, is the transition to the ‘present’, which belongs to the first age of the Devas: ‘At the [time of the] first generation of the Devas the existent was born from the not-(yet-)existent’ (RV 10.72.2–3). The time of the sát arises [97] with Indra’s birth and his great heroic deeds: ‘Achieving one work today and another tomorrow, Indra quickly [makes] the ásat into sát’ (RV 6.24.5); ‘What has Indra done in the intoxication of this [Soma] and what in the drinking, what in the fellowship of comrades? . . . Indra has created the existent in the intoxication of this [Soma], the existent in the drinking of this [Soma], the existent in the fighting fellowship of this [Soma]’ (RV 6.27.1–2). It is the theft of the Soma that gives Indra the power to perform these deeds which put an end to the ‘power’ of the Asuras and mark the beginning of the Devas’ dominion:²⁵ ‘Agni, Soma, . . . , they leave. The ascendancy has turned. . . . The Asuras became bereft of [their] power there. . . . You, o Varuna, : . . . [now] take up the sovereignty of my realm. Here is the sun . . . , here is brightness, [here] the broad midspace [between heaven and earth]. We want to slay Vr: tra, come forth, o Soma, . . . .’ (RV 10.124.5–6). The theft of the Soma, the change in rulership, and the transition from the state of ásat to that of sát are thus one and the same. These events all mark the end of the darkness and gloom that had prevailed up to that point. Precisely this change, however, is also the result of Indra’s second great deed, the smashing of the Vala. This opening of the rock released the sun and dawn(s), the moon and stars, which were locked up inside it, replacing the

²⁴ This attempt to describe the primordial state in negations has a parallel—a rather impressive one—in the third stanza of the Vo˛luspá: ár var alda, þar er Ýmir bygði, vara sandr né sær, né svalar unnir, jo˛ rð fannsk æva, né upphiminn, gap var ginnunga, en gras hvergi: “It was in prehistoric times that Ymir dwelt. There was neither sand nor sea nor cool waves. There was no earth, nor heaven above. There was a yawning abyss, but nowhere was there grass”. ²⁵ In the stanzas subsequently quoted, it is the evocatio, the mythological equivalent of the theft of the Soma, that leads to the change in power (see p. 81).

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darkness with a cycle of alternating light and dark. There are other indications, too, that the Vala, that ‘celestial’ rock mass (see pp. 170–4), is the ásat that existed before the ‘time’ of the Devas and therefore existed in that of the Asuras. Because the ‘things of life’ are found in it—especially light and water—the gigantic rock bears inside itself the germ of all creation. To enable this to now come into being, the waters held captive by the serpent V:rtra must be released. Thus, notwithstanding the fact that these are clearly separated in the Rgveda, and : their depiction is also carried forward in two different Indo-European myths (see pp. 35–6 and 173 fn. 60), the killing of V:rtra and opening of the Vala are in many instances connected as two consecutive phases of the creation of the world:²⁶ [98] ‘Mighty Indra, the serpent-slayer, drove the tide of waters out to the sea. He created the sun, he found the cows. He created shrouds [of darkness] through the ointment of the days (= light)’ (RV 2.19.3). This is expressed in the hymns primarily by having the serpent V:rtra besiege the Vala: ‘He slew the serpent that had nestled itself on the mountain . . . Like bellowing milk cows . . . the waters descended [thereupon] to the sea’ (RV 1.32.2). Apparently there was a belief that V:rtra enclosed the waters, which in turn surrounded the Vala. The mountain can therefore be found ‘in V:rtra’s belly’, as RV 1.54.10 states. The ‘actual’ transformation of ásat into sát is achieved by separating heaven from earth and creating the midspace, and thereby light, through the addition of a supporting beam. Hence the monstrous and misshapen stone mass is the ‘preform’ of heaven and earth, which ‘pre-exist’ unseparated within it: ‘Indra pressed the two halves of the world apart, after he . . . had destroyed all resistance’ (RV 7.23.3). Thus after it is smashed, the Vala comprises the matrix of the world. Its foundation, the ‘underworld’, is formed from residues of the ásat. The divine generations of Asuras and Devas, whose succession corresponds to the cosmic phases of ásat and sát, now follow on one another as they take turns holding dominion:²⁷ ‘Many years I spent²⁸ in him.²⁹ Now, choosing Indra, I leave the Father. Agni, Soma and Varuna—they leave [the Asuras]. The ascendancy has : turned. I come and support them’ (RV 10.124.4). The one who loses his power here as ‘Father (Asura)’—in stanza 3—is surely none other than Dyaus, the sky(-god), who is the quintessential Asura among the gods of the Rgveda, and whose : standing epithet—since early Indo-European times (see p. 34)—is ‘Father’. The Rgveda also reports that Indra has ‘disempowered’ him: ‘For Dyaus, [99] the : Asura, has bowed down to Indra. . . . All Devas have unanimously placed Indra at [their] head’ (RV 1.131.1).³⁰ Now Dyaus is considered the father of Indra (see pp. 122–3), and there are vague hints in the Rgveda that the latter slew his : ²⁶ Compare, for example, RV 1.32.11, 51.3–4, 61.10, 2.19.3, and 4.16.7–8. ²⁷ See O, Religion, 94, 163. ²⁸ Apparently Agni is thought to be the speaker here. ²⁹ RV 3.29.14, too, speaks of Agni as being ‘in the belly of the Asura’ (see p. 171). ³⁰ The gods are also repeatedly called índrajyes: :t hāh: , which means ‘the mightiest of whom is Indra’ (RV 7.11.5, 8.63.12, 10.66.1, 70.4).

     ̣   

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own creator with his mighty club that had been turned for him by his foster father, the smith Tvas: t::r: ‘Who has made thy mother a widow? Who meant to kill you, the orphaned wanderer? What god was in your good graces when you took hold of the father by the foot and destroyed him?’ (RV 4.18.12).³¹ He was able to do so because he ‘stole the weapon of his own father [and] [negated] the magic arts of the malevolent one’ (RV 6.44.22).³² Because there is clear evidence that the night sky was thought of as a stone dome (see p. 67 and 172), it is not unreasonable to assume that Indra’s father Dyaus, the ‘stone’ sky, and the stone mass of the Vala are ultimately one and the same: the ásat. The killing of the father, the Asura Dyaus, and the destruction of the Vala are thus one act that describes the creation of the world; the transition from ásat to sát. The differentiation of a pantheon, particularly a hierarchical gradation such as that from Devas to Asuras, is most effectively made plausible through a conflict between protagonists; a ‘battle of the gods’ against one another. The Rgveda : alludes to one such battle: ‘Without weapons are the Asuras, the Not-Devas. With your wheel cut them away, forward-rushing [Indra]’ (RV 8.96.9).³³ That the Devas can take up this battle, and then also emerge victorious, is possible primarily because they have taken possession of the Soma, which had been with the Asuras. When it was taken—through either theft or a kind of evocation, ‘a calling forth of the gods of the foes’ (RV 10.124.6)—‘the bounteous blessings of the enemies departed (at the same time)’ (RV 4.27.2) and ‘the ascendancy . . . turned’ (RV 10.124.4).³⁴ Soma, guarantor of divine immortality, is associated with authority and especially its legitimation: he who possesses the Soma is the legitimate [100] ruler. Thus it is the usual prize for victory, including in the constant battles between Asuras and Devas (see pp. 17–19). As noted previously, the pantheon of the Rgvedic religion has two groups : of gods that are antagonistic towards one another—the Devas (gods) versus the Asuras—yet the Asuras are not demons. The demons were apparently the Dānavas,³⁵ who were therefore not part of the pantheon. This basic structure and quite a few of the associated myths are inherited from Indo-Iranian and—beyond

³¹ RV 6.59.1, although an abstruse passage, should be mentioned here as well: ‘Your fathers are slain, whose enemies were the gods, o Indra and Agni, . . .’. ³² This is said of Soma in this stanza, but it is clear that deeds of Indra’s are being attributed to him [377]. ³³ Although in the Rgveda there is merely an indication of such a battle (cf. RV 10.53.4, 157.4), since : the time of the Atharvaveda it has become a fixed topos of Vedic texts. On the myth inherited from Indo-European times about the battle between gods, see pp. 163–7. ³⁴ According to this text passage, however, the Soma was not stolen; rather, the god Soma was among the Asuras who ‘defected’ to the Devas (see p. 79 fn. 25). ³⁵ The Dānavas, also called Dānus, are seven in number (RV 10.120.6), and various passages refer to them simply as the ‘Seven’ (RV 8.96.16, 10.49.8, 99.2). They all seem to be descended from Dānu, who according to RV 1.32.9 is the mother of Vr: tra. And V:rtra himself may well be one of the Dānus, as he is called Dānu in RV 2.11.18, 2.12.11, and 4.30.7—the only instances of this word apart from 1.32.9 and 10.120.6 (and 2.11.18 may also be so interpreted, contrary to G).

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that—very probably from Indo-European times. After all, a similar constellation is seen in Zoroastrianism, and quite comparable arrangements are found in the religious systems of other Indo-European peoples (see pp. 163–7). The concept of two enemy groups of gods in opposition strongly typified the structure of the Rgvedic pantheon because it was interleaved with the notion of the : family of gods, a likewise inherited and therefore deeply engrained belief (see pp. 34–5). Specifically, the successive rulers, father and son, come from one family—the divine family—and, as members of consecutive generations, represent two classes of gods. When the pantheon of a religion features a succession—perhaps violent—of rulers within a family that is subdivided into generations, this may in fact reflect the social and political reality from which it then would have drawn its plausibility.

5.3.2 Settlements and the religious system This basic structure of the pantheon gained both plausibility and stability from the way it was entwined in the forms of settlement and way of life of the Vedic tribes (see pp. 4–6). It reflected the differences in how the tribes were organised in the times of ks: éma, settling, versus those of yóga, the harnessing times of migration, by dividing these two [101] phases between the Asuras on the one hand and the group of gods around Indra on the other: The chariot-drivers call upon you in conflicts, in battles; they who stand fixed call upon you when establishing peaceful settlement; o Indra and Varuna, : we call upon you, so easily invoked, you who govern both kinds of good [= that obtained through battle and that through peaceful settlement]. Indra and Varuna, : when you two created all these beings of the world through your might, Mitra befriended Varuna : through peaceful settlement; the other moves along with the Maruts . . . the powerful one. (RV 7.82.4–5)

Here we have the yóga—not named explicitly but described as such—associated with Indra and the Maruts, as is most often the case,³⁶ and the ks: éma with Varun: a. And Mitra—as the ‘mediating [god] contract’ (see pp. 109–11)—makes ks: éma possible: ‘Conclude a contract like those who wish to settle’ advises the poet who composed RV 4.33.10.³⁷ Between Indra and Varuna : there is a simultaneously complementary and antagonistic relationship. With their different function areas, they cooperate to the extent that Indra is responsible for battle and for creation of the world in its ³⁶ Note as well that mentions of Indra quite frequently use forms of the root √yúj. ³⁷ Compare what is said in RV 1.73.3 and 8.31.14.

     ̣   

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‘raw state’, while Varuna : and the Ādityas set up the order of the world and watch over it protectively:³⁸ ‘In battle the one destroys the armies, the other constantly watches over the covenants’ (7.83.9).³⁹ As leaders of the Devas—the currently ruling gods—and the Asuras—the formerly ruling gods—Indra and Varuna : were enemies, differentiating the pantheon according to a schema of ‘superior’ versus ‘inferior’ power.⁴⁰

5.3.2.1 The Indra religion Indra’s domain (see pp. 120–6) is battle and war. The ‘battle alliance’ (sakhyá) with him confers upon the Vedic tribes both superiority in war and the exclusive claim to authority. Indra manifests in [102] battle when his followers achieve victory over their enemies. Yet after a victory, he immediately withdraws; after V:rtra is slain, Indra ‘disappears’: ‘Whom did you see, Indra’—thus RV 1.32.14— ‘as avenger of the serpent, that you, who had slain it, felt fear in your heart? That you crossed the ninety-nine rivers like a frightened falcon crossing the realms?’ Thus Indra does not dwell with the Āryas. He comes, invoked through poems and lured by Soma, from the far-away place he normally inhabits. Because he is not present at all times, his existence is sometimes questioned: ‘Who would [after all] believe that Indra exists; who, that he is present?’ (RV 1.84.17; cf. 8.100.3). And RV 1.55.5 even says: ‘Only then do they place belief in . . . Indra, when he brings down his cudgel, his weapon, with might’.⁴¹ The birth of Indra, too, takes place outside the primeval world. He appears suddenly, out of the ‘nothingness’,⁴² and ends the state of ásat, the state of not-yetexisting. Moreover, he does not grow up at home—with Father Sky and Mother Earth—but is raised, almost from the moment he is born, outside his family in foreign lands, in the home of a smith (see pp. 122–4). In line with this state of ‘being-outside-society’, Indra’s functions have little connection with the (peacetime) lives of the people within society. Indra’s battle deeds are very frequently of ‘cosmic’ dimensions: he splits the rock; he releases the waters, controls and leads them; he steadies the vacillating earth; he brings the ³⁸ Thus Indra is ‘brother in arms’ to Varuna : (RV 7.34.24), who himself never fights (in RV 7.82.6, the reference is not to Indra and Varuna—as claimed by G, among others—but rather to Indra : and Mitra). ³⁹ Elsewhere, too, Indra and Varuna : are placed in opposition to one another: ‘May we be spared the rancour of Varuna; : may Indra provide us broad freedom’ (RV 7.84.2), ‘Not like the divine [ones] [through battle] do you [, o Ādityas] bring [the tribes] to lasting peace [, but] through your greatness’ (RV 6.67.10). This is often expressed (RV 6.68.3, 7.82.2, 83.9, 85.3)—as in the stanza presented previously—with the correlation anyáh: . . . anyáh: ‘the one . . . the other’, although the complementarity between them is simultaneously emphasized. ⁴⁰ The fundamental dichotomy of Indra and Varuna : (with all the other Ādityas) ‘is also reflected in the difference between what is requested of each: Indra, to fight for his worshippers, to grant them victory and plunder; and Varuna : . . . to forgive their failings, to have pity on them’ (O, Religion, 181 fn. 1). ⁴¹ Compare RV 1.103.5: ‘See this, his success, [and] believe in Indra’s heroic strength’. ⁴² Indra’s birth is also a mystery (RV 10.73.10) [378].

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wavering mountains to rest (RV 2.12.2), he pries apart the heavens from the earth; he holds up the sky that it does not fall down (cf. RV 6.30.3–5). The same dimensions characterise his kingship as well: as king he slays the serpent V:rtra; as king he breaks open the rock and creates space for the sun; through battle, King Indra creates the world in a kind of ‘raw state’. His ‘society-related’ functions are directed first and foremost outwardly: aid in battle, leadership in raids, and protection of [103] society from external threats. Indra is indeed the god of war and appears, or becomes important, only when it comes to battle. When his time comes, however, he alone is responsible, he is the one absolute sovereign. That is why it is Indra, and only Indra, who is the one and only king/lord over the tribes.

5.3.2.2 The Āditya religion Varuna : is vastly different from Indra in many respects. He seems to have always existed. He ‘dwells’ in a particular location: in the waters; in a house with a thousand doors; in a celestial palace. He constantly looks out over the mortals, who in turn see him in the sun.⁴³ Thus, in a way, he is always visibly nearby. This is why his existence is not questioned. Varuna’s : functions, too, are in some degree ‘cosmic’. But they only begin where Indra’s activity leaves off: Varuna : gives Indra’s ‘raw’ world a fixed order. He sets the dawns and the sun in their places; creates the paths that the sun follows; measures the earth; makes the waters flow; digs a channel for the Indus, and sets the night sky in motion. Obeying his ʻvowʼ, the moon and stars rise and set and the dawns appear every day. Most of his functions, however, are directly related to the orderly, peaceful life of mortals in their society: he watches over truth (see pp. 51–3), oaths, ordeals, vows, and obligations;⁴⁴ he observes the actions of mortals; he punishes transgressions; he shackles the liar.⁴⁵ ‘Holding the peoples’ is frequently named as a characteristic activity of Varuna’s: ‘The one : holds fast the boundary so that they do not rush forward, the other smashes unconquerable obstacles’ (RV 7.85.3). Characteristic of Varuna—and thus of his : kingship—is on the one hand that he is most closely connected with the concept of vratá, the ‘vow/commandment’, and is the highest judge, and on the other hand that he brings order to an orderless world. [104] This does not apply solely to Varuna, : however, but to all Ādityas: to that group of gods whose main function is the actualisation of certain social concepts of an ethical nature, and above all to Mitra and Aryaman, the gods of contracts and hospitality, respectively. Their actions are clearly related to the settled society: ⁴³ Compare RV 1.115.1, 6.51.1, 7.63.1, 88.2. ⁴⁴ Thus it is said to the bride as she leaves her parents’ home: ‘I release you from the snare of Varuna’ : (RV 10.85.24). ⁴⁵ Probably for this reason, he is—alongside Mitra (RV 3.59.4)—the only god called ‘King of Good (= righteous) Rule’ (RV 7.64.1, 89.1). Indra is also said to be ‘of good rule’, but without the epithet ‘king’ (RV 5.32.5, 38.1).

     ̣   

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Mitra’s function, his intervention, is what makes ks: éma, ‘society’, possible and sustainable; Aryaman indeed can function only in an ordered society. The same applies to Bhaga, who governs the ‘distribution’:⁴⁶ the distribution of looted goods marks the end of the yóga; and marriage, which Bhaga also watches over, leads to the ks: éma of the woman. Hence the Ādityas are the ones who have dominion over the ‘settlement’ (dhruváks: ema, RV 4.13.3, 5.72.2); who ‘allow the people to take positions’ (yātayájjana),⁴⁷ in marked contrast to Indra, who is ‘the one who sets the people all in motion’ (RV 7.19.1). The Ādityas are indeed called the ‘givers of good dwelling’ (RV 6.51.4)—they are the guarantors of the cosmic and societal order of the settlement, of ‘inside’. The Rgveda expresses this attribute very aptly in its : frequent assertions that the Ādityas Mitra and Varuna : ‘settled themselves (in dominion/on a throne /in a dwelling)’.⁴⁸ And RV 5.67.2 establishes a relationship between the ‘settling’ of Mitra and Varuna : and the living arrangements of mortals in fixed dwellings: ‘When you, Mitra and Varuna, : seat yourselves in the golden fold, you will hold the peoples’. The religion centred around the Ādityas thus seems to have been the religion of the ks: éma, the settlement. Life in this phase of Vedic society is regulated by various kinds of obligations (vratá):⁴⁹ ‘By your commandment[s] you give fixed settlement, through [your] order you cause the tribes to settle’ (RV 5.72.2). The Ādityas monitor observance of these societal rules; that is to say, they are gods who, ‘as [105] the chiefs of their lands, not to be deceived . . . , guard the vows . . .’ (RV 8.67.13).⁵⁰ Hence their true and just rulership leads to rainfall, and causes the society and the entire cosmos to thrive. In contrast to the Āditya religion, Indra’s is a religion of the ‘unruly’ and ‘lawless’ outside, the phase between the collapse of the old cosmos (yóga) and the creation of a new (ks: éma). The focal point of this religion in both cult and ritual is in battle; that is the subject of prayers addressed to Indra, and the context in which this god reveals himself to mortals, as victory is his epiphany. That fact that the Āditya religion is so clearly set apart within the Rgvedic : religion as a quasi-independent religious complex or subsystem is likely due in part to historical developments. After all, this religion is a heritage from IndoIranian times, having its counterpart in the religion of Zarathustra. And the basic tenets of both religions are probably inherited as well: the world order set up by Ahura Mazdā and the Amәs: ǎ Spәntas : in the one religion, and by Varuna : and gods ⁴⁶ At least, this is what we can conclude from what little the Rgveda has to say on the topic. : ⁴⁷ The Ādityas also protect those paths that exist only in an ‘ordered’ society (cf. T 1938: 117–19 [= Opera maiora I,123–5]). ⁴⁸ Compare, for example, RV 1.25.10; 2.41.5; 5.67.2, 68.5; 8.25.8, 29.9, 42.1, and 10.63.5. ⁴⁹ In the Rgveda, the word vratá is used primarily in connection with the Ādityas. : ⁵⁰ To this end, the ‘shepherds of the world’ (RV 2.27.4, 5.62.9, 7.51.2) are served by spies who report violations to them—they ‘who [are capable of] distinguish[ing] Good and Evil’ (RV 2.27.3; see p. 35 fn. 13).

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allied with him in the other, which lifted the world out of the primordial chaos, can be supported and maintained only in a society that itself is also ordered. This order is provided primarily by secured structures of power and dominion, which in turn are maintained by observing and obeying the commandments handed down by the aforementioned gods. Obedience is maintained by the ruler, who thus has a particularly close relationship with Ahura Mazdā or Varuna, : respectively. Thus the close connection of the Āditya religion to power and dominion, too, appears to have been inherited from much earlier. The Indra religion, on the other hand, seems to have been a new creation of the Indo-Aryan tribes, the origin of which is found—it may be presumed—in its principal points in the requirements of the migration (to India) of the Vedic tribes.

5.4 Friendships and enmities among the gods With the exception of a certain prominence of Indra and Varuna, : the Rgvedic : pantheon exhibits no pronounced hierarchical ranking of gods. The notion of one god king, surrounded by and ruling over under-kings and subjects, is foreign to it. Such a belief is also not to be expected, bound as it is with a consolidated, centralised rulership. Essentially all gods in the Rgvedic pantheon are pari passu : with one another. Nor are they prone to arguments and disputes amongst themselves, leaving aside Indra’s altercations (see pp. 177–9). The immortals live together in peace and harmony, each in friendship with the others: ‘All gods, of one thought, of one will, stroll to a decision on the right path’ (RV 6.9.5). A few of the gods are related to one another, first and foremost the members of the old family of gods (see pp. 34–5), while others are closely bound to each other by virtue of being paired. Such pairing of deities is prominent in both the poetry and rituals. The connection of Indra with another god—Agni, the Aśvins, Pūs: an, B:rhaspati, the Maruts, Varuna, : Vāyu, Vis: nu, : and Soma—is particularly frequent, as is that of Mitra with Varuna. : Only a single hymn, however, is dedicated to a pairing that later attained significance: Agni and Soma, the sacrificial fire, and the noblest offering in the Rgvedic cult (see pp. 218–21 and 230). : The benevolence of the gods towards one another is matched—for the most part—by their goodwill towards mortals. This is not without a certain arbitrariness and caprice, however (RV 6.47.15–17), and it is almost always tied to proper worship being offered by mortals. Calling the gods ‘committed to truth’, ‘not deceitful’, or ‘fair-minded’ is a measure of this reciprocity. Those who do not honour them may fall out of favour, and even have harm inflicted upon them. And against an enemy they will meet perfidy with greater perfidy, deceit with worse deceit. The latter applies to Varuna : and the Ādityas as well: practicing deceits against an enemy was, in Vedic India, by no means opprobrious. And when the gods become angry with good and pious mortals, or harm them through

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trickery—the latter applies chiefly to Varuna—the one persecuted knows it is his : own fault that he is being punished. This ill-treatment falls to the gods because they are the guardians of justice and must punish transgressions against it—not on the basis of a certain ethos, but because such are the specific tasks with which they have been entrusted. Nonetheless, Varuna : may be stirred by pleas from the sinner: ‘What was the sin so great, o Varuna, that you would kill your singer, your friend? : This tell me, unerring one, freeman! Through my devotions I would speedily propitiate you’ (RV 7.86.4). The only one among the gods who tends towards a truly malicious nature is Rudra, in whom harmful rather than salubrious characteristics are clearly predominant (see pp. 132–3). Otherwise, the role of evil falls almost entirely to a host of spirits and demons who are set well apart from the gods (see pp. 81–2). Often monstrously deformed and manifesting as animals (RV 7.104.18) or plants,⁵¹ they work their mischief at night and in places of bad repute—particularly at ‘crossroads’.⁵² They inflict disease, suck blood, confuse the spirit, prey upon women and harm the fruit of their wombs, and drink milk from the udders of the cows (RV 10.87.16–17). In spite of the dangers of their evil deeds, the mortal still believes himself a match for them and tries to fight them without the aid of the gods (see p. 197). These evil spirits are usually called by their generic name in the Rgveda. The most universal appears to be Raks: as, who overlaps to a large degree : with Yātu. These creatures stalk mortals and do them harm, sometimes for themselves and sometimes on behalf of other mortals who have [108]—apparently for this purpose—honoured them with sacrifice (RV 5.42.10). These sorcerers, warlocks, and mages who ‘use the Raks: as’ and ‘carry the evil spirit within them’ have the evil spirits get inside mortals whose bodies and lives they wish to injure: ‘Do not let the Raks: as get into us, [o Agni] . . . , nor the Yātu of the Yātu senders’ (RV 8.60.20). Once the evil spirits are inside a person, they provoke illness⁵³ and inflict a slow, horrible death. Just as fearsome and dangerous are the ‘flesh eaters’ (RV 7.104.2, 10.87.2/19, 162.2), who are later—as far as can be discerned— commonly referred to as Piśācas.⁵⁴ All of these demons appear preferentially at night, which is why Us: as, too, is called upon to ‘smoulder away the Kimīdin pair’. Like many monsters, the Kimīdin appear in pairs and, in post-Rgvedic times, were : given names that indicated that they belonged to one another. Part of what makes these beings so frightening is their ability to destroy the means of worship, which ⁵¹ When Agni and Indra are invoked to destroy the evil spirits ‘complete with root’ (RV 3.30.17, ́ 10.87.19), this does in fact refer to the root of a plant, because the name mūradeva, ‘they whose god is the root’, is frequently applied to harmful beings (RV 7.104.24, 10.87.2, 14). ⁵² That is also where Rudra lives (see O, Religion, 270 fn. 2). ⁵³ Kāt:haka X 5: 129.14–15 says: ‘The evil spirits (raks: as) follow him who is sick’. ́ is attested only once, in a passage ⁵⁴ In the Rgveda this name (in the slightly different form Piśāci) : (RV 1.133.5) containing only a plea to Indra that he ‘crush’ the fiend who is named here alongside the ráks: as. Apart from that we hear of an evil creature with the name Jarūtha (RV 7.1.7, 9.6, 10.80.3) and of a female demon of illness called Grāhi (RV 10.161.1).

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would jeopardise the ability to enlist the aid of the gods so essential in defending against these very demons (RV 7.104.18, 21).

5.5 The physicality of the gods The Rgvedic religion conceptualises the actions of multiple personal gods, which : indeed is a characteristic feature of polytheism. Their actions are presented as related to one another and directed at the ‘world’, affecting mortals, and— probably in part for that reason—are envisaged as analogous to the activity of mortals. A great many of the gods, furthermore, are in human form—or at least a form similar to that of humans. While prominent on the whole, this anthropomorphism does not extend to the domain gods, at least with regard to the conception of human form (see pp. 74–5). Nonetheless, there is a clear endeavour to distinguish between the physicality of gods, including anthropomorphically conceived deities, [109] and that of mortals. In the Indo-European realm, the earliest such distinction is tangible in the notion that the gods have a special language:⁵⁵ ὄρνιθι λιγυρῇ ἐναλίγκιος ἥν τ’ ἐν ὄρεσσι, χαλκίδα κικλήσκουσι θεοί ἄνδρες δὲ κύμινδιν, “Like a shrill-voiced bird of the mountains called Chalcis by the gods, but hawk by mortals”, Homer, Iliad XIV 290–291. qui gentis omnis mariaque et terras mouet, eiius sum ciuis ciuitate caelitum, ita sum ut uidetis splendens stella candida, signum quod semper tempore exoritur suo, hic atque in caelo nomen Arcturo est mihi, noctu sum in caelo clarus atque inter deos, inter mortalis ambulo interdius, et alia signa de caelo ad terram accidunt, “. . . here and in heaven Arctur is my name . . .”, Plautus, Rudens, Antelogium 1–15 (see pp. 34 and 35 fn. 13); ́ ́ : am átha k:r:sn: ājinám ādatte śármāsī́ tí cárma vā ́ etát kŕ̥:sn: asya, tád asya tán mānus :, śárma devatrā,́ “Now he seizes the hide of a black antelope [with the words] ‘You are śárman’. This is in fact the skin of a black antelope. That is its name among mortals, while the gods called it śárman”, Śatapatha-Brāhmana : I 1,4.4 (similar to III 2,1.8); háyo bhutvā ́ devāń avahad vājī ́ gandharvāń árvā ásurān áśvo manus: yāń “[The horse] as háya carried the gods, as vājín the Gandharvas, as árvan the Asuras [and] as áśva the mortals”. (Śatapatha-Brāhmana : X 4,6.1)

⁵⁵ What is ultimately another instance of this is the way good and evil are differentiated, seen even in old parts of the Avesta and also perceptible in its vocabulary, as there are often both ahurish and daēuuish designations for one and the same denotatum (see p. 48 fn. 7).

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This endeavour is also seen in beliefs about the birth of the gods. Many of them conceive and bear young,⁵⁶ are born, grow up, age, and die, but [110] all of this takes place in ways very different from those of mortals (see p. 121). The later Indian tradition added further distinctive features of gods: they do not blink their eyes;⁵⁷ they do not stand on the ground but instead hover just above the earth’s surface; and their garlands do not wilt. Beauty as an attribute of deities is no more a matter of course here than in Rgvedic times, in contrast to Greek : notions. In the great warrior Indra, for example, his looks are almost entirely overshadowed by his prodigious physical strength. Varuna : was envisaged, at least according to younger Vedic texts, as downright ugly and misshapen. The graceful, even eroticising beauty of Us: as and the Aśvins, on the other hand, is frequently highlighted,⁵⁸ which is something they have in common with their Indo-European counterparts. Envisioning them in human form appears to be the favoured conception of gods. Nonetheless, theriomorphic conceptions—gods in the form of animals—are also widespread. These are known in the Rgvedic religion as well,⁵⁹ if not in great : numbers. The only godheads in the pantheon who are thought of exclusively in animal form are Aja Ekapad, Ahi Budhnya, and—perhaps, with some reservations— Dadhikrā(van).⁶⁰ With the exception of RV 10.65.13, where he appears in a list of entities of the midspace directly before the ‘bearer of the sky’ (divó dhartā),́ Aja Ekapad is always invoked together with Ahi Budhnya (see following), and always in stanzas of songs to the Viśve Devāh: , which name gods who embody domains of the world (RV 2.31.6, 6.50.14, 7.35.13, 10.64.4, 66.11). This ‘one-legged goat’ seems to be envisaged as a kind of pillar that supports the sun,⁶¹ holding it up in the sky, and resting in turn on Ahi Budhnya, the ‘serpent from the depths’.⁶² The ‘one-leggedness’ of the goat—three legs are placed directly next to the fourth—likely underscores its motionlessness, the fact that it remains in one place—that is, on Ahi Budhnya.⁶³ The latter, who ‘sits at the bottom of the rivers, in the spaces’ [111] (RV 7.34.16), is ⁵⁶ Because gods are a significant part of the world (see p. 76), their [379] reproduction in a biomorphic schema simultaneously indicates a framing of the world. So for example the ‘new-born’ god Indra claims his own domain for himself. ⁵⁷ In the Rgveda, unblinking eyes are specifically attributes of Varuna : : and the other Ādityas (see O, Noten on 2.38.8), which is why it is also said that ‘they have no need of sleep’ (RV 2.27.9, cf. 8.2.18, 10.63.4). ⁵⁸ And occasionally that of Rudra, and sometimes of the Maruts as well. ⁵⁹ Here too, the theriomorphic deities seem to be a feature less of the cult than of the myth. ⁶⁰ On Aditi, Idā, : and P:rśni, the mother of the Maruts, see pp. 147–8, 149–150 and 128 (resp.). ⁶¹ The sun makes its way during the day beneath the dome of the heavens that is formed by the celestial waters. ⁶² W, How to Kill a Dragon, New York—Oxford 1995, 460–3, attempts to show that it is related to Python, the ‘dragon’ slain by Apollo. ⁶³ The paradox in RV 10.117.8, too, likely refers to the ‘immobility’ of the one-legged creature. The idea that this is the sun (as claimed by G) can only be based on Taittirīya-Brāhmana : III 1,2.9–10, which however refers merely to ‘rising in the east’.

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often referred to in the Rgveda without Aja Ekapad, and then usually in the : company of water deities (RV 1.186.5, 4.55.6, 6.49.17, cf. 7.35.13, 10.66.11). The little that the Rgveda tells of these two gods indicates that they are considered : important for the continued existence of the world. Dadhikrā(van), to whom the songs of RV 4.38–40 and 7.44 are addressed,⁶⁴ is the divine archetype of the horse,⁶⁵ bestowed upon Trasadasyu, the king of the Pūru, by Mitra and Varuna : (RV 4.38.1). Rushing in swift as a falcon and overtaking the chariots like the wind (RV 4.38.3), he traverses in all directions, unimpeded, the lands ruled by Trasadasyu (RV 4.38.8–10), before being sacrificed in the Aśvamedha (see pp. 242–4): ‘He who praises the horse Dadhikrāvan,⁶⁶ when the fire is ignited, when the dawn lights the sky, him shall Aditi make free of blame⁶⁷— [Dadhikrāvan] in company with Mitra and Varuna’ : (RV 4.39.5).⁶⁸ His birth out of the sun⁶⁹ has given him—like other celestial horses—sun-like traits. He appears at sunrise, together with the morning deities, Agni, the Aśvins, and Us: as, with whom he is invoked (RV 7.44.1, 3–4, 10.101.1), and traces his shining path across the sky, following the dawn (cf. RV 7.77.3): ‘The dawns bow to the sacrificial rite as Dadhikrāvan to the bright track [of the sun]’ (RV 7.41.6).⁷⁰ Thus it can even be said of him that he ‘creates the sun’ (RV 4.40.2).⁷¹ Questions of whether and in what manner these theriomorphic gods are worshipped must remain open. There are a few texts in the Rgveda (7.38.7–8, : 40.6, 10.64.6, 74.1) that bear witness to the fact that horses were worshipped like gods. They also seem to have taken part in sacrifices, as Indra’s dun horse was given the marc remaining from the Soma sacrifice (see RV 1.28.7, 101.10, 3.43.6, 10.94.9, Khila VII 4.27)—just as in the conventional Śrauta ritual (see p. 236 fn. 218). And elsewhere too, there is occasional mention of a Soma drink for horses (cf. RV 7.38.8).⁷² It is a related but separate matter when gods are said to have the ability to change their form [112] and take on that of an animal. Such metamorphoses— ⁶⁴ The Rgveda has another song, RV 10.178, that is addressed to a holy horse, Tārks: ya by name. On : Etaśa, see p. 178 fn. 91–92. ⁶⁵ Another ‘divine’ horse is the ‘white, serpent-slaying’ horse called Paidva, given by the Aśvins to Pedu, who ‘had bad horses’ (RV 1.116.6, 117.9, 118.9, 119.10, 7.71.5, 9.88.4, 10.39.10, RV-Khila I 2,2). Apparently Pedu was in distress when the twin gods came to his aid, and this distress may have had something to do with snakes, unless the ‘serpent-crushing’ aspect was simply carried over from Indra, used here to mean ‘victorious (like Indra)’. ⁶⁶ In light of what follows, this may well be a euphemism for ‘sacrifices’ (see p. 241). If this is the case, it may be compared with RV 4.42.8: ‘ . . . when [the horse] Daurgaha was bound [for sacrifice]’. ⁶⁷ Also in RV 1.162.22, Aditi is mentioned in the context of the horse sacrifice. For more on this goddess, see pp. 147–8. ⁶⁸ See O, Religion, 69. ⁶⁹ According to RV 1.163.2, ‘the gods have carved the [sacrificial] horse out of the [380] sun’. In VS XI 12, too, it says of the horse: ‘In heaven is your highest birth’. ⁷⁰ See Krick, Das Ritual der Feuergründung, Vienna 1982, 359 with fn. 973. ⁷¹ The sun is also envisioned as a horse, and sometimes called ‘horse’: ‘Driving the eye of the gods, bringing the white horse so beautiful to look upon, Us: as . . . has appeared’ (RV 7.77.3). Part II, Vienna 1999, 240. ⁷² See O, Die Religion des Rgveda, :

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often dealt with from an evolutionist point of view—is a special power of the gods. In the Rgveda this applies primarily to Indra, whose ability to change form— : chiefly into that of an animal—appears to be inherited (see p. 54). A litany reciting his metamorphoses was used very early on—perhaps already in the Rgvedic : era⁷³—in the ritual to summon him to partake of Soma (see p. 227 fn. 162). In this ritual he is invoked as ‘possessor of dun horses, ram of Medhātithi, concubine of V:rs: anaśva, . . .⁷⁴ paramour of Ahalyā, Brahman of the Kauśika lineage, who call : thyself Gautama’ (Śatapatha-Brāhmana II : III 3,4.18–20, cf. Maitrāyanī : Samhitā : 5,5, 54,7).⁷⁵ Of the metamorphoses listed in this Subrahman: yā formula,⁷⁶ the Rgveda already includes the changes into a ram—‘Lord of the (pressing) stone! : The Kānva : Medhyātithi . . . [you have blessed], when you, changed to a ram, did guide him [into heaven]’ (RV 8.2.40)⁷⁷—and into the ‘concubine of V:rs: anaśva’⁷⁸ : (RV 1.51.13).⁷⁹ In addition, the Rgveda speaks of his metamorphoses into an ant : (RV 1.51.9, 10.99.5) and a bull (RV 1.51.5, 10.99.11).⁸⁰ Another clearly separate case is when gods are metonymically designated using the names of animals.⁸¹ Indra and Parjanya are often referred to as ‘bull’, and Agni is frequently called ‘bull’, ‘horse’, and ‘bird’. Occasionally the gods are called by these names in the rituals dedicated to them, which shows the close connection they have with these animals.⁸² Also relevant in this context are the close and characteristic connections between gods and specific animals.⁸³ To some extent this seems to be a version of the ‘hero’s (animal) helper’ fairy-tale motif. The most prominent example is that of Indra and the falcon who brings him the Soma (see pp. 159–60).⁸⁴ The dog Saramā, the mother of Yama’s dogs, who tracks down the cows hidden in the Vala ⁷³ When it says in RV 1.51.13, regarding the allusion to his changing into V:rs: anaśva’s concubine, : ‘All these thy [deeds] are to be proclaimed at the Soma pressing’, it can be assumed that this or a similar formula was used in the Soma ritual as early as Rgvedic times. According to H, Vedische : Mythologie, II, 189 fn. 1, ‘there is an allusion to a different form of the Subrahmanyā : RV. : VIII,17,12’. This assertion, however, remains unsubstantiated. ⁷⁴ The ambiguous gáurāvaskandín—paraphrased in the Jaiminīya Brāhmana : as gauro bhūtvārn: avam avacaskanda (II 79: 191.8)—remains untranslated. ⁷⁵ On the context of the metamorphoses (see O, Religion, 166) referred to here, see p. 227 with fn. 162. ⁷⁶ C, Kleine Beiträge zur indoiranischen Mythologie, Uppsala 1911, 68, compares this to the Bahirām Yašt (Yt. 14) and surmises that the two are related. ⁷⁷ Compare RV 1.51.1 and 1.52.1. Note that RV 1.51 alludes to a total of four metamorphoses by Indra and that stanza 13 mentions ‘a proclamation during [Soma] pressings’, apparently proclaiming, however, the deeds he performed while in those forms (see note fn. 73 above). ⁷⁸ Because V:rs: anaśva is, as his name indicates, half bull, half stallion, the allusions to the ‘concubine : of the horse’ (RV 1.121.2) and the ‘concubine of the cow’ (RV 10.111.3) can surely be counted among the types of beliefs discussed here. ⁷⁹ In RV 1.10.11 he is called ‘Kauśika’. ⁸⁰ Note that the bull is also one of Vәrәθaγna’s forms (see Yt. 14.7). See p. 54. ⁸¹ See O, Religion, 74–5. ⁸² See O, Religion, 74–9. ⁸³ On ominous animals, see pp. 272–3. ⁸⁴ In the earlier Indo-Iranian myth of the stealing of the *Sáu̯ma, however, it was likely the god who changed into a falcon [381] in order to fetch the libation from the sky himself (see p. 62 fn. 84 and p. 161 fn. 20).

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(see p. 169) is another such animal, alongside [113] Yama’s dogs themselves. This widespread motif likely also accounts for the bond between Pūs: an, god of the pathways, and his billy goats (RV 1.138.4, 6.55.3–4/6, 57.3, 58.2) (but see p. 40 n. 39). The Aśvins and the bees, on the other hand, appear to have a close bond primarily due to the time they spent together in the wilderness (see p. 104).

5.6 The gods of the Rgvedic pantheon : According to the Sarvānukramanī, are dedicated : most of the hymns in the Rgveda : to Indra, Agni, Soma, the Aśvins, the Viśve Devāh, the Maruts, Mitra and Varuna, : : Savit:r, Us: as, B:rhaspati, and the Rbhus, listed here in descending order of inci: dence. In the following, however, the major gods are presented for the most part in alphabetical order by name, with the exception of gods that belong to groups in the Rgveda, as for example the Ādityas. These descriptions are followed by those : of the lesser gods and then of the goddesses, with the latter grouped according to their functions.

5.6.1 Agni There is no god with whom the Vedic tribesman has a closer relationship than Agni; with none other is he on such intimate terms. His connection to the god of fire endures from the moment of his birth to that of his death and even beyond (see p. 95). And always he stands under Agni’s protection⁸⁵—‘My protection is Agni’ (RV 1.148.2)—which is sought by all: ‘Into your protection we have given ourselves, o Agni’ (RV 6.16.38); ‘under whose protection all tribes have placed themselves . . .’ (RV 7.6.6). Although a ‘guest of man’ (RV 1.127.8), the fire god is a constant dweller in the home, a ‘houselord who never leaves [his house]’, as he is called in RV 8.60.19. Living under one roof with those in his care, [114] he shares their worries and woes, their happiness, and their joys. And so he is invoked again and again for aid and succour and petitioned for his favour. When he grants the latter, all manner of gifts are bestowed upon those in his care: light and heat; abundance for the household and all who dwell in it; children and livestock; good health and long life.⁸⁶ While Agni is as a rule benevolent and well-disposed towards mortals, the god of fire can also exert destructive force⁸⁷ and not only ⁸⁵ Of course one must petition for this protection. Agni is frequently beseeched to ‘grant . . . great protection’ (RV 7.5.9) and ‘allow [nobody] to be harmed’ (RV 1.94.1–14). ⁸⁶ In post-Rgvedic times, too, health and long life for mortals are closely tied with his ritual fires (see : F, How his Śrauta-fires save the life of an Āhitāgni, JAOS 122 [2002] 248–51). ⁸⁷ RV 1.94.10–11 vividly describes this force, which must also be feared by ‘the mortal who is in friendship with him’.

     ̣   

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be an enemy to man (see p. 274), but also visit calamity, sickness, and even the death upon him.⁸⁸ That which brings comfort and safety to a man brings opposition and destruction to anyone or anything that threatens him with danger and ruination. The characteristic traits of fire are what Agni uses to provide protection for mortals. With its embers and its flames—often represented in the text as teeth and weapons—he holds off what is threatening, burns away what is dangerous, and scorches the harmful to ashes: ‘With the broad [front] side flaming, push the enemies away, the aggrievers, the illnesses! I wish to be in the protection of the . . . well-protecting’ (RV 3.15.1); ‘Rise, Agni, draw [your bow]. Burn the enemies down, you who have sharp missiles. He who prepares for us enmity, you flaming one, him you burn down like dry undergrowth’ (RV 4.4.4). As we see, this very close relationship between god and man is founded on the form and manner in which Agni most often manifests on earth. After all, it is men who give birth to him, the ‘son of strength’, by churning the wood in their hands (see p. 218):⁸⁹ ‘With their [formulated] thoughts the mortals created Agni in the wood with the motion of the hands, him who we praise’ (RV 7.1.1). Once the ‘one belonging to the home’ (RV 1.73.4) has been ‘begotten by mortals’ (RV 3.29.13, 4.6.8), he must be tended ‘like a pet’. At all times, even through the night, he who ‘devours everything’ (RV 10.16.6) must be given firewood for his sustenance (see pp. 218–19), [115] from which he grows and thrives.⁹⁰ It is he, appointed Hot:r by the gods, who carries to the gods the sacrifices entrusted to him by men on his flames that flare upward to heaven, which he—as it says in RV 2.37.6—‘makes them drink’: ‘[Agni] . . . the gods have made you the one to bear the sacrificial offering [to them]’ (RV 3.17.4), ‘Once he is born, Agni is alight . . . he whom the gods have installed as bearer of the oblations during the sacrificial rites . . .’ (RV 3.29.7). Alongside this belief is the notion that Agni conveys the gods to the sacrifice: ‘It is [Agni] who will convey the gods hither’ (RV 1.1.2).⁹¹ Both ideas reflect a two-way arrangement of the sacrifice system (see pp. 221–2) with Agni as a ‘courier’ who travels between gods and mortals: ‘As messenger [Agni] . . . makes his way between the two worlds. . . . The chariot driver makes his way between [gods and mortals] . . . .’ (RV 3.2.2, 6). In doing so, this highest of all priests performs services for both sides. He, before all other gods, is the one who creates ⁸⁸ This Agni, a dangerous and feared metamorphosis of the Jātavedas fire, Agni Kravyād by name, is thoroughly ‘extinguished’ at the end of the ritual burning of the deceased, because he caused the death of the one burned (see p. 259 with fn. 364). The question of whether Agni Kravyavāhana (RV 10.16.11) is another name for this form of the Jātavedas or in fact denotes a ‘cultic fire serving to honour the ́ Zeitschrift für ancestors’ that is ignited as part of the funereal rituals, as claimed by G, Agní Kravyād, vergleichende Sprachforschung 89 (1976) 215, requires further investigation. ⁸⁹ By contrast, the notion that the god Agni must first enter the fire that man creates by descending from his celestial home appears to be the younger idea (see p. 98). ⁹⁰ Like other gods (see p. 69 fn. 121), Agni grows larger when his praises are sung (see RV 1.36.11, 5.11.5, 6.3.8, 8.44.2). ⁹¹ The departure of the gods is mentioned only very seldom (see p. 198 fn. 9).

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the connection between mortals and gods, establishing the contact between them⁹² that became necessary for mortals when divine immortality was given up by their forefathers (see p. 186): ‘Find for us favour among the gods’ (RV 1.36.4), ‘Between the two races [human and divine] you make your way, o Agni . . . as messenger’ (RV 2.6.7).⁹³ And thus the close relationship between man and Agni is based on a heritage that has been passed on from one generation to the next in the same manner since time immemorial. The fire that the son lights is the same— regardless of the de facto difference—as that which was lit by his father before him:⁹⁴ ‘This [fire] here is installed as the first Hot:r by those who [have to] install it, as the best sacrificing, as him who is to be invoked in the sacrificial rites, him who Apnavāna and the Bh:rgus have [already] made to glow, shining in the timbers, omnipresent in every settlement’ (RV 4.7.1). This is why Agni, who had also been the god of the sacrificer’s ancestors, [116] is invoked with the naming of their names.⁹⁵ Because it was, according to one tradition, the Aṅgiras who ‘devised the first order of the sacrifice’ (RV 10.67.2), Agni is considered to be the first of the Aṅgiras (RV 1.31.1, 75.2, 8.43.27), the semi-divine forbears of the later priest class (see pp. 189–90). Agni also performs his function as intermediary in matters of upholding right and punishing wrong.⁹⁶ He who sees with his own ‘eyes’ everything that people do, every day and every night; the ‘keeper of the statutes’ (RV 8.43.24), reports to the gods, primarily Varuna, : the transgressions committed by man:⁹⁷ ‘How will you complain to Varuna, : o Agni, how to Heaven, of our offense? How will you speak to merciful Mitra, to Earth? What to Aryaman, what to Bhaga?’ (RV 4.3.5). Nonetheless he intercedes with those same gods on behalf of the man who has done wrong and seeks to ‘appease their anger’ (RV 4.1.4).⁹⁸ And so the people plead with him, the friend, to reveal guilt and innocence and, most of all, to

⁹² From YH 36.1—‘With the community of this fire here we approach you, o Lord Wisdom’—it seems likely that already the Indo-Iranian god of fire had the role of intermediary between gods and men. ⁹³ Men hold Agni in the highest esteem, as seen—to mention but one example—in the fact that all Family Books in the Rgveda, as well as the first and tenth books, open with a series dedicated to Agni; in : other [382] words, songs to the god of fire are placed at the beginning. This means that the eighth is the only Man: dala : (aside from the ninth, which contains exclusively Soma hymns) that does not follow this pattern (see also p. 23). ⁹⁴ This is reminiscent of the ‘new’ song that was composed in the same style as the old ones (see p. 32). ⁹⁵ This ‘tradition seems in some places in the Rgveda if not to exist, at least to be in preparation’ : (O, Religion, 131). ⁹⁶ See O, Religion, 304–5. ⁹⁷ ‘The eye of truth’ (RV 10.8.5) belongs thus to Varuna’s : scouts (see p. 85 fn. 50). On the other hand, Agni also has such scouts (RV 4.4.3). ⁹⁸ His role and his close relationship with truth, together with his physical attribute of ‘burning’, also made Agni one of the gods who assisted in carrying out ordeals. The few certain examples from Vedic literature (especially Pañcavimśa-Brāhma na : : XIV 6.6) together with those of the later legal texts, in combination with Yt. 12.3, make it appear likely that trials by fire were practiced already in IndoIranian times (on the beliefs regarding the ordeal by fire at the end of time in the Gāθās, see p. 48 fn. 10).

     ̣   

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‘unloose the fetters of guilt’ (RV 5.2.7) and ‘make [us] free of guilt before Aditi’ (RV 4.12.4). In addition to very specific information on how Agni is used as the sacrificial fire (or fires) in various rituals and the names and epithets given to him in this context (see pp. 218–21), the hymns mention again and again his activity as the divine priest to whom all functions (see p. 209) fall, including e.g. those of the Adhvaryu, the Pot:r, the Praśāstr: , or of the Agnīdh (RV 2.1.2 = 10.91.10). Most notably celebrated, however, is his role as Hot:r: the priest who has the task of reciting the hymns that praise the gods and invite them to the sacrifice (see p. 209). In the crackling and popping sound of Agni devouring both firewood and offerings, one hears the ‘beautiful words’ of this ‘heavenly Hot:r’ (RV 3.7.9–10). And these inspired the poets to their own hymns of praise. He, who is of ‘strong resolve’ (RV 1.144.7) and himself the ‘greatest of poets’ (RV 3.14.1), the wise [117] visionary, ‘awakens the thoughts’ (RV 7.10.1) and ‘reminds’ men during every sacrifice ‘of the brilliant speech’ (RV 2.9.4). For the ‘formulations’ thus created ‘he seeks a path’ to reach the gods (RV 7.13.3). In this process Agni, the ‘closest friendship of the poet’ (RV 7.15.1), lets the poetic speech emerge from the heart, where he abides:⁹⁹ ‘He who is born many times speaks from our hearts’ (RV 10.5.1).¹⁰⁰ Yet in the cult of the Vedic tribes, fire had not only a ritual (in the strict sense), an apotropaic, and a mantic role, but also, in conjunction with funeral rites, an eschatological dimension as well. Purified by the blaze of the crematory fire and freed of earthly imperfection, the dead person was transported by this fire to the heavenly realm, where he was able live on in beatitude because he was fed on that which his living family members sacrificed (see p. 287). While it was the fire of Jātavedas in which the dead man was ‘cooked through and delivered to the ancestors’ (RV 10.16.2),¹⁰¹ the Vaiśvānara fire (ultimately) served his ‘satiation’ in the celestial afterworld (see pp. 219–20). The intimacy he shares with mortals, for whom he performs his ‘services’, places Agni in a certain contrast to the other gods,¹⁰² to whom he is not fully coequal, in spite of all the importance he enjoys. This inequality may also be due in part to the services he performs for the other gods, the most important of which have been mentioned previously: he is the Hot:r and messenger of the gods; he conveys the gods to the mortals’ sacrifice and bears the oblations from mortals to

⁹⁹ When the one who has built the fires in the ritual manner then inhales the fire, he speaks the words: ‘That Agni, you fathers, who has entered our hearts . . .’ (Atharvaveda XII 2,33). ¹⁰⁰ In younger Vedic times Agni is then explicitly identified with Vāc (see L¨, Varun: a, Vol. II, Varun: a und das Rta, : Göttingen 1959, 628–9). ¹⁰¹ For a detailed description see F, Jātavedas in the Rgveda: The God of Generations, : Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 131 (1981), 364–71. ¹⁰² As is also the case with the Aśvins (see pp. 104–5).

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the gods, thus fortifying them. While this forms relationships between him and all gods, with some the connection is so close that he can be identified with them: You, o Agni, become Varuna : when you are born. You become Mitra when you are kindled. In you, o son of strength, are all gods. You are Indra for the mortal who serves you. You become Aryaman when you belong to the virgins.¹⁰³ O independent lord, you bear the secret name. They anoint you with cows, like Mitra, the well-concluded [contract], when [118] you make the husband and wife to be of one mind. (RV 5.3.1–2, cf. 2.1.3–7, 10–11)

To equate the gods in this manner was most likely not merely an ‘intellectual game’ on the part of the poets, ‘that results from the most superficial tangency of gods—and sometimes even less’,¹⁰⁴ but rather are presumably founded on particular rituals in which the gods named and the functions incumbent upon them played a central role, which was acted out before the flames of the sacrificial fire. Thus Agni is Mitra, god of contracts, because the conclusion of a contract (among other things) was marked by pouring liquid on the fire (see pp. 112–13): ‘For this contract . . . pour the precious libation into the fire’ (RV 3.59.5). The previous passage speaks of a wedding contract, and this is initiated by Aryaman, protector of hospitality, when he performs his function of bringing strangers together—in this case, the bride and groom (and their families; see p. 107). Because this, too, occurs with the help of fire,¹⁰⁵ Agni is the god Aryaman. Entirely in accord with this, the younger Vedic wedding ritual states: ‘The virgins have now honoured Agni as the god Aryaman. This divine ceremony releases this [bride] from here [, her old home], not from there [, her new home]’ (Āpastamba-G:rhyasūtra V 3,8). That Agni is not entirely equal to the other gods is seen¹⁰⁶ particularly clearly in the fact that Agni is one of the very few gods to be excluded, almost entirely, from partaking of the Soma potion (see p. 235).¹⁰⁷ Agni is a ‘son’, ‘brother’ and ‘friend’ to mortals and blesses them with his gifts ‘as a father his son’. He is present ‘in every house’ (RV 5.11.4) and ‘in all ¹⁰³ The term ‘virgins’ (kanyā)́ in the Rgveda refers to girls not yet married. And this same word is : used in Āpastamba-G:rhyasūtra V 3,8. ¹⁰⁴ Quotes from O, Religion, 101. ¹⁰⁵ In the wedding song (RV 10.85), Aryaman is asked to bring the bride and bridegroom together; and this in a stanza belonging to a section that tells of the bridal pair’s conveyance in a chariot from the old to the new home (see p. 255). In the younger ritual, fire is taken from the dwelling of the bride’s father—in which, however, contrary to Rgvedic custom (see [255]), the wedding ceremony had taken : place. [383] ¹⁰⁶ This may also be connected to the type of sacrifice in which the Soma is offered. Pouring it into the fire was not the only method; it could also be consumed by the gods, through the priest (see pp. 214–16). ¹⁰⁷ One of the few mentions of a Soma pressing for Agni is in the only one-stanza song in the entire Rgveda (RV 1.99.1). Other references to an offering of Soma for Agni are found in RV 1.94.14, 5.51.1/8, : and 6.16.16. In the ninth book there is only one single mention of Agni, and that is in an Āprī song (RV 9.5.11). In RV 3.25.4 he is named together with Indra as a drinker of Soma. See also H, Vedische Mythologie, Bd. 1, Breslau 1927, 401.

     ̣   

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settlements’ (RV 4.7.1, 5.17.4): ‘He of excellence plain to see is a guest in every house. . . . Belonging to the tribe, he holds himself not above all tribes. Belonging to the settlement, he dwells in the settlements, in each and every one of them’ (RV 10.91.2). Nonetheless, his relationship with their chieftains is particularly close. After all, the fire is the quintessential emblem of power and command, at all levels of Rgvedic [119] society (see pp. 6–9). From house to settlement to tribe, it is the : symbiotic connection with fire that instils and secures authority in the chieftains of each level. Thus Agni is not only the ‘lord of the house’ (RV 7.15.2) and ‘lord of the settlement’ (RV 6.1.8),¹⁰⁸ he is also the ‘sole king of the tribes’ (RV 3.10.1).¹⁰⁹ This gradation of the realms of power and command is the organisational form of the Vedic tribes during the settled phase (see pp. 4–6). It is repealed—and in the process becomes strikingly apparent—as the ‘yoking’ phase begins (see pp. 4–6). After all, this is when power and command become concentrated in the tribe and its leader. And this is clearly reproduced in the unification of the fires of each settlement into a single tribal fire: ‘When the settlements, the contracts of which are good, kindle [the fire of Vadhryaśva], it awakens . . . When the settlements of mortals concluded a contract, you did conquer with the men grown strong through you. . . . Agni has always conquered the enemies of Vadhryaśva with the men who had the pressed soma’ (RV 10.69.1/9/11). Through this central, ritual act of alliance, Agni who is present as lord in all houses and settlements becomes the one king of the tribe and, in turn, he whom the settlements have ‘elected’ as their one leader (see pp. 8–9). It is primarily Agni who bears the name of the tribe whose fierce strength resides in him: ‘This Agni of the Bharata is renowned far and wide for his lofty splendour that beams like the sun, he dominated the Pūrus in the battles’ (RV 7.8.4). When the ‘yoking’ phase ends and the tribe settles down once more, the procedure described previously is reversed. Power and command are returned ultimately to the ‘lords of the house’ and the one tribal fire gives way to the many home fires. Because this fission-and-fusion process is connected with a shift between ‘inside’ and ‘outside’, it is Agni, the god of fire constantly present in visible form, who guarantees a constancy that transcends [120] all change. It is he who lends stability to the fluid structures of Rgvedic society (see p. 6). And he : does the same for their system of religion. Unlike the Indra and Āditya religions, which in a manner of speaking are only intermittently relevant, that dedicated to Agni endures both ‘inside’ and ‘outside’. After all, man requires the aid and protection of the gods ‘outside’ as well, and this must be won through their

¹⁰⁸ With the exception of Indra and Sūrya—and these in just three stanzas (RV 3.40.3 [where Indra is also petitioned, ‘as viśpáti, together with all the gods, to enhance the sacrifice’]; 10.152.2; 8.25.16)—it is only Agni among all the gods, outside of comparisons, who is called viśpáti. Agni is thus the only god apart from Indra who is both Viśpati and king—and he is also G:rhapati besides. ¹⁰⁹ Agni is also called sátpati, ‘lord of the [dwelling] place’, but only in RV 6.16.19 and 6.51.13 (and together with Indra in 6.60.9 and 10.65.2). See p. 7 fn. 21.

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worship. For this purpose, man requires the services of Agni ‘outside’ as well as in the home. Agni’s ability to be present in every house, in every settlement, and in every tribe, and to provide his protection and assistance to all at the same time, results from the fact that he, although he is but one, can make an unlimited number of appearances simultaneously: ‘Manifold enkindled, this Agni is [however] only one’ (RV 8.58.2). Although occasionally many Agnis are spoken of, ‘the concept of Agni as one single god’ is clearly predominant. While perhaps ‘not compatible with his identification with the earthly object’¹¹⁰—due to his simultaneous presence in so many locations—this concept does reflect accurately the unification of many fires into one that is so important in the Rgvedic notions of power and its : concentration (see p. 97) and for this reason apparently had particular clarity and plausibility, as can be surmised from the fact that it is simply accepted as one of the beloved paradoxes, of which not a few involve Agni. On a ‘theological’ level, just as in practice—although only in the younger Rgvedic rituals¹¹¹—the incon: gruity that is nonetheless revealed was resolved through the belief that the god Agni descended from the heavens where he lived and entered the fire kindled by mortals. Agni’s significance for Rgvedic society cannot be overstated: his appearance in : many locations and in many forms¹¹² interlinks the world in both horizontal and vertical directions and engenders spatial and temporal connections between vastly differing areas of society. [121] As is typical of domain gods,¹¹³ Agni’s name is synonymous with his element—where he is, there is also fire; just as where there is fire, there is also Agni¹¹⁴—and there were strict limits on his anthropomorphisation. On the one hand, the Rgveda describes him as a stately, handsome youth with blond hair and : beard, and speaks of his body, his arms, hands, and feet; his face and his mouth; his tongue and his teeth. And it also depicts Agni as a heroic warrior, riding in a

¹¹⁰ Quotes from O, Religion, 43. Also compare the remarks on pages 44 and 45 of this book regarding this question. There, O attempts to show that ‘there was without a doubt a time when Agni was worshipped individually and multiply as the demonic essence of this fire and that’ and that ‘Agni is first conceivable as the element equipped with a divine soul, and only thereafter as an ideal being that can be imagined independently of that element’ (O, Religion, 43, 45). ¹¹¹ Passages in the younger ritual texts that show ‘an interpretation that has the god separated from the visible element’ are documented by O, Religion, 43–4. ¹¹² Agni has been born in many ways, including out of a stone (RV 1.70.4, 2.1.1), and among the many forms he can take is that of a thunderbolt (RV 6.6.2). See O, Religion, 120. ¹¹³ See O, Religion, 40–2. ¹¹⁴ It should be noted that the following also applies: ‘Where there is warmth and heat, there is Agni’. Thus the horse, with its body heat so clearly felt by men, is an animal in which Agni is present. With the billy [384] goat, the other ‘Agni-like animal’ (Śatapatha-Brāhmana : II 1,4.3, VI 4,4.15, cf. Taittirīya-Brāhmana : III 7,3.1), it is his black speckles—after all, the rituals frequently call for use of a black-speckled goat—that indicate the presence of Agni: they are the scorch marks left on the animal’s body by the fire god. A golden figurine and other golden objects may also, by virtue of their ‘gleaming’, serve as symbols of Agni (see O, Religion, 86).

     ̣   

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chariot and storming enemy ramparts, armed with his bow and arrows and his axe (RV 3.15.4). Yet the notion of the natural element breaks through constantly, and the poets who wish to describe Agni’s person frequently describe the appearance of fire—its colours, its flames, its light and its glow, its radiance and gleaming, and the smoke that rises heavenward. The limited anthropomorphisation is coupled with the fact that his mythology could take on only very few clear characteristics. These received somewhat sharper contours when deeds of Indra’s, with whom Agni is frequently associated in a divine couple (RV 1.21, 108–9, 5.86, 6.59–60, 7.39–40, 8.38, 40), are transferred to him (see also p. 73): he too killed Vr: tra, Śus: na, : and the Asuras (RV 1.74.3, 3.30.4, 6.13.3, 16.14; 8.40.11; 7.13.1); he too fought the Panis : and distributed the captured spoils (RV 6.13.3, 7.6.3). That the point of association for this transmission may have been more than merely Agni’s dangerous essence is seen in his ‘prehistory’ (see also p. 69 fn. 125). After all, the Avestan Ātar, who like the Vedic Agni—in spite of their different names—traces back to the Indo-Iranian god of fire,¹¹⁵ also battles demons, including for example Aži Dahāka (see Yt. 19.46–50, cf. 13.37). Thus this characteristic of Agni’s, which he shares with Indra, could very well be inherited from much earlier times. Nonetheless, characteristics of Indra’s were clearly ascribed to him during the Rgvedic period. : Agni’s disappearance and (re)appearance, so characteristic of fire, was the subject of many [122] myths that used this—ever-present—quite simple theme to process matters that were central to Vedic society. And in alignment with Agni’s close connection to power and command, it was this theme in particular that was the object of reflection. Agni’s extinguishment and disappearance, to begin with these, were interpreted as his flight into water (see p. 101). This was how he escaped the duties of Hot:r, the hazards of which frightened him: “We have sought you in many places, o Jātavedas, o Agni, you who have entered the waters, entered the plants. Yama perceived you, o resplendent one, shining out beyond (a distance) of ten days’ journey”—“I was afraid of the duty of Hotr: , and fled, lest the gods appoint me to it. In many ways did I hide my body. This is an office that I, Agni, do not understand”—“Come here! Man worships the gods and wishes to make sacrifice. After you have [in the past] prepared [the oblation], you, Agni, now dwell in darkness. Make the paths that lead to the gods easily passable. Auspiciously minded, convey the oblations [to the gods]”—“The elder brothers of Agni strolled through this office like a charioteer making his way along the road. In fear of this, o Varuna, : I went far away. . . .” (RV 10.51.3–6) ¹¹⁵ To ‘convey’ offerings to the gods is a function that was surely assigned to the Indo-Iranian fire god—heritage of the Indo-European period—but is not (or no longer) carried out by Ātar (see pp. 69–70).

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Ultimately the gods were able to persuade Agni to take on the office of Hot:r. The danger tied to this office, so clearly highlighted here, lies in the fact that it is coupled with the position of Viśpati. And to attain and enforce this position required victory in battles that could have ended in death. Agni’s appearance, too, is an object of myth. Besides his regular birth and siring, the first time that he entered the world is the most common subject around which myths entwine. This is because his initial appearance secured and maintains the connection of mortals with the gods, ever since it had been severed. Yet in the beginning, fire too was out of reach for mortals, in ‘heaven’, ‘with the highest father’, [123] i.e. Asura Dyaus (RV 1.141.3–4).¹¹⁶ It was stolen from him by Mātariśvan:¹¹⁷ ‘The one [Agni] was brought from heaven by Mātariśvan; the other [Soma] was stolen from the rock by the falcon’ (RV 1.93.6). This theft (RV 1.71.4) brought to mortals the fire¹¹⁸ with which they in turn installed the sacrifice for the gods: ‘Through our provision of nourishments, he does not grow old with this body, he whom Mātariśvan (brought) to Manu from afar . . .’ (RV 1.128.2), ‘They have, because Mātariśvan intruding [into heaven] stole him [Agni], installed as Hot:r . . . , who is responsible for all gods, among the mortal tribes’ (RV 1.148.1). The myth surrounding Mātariśvan, a true culture hero who for the good of mankind brings fire to earth, is to some extent¹¹⁹ connected another one which reports how the Bh:rgus, a priestly clan of prehistoric times shrouded in legend—also called Uśij—placed Agni among men in the ‘navel of the world’ (see p. 219):¹²⁰ ‘The Bh:rgus have set you [down] among men . . . as Hot:r, as desired guest, o Agni’ (RV 1.58.6, cf. 2.4.2). According to this surely independent myth, the Bh:rgus had to search for Agni because he ‘had secretly hidden himself ’ (RV 10.46.2). They discovered him at the ‘site of the waters’ (RV 2.4.2, 10.46.2), a location in the highest heaven (RV 1.149.4).¹²¹ This wording in the myth clearly makes reference to Agni’s flight into the farthest distance (see p. 283 fn. 24). The Mātariśvan myth seems to have been created by the Vedic religion out of the Indo-European myth about how fire was taken from heaven and brought to

¹¹⁶ mádhva ādhavé ‘where abides the one who shakes the sweet drink into being’, RV 1.141.3, is explained by the following pitúh: paramāt́ ‘from the highest Father’ and may be ‘a kenning for the raining sky’ (N, Kleine Schriften, Wiesbaden 1995, 23 fn. 39). ¹¹⁷ Variously (including RV 1.164.46 3.2.13, 26.2, and 29.11), Agni himself is called Mātariśvan. There, however, the myth in question is always referred to (see O, Religion, 121 fn. 1). ¹¹⁸ According to RV 1.44.11 and 5.21.1, Manu employs Agni in the service of the sacrificial rite. In RV 6.8.4 Mātariśvan is called ‘Messenger of Vivasvant’. Here Vivasvant is the first sacrificer, just as Manu is as well. ¹¹⁹ Thus, for example, RV 1.60.1, 71.4 and 10.46.9 (cf. also RV 3.5.10 including O, Noten ad loc.). ¹²⁰ According to RV 8.23.17, it was Kāvya Uśanas who ‘used the fire as Hot:r for Manu’. This ‘ur-Aryan figure of legend’ (L, Kleine Schriften, Wiesbaden 1978, 164) is, in the Rgveda, : considered a member of the Bh:rgu clan. And the Bh:rgus, too, are considered to have been the first to use fire see above. ¹²¹ See O, Religion, 122–3.

     ̣   

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earth—the Vedic counterpart of the Prometheus myth¹²²—and the succession myth, to the extent that the latter tells how it was the theft of fire that enabled the gods to take over rulership from the Asuras.¹²³ After all, ‘mixed’ with the actual myth of stealing fire is another that reports how Agni, having ‘lain long in deep darkness’, has ‘withdrawn from Father Asura’ and then ‘leaves the non-god’ to join with the gods (RV 10.124.1–6) [124]. Then ‘the Asuras go in loss of their magical powers’ (RV 10.124.5), and Indra can slay V:rtra, the act which marks the beginning of the gods’ rule.¹²⁴ These myths repeatedly touch on the secret that Agni in particular holds hidden for the poet. Countless times they express their amazement at the many manners of his birth, his widely differing forms, and the numerous places he is to be found, and they try to establish relationships between all of them. These observations and speculations, which were to bear such ripe fruit in the post-Rgvedic era, are : demonstrated—also, and not least of all—in the ritual, which interlinks extremely different aspects of the world. And Agni’s creation already plays a central role in this. After all, he not only connects heaven and earth by travelling as messenger between them (see p. 93), he also, as the ‘twice born’ (RV 1.60.1, 140.2, 149.4–5), was born both in heaven and on earth. The poets reason that he must have been born in heaven as well, ignited by the gods (RV 7.1.22, 10.64.3) just as the earthly Agni is by the people, because celestial and earthly Agni are of one being. Thus heaven and earth are his parents (RV 1.146.1–2), no less than the two kindling sticks from which he springs. Because he is born out of the sticks, however, he must have somehow previously entered them. This happens, as the poets deduce, through the water which causes the trees to grow that supply the wood for Agni’s birth, particularly as he ‘disappears’ into the water again when he is doused: ‘He hisses in the waters, when he sets himself down [there], like a goose’ (RV 1.65.9). Thus the water must have brought the essence of fire into the wood, meaning water is the actual home of fire.¹²⁵ But the water (also) for this procedure came from heaven: ‘When he has been brought here from the highest father . . . he climbs up the plants as in his abodes’ (RV 1.141.4).¹²⁶ And thus Agni must also

¹²² The myth of bringing down the fire may thus have originated in Indo-European times (see O, Religion, 103, 121–2). Because the theft of fire in the Rgveda is repeatedly referred to with : the verb (pra)-√math and the name Prometheus seems to have been derived from this term—which idea is, however, not uncontroversial—it may be reasonable to assume that Mātariśvan is his counterpart (see N, Kleine Schriften, Wiesbaden 1995, 24–5; cf. also G ¯ , ‘Purūravas und Urvaśī’ from the newly discovered Vādhūla-Anvākhyāna [ed. I], Anusantatyai, Dettelbach 2000, 110). See also the next note [385]. ¹²³ This will have dispelled the objections raised by K, An Indian Prometheus? Asiatische Studien 25 (1971) 85–98, against the Indo-European age of the fire-stealing myth. ¹²⁴ See O, Religion, 163. ¹²⁵ His home in the water brought him in intimate proximity to Apām : Napāt (see p. 102). ¹²⁶ Because the connection of water and plants is also seen on the Iranian side, it was apparently already fixed in Indo-Iranian times. There, these are considered (see Y 51.7) manifestations of ‘immortality’ (amәrәtatāt) and ‘integrity’ (hauruuatāt).

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live in the celestial waters. He connects them with the earthly bodies of water. [125] After all, it is he who takes the water that falls from the heavens back up to heaven, namely in his smoke: ‘The same water goes up and down in the course of the days. The earth is invigorated by rainfall, heaven is invigorated by fire’ (RV 1.164.51). Yet in heaven, too, Agni has taken a dwelling in the form of the sun, and this is one of his most imposing forms: ‘Agni shone with gleaming blaze high as the sun, in heaven he shone as the sun’ (RV 8.56.5). It is one of the paradoxes so beloved of the poets that the sun is also a different being,¹²⁷ which is born of Agni: ‘By night Agni is the head of the earth, in the morning the rising sun is born of him’ (RV 10.88.6). And this is effected by a morning sacrifice poured into the fire (see pp. 265–6): ‘Let us, o Agni, kindle your light, never aging [flame], that your marvellous timber shines in the heavens’ (RV 5.6.4). It must have been quite reassuring to have this god as a close friend helping to keep these important processes on their proper path in the world and in the cosmos.

5.6.2 Apām : Napāt The ‘Scion of the Waters’, dwelling in the celestial ocean (see p. 66), the ‘highest place’, where ‘the birthplace of the horse and the sun is’ (RV 2.35.6, 14),¹²⁸ exhibits fire and water characteristics in equal measure and has particularly close connections to Agni and Soma. What connects Agni¹²⁹ to him who ‘without kindling gleams in the waters’ (RV 2.35.4) and ‘clothes himself in the lightning’s flash’ (RV 2.35.9) is his fiery nature, visible in his ‘golden form’ (RV 2.35.10). ‘Standing upright in that which moves sideways, whose womb he has mounted’ (RV 2.35.9)—referring to the waters that ‘surround him, the shining one’ (RV 2.35.3)—‘steeds who are fast as thought pull him’¹³⁰ (RV 1.186.5), whom he ‘impels [to hurry]’ (RV 2.31.6, 7.47.2). Blazing in these waters, he appears to stand sentinel over them. This is why Apām : Napāt has an important role [126] to play in the Soma ritual. In the morning of the day on which the Soma is pressed, the ekadhanā waters with which the pressed Soma is to be mixed—earthly counterparts of the celestial waters (see p. 231 fn. 186)—are drawn, in the Aponaptrīya rite,

¹²⁷ This difference is seen particularly in passages where Agni and the sun are mentioned in parallel: ‘. . . in the water Varuna : placed Agni, and in heaven the sun . . .’ (RV 5.85.2). ¹²⁸ The Apąm Napāt of the Avesta (see p. 65 fn. 98), too, dwells in Vouru.kas: ̌a, the celestial lake (see Yt. 19.51). ¹²⁹ Apām : Napāt is frequently mentioned together with Agni in a stanza, but always in a manner that makes it clear that two different gods are spoken of. That these two are brought in close proximity—and it is no more than that, despite claims to the contrary—is likely supported primarily by the notions of Agni’s birth in water (see p. 101). ¹³⁰ This is how vŕ̥:san: ah: is probably to be understood.

     ̣   

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from a flowing body of water near the site of the sacrifice and he, the ‘supplier of the liquid’ (RV 6.50.13), is invoked and appeased with a gift from Gh:rta:¹³¹ O Adhvaryus, stand ready with the offering! Go to the waters . . . , upon which the ruddy eagle gazes down. Harness this wave today, o you of skilful hands! O Adhvaryus, go to the waters, to the stream. Worship Apām : Napāt with an offering. He shall give you the wave today, the beautifully purified wave. Press for him the honeyed Soma.¹³² Apām : Napāt, you who glow in the waters without kindling and whom the priests honour at the sacrifices, give us honeyed waters by which Indra grows mighty with the strength of a hero. (RV 10.30.3–4)

Old Irish, Roman, and Avestan¹³³ parallels (see pp. 42–4) suggest that the Aponaptrīya is the ‘ritualisation’ of an old Indo-European myth concerning a smouldering element that is hidden in the water and watched over by a guard, which is sought after by men as it is said to bestow power on the one who possesses it. The attempt to take it, however, is fraught with danger: if the seeker is not entitled, a devastating flood will be unleashed. His hiding place in the water connects Apām : Napāt with various gods who are also thought of as dwelling in the water or otherwise having close connections with water, such as Ahi Budhnya and Aja Ekapad (RV 2.31.6, 7.35.13). The same applies to Savit:r, with whom he is mentioned together in various places in the Rgveda¹³⁴ (RV 1.22.6, 2.31.6, 6.50.13, 10.149.2). This is particularly clear in the : latter passage: ‘From where the firmly anchored sea poured forth, Savitr: knows this, o Apām Napāt’. Savit:r, who ‘impels’ the waters (see RV 3.33.6), also sends forth the waters that flow from their fount to form the sea upon which the earth floats [127].¹³⁵

5.6.3 The Aśvins In the declaiming of the ‘early morning litany’ (see p. 227) to the two Aśvins—as in Aitareya-Brāhmana : II 15—as the ‘gods who meander in the early morning’ (RV 5.77.1) together with Agni who illuminates the night and Us: as, the dawn, who ¹³¹ This libation, to which the Rgveda occasionally refers—‘Ghr: ta is his food’ (RV 2.35.11, cf. 14), : ‘his splendid robe is Gh:rta’ (RV 2.35.4)—could explain the epithet zauuanō.sū ‘he who prospers through libations’ borne by Apąm Napāt in the Avesta (Yt. 19.52). ¹³² So even Soma is offered to him. ¹³³ Although it cannot—as usual—be said with absolute certainty that this deity is of Indo-European age, various mentions in the Avesta (Yt. 8.34, 19.51–2, cf. 5.72) show that Apąm Napāt was known in the Indo-Iranian religion, with characteristics that also mark the Rgvedic god (see p. 42). : ¹³⁴ What is not clear—notwithstanding M’s claims to the contrary (Vedic Mythology, Straßburg 1898, 33)—is whether he is identified with Savitr: (or Savit:r with him). ¹³⁵ This, his deed at the beginning of the world, is the subject of the song RV 10.149 (see p. 135) [386].

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heralds their approach,¹³⁶ ancient origins are discernible.¹³⁷ After all, the celestial Indo-European twins, ‘descendants of the Sky god’, appeared to mortals in the firmament as the morning and evening stars (see ).¹³⁸ And apparently the belief existed that once they had guided the sun through the dark night, they could also bring aid to man: when he invoked them, the celestial ‘saviours’ hurry hence on their steeds or their beautiful chariot, to deliver him from all distress. And then—both in Indo-European times and later—as divine guests they were regaled with a feast (see ). The idea of twins and that of helpers in need seem to belong together. Around the world, the notion that twins provide specially effective help is bound up with the dual fatherhood that is thought to explain how two beings can be born to one mother at the same time. Nonetheless, the birth of twins is predominantly seen as negative, due either to the perceived immorality of the mother in having intercourse with two men at the same time, or to fear of the supernatural being that was involved in the conception and ‘lives on’ in one of the twins. To avert disaster, the family is resettled outside their village, or one or both of the twins—and/or their mother—are banished, or even killed. But even in cases where the birth of twins is seen as positive, for example when a god or other divine being was involved in the conception, the family must spend a period of time in the wilderness following the birth, as a way of expiating the danger that attaches to them [128]. Like resettling and banishment, this results in the characteristic instability (regarding location) of twins. This is why twins can be found everywhere in the world, even in the most remote places. Being themselves something between mortals and gods, they are mediators between these, and as such also called upon by men for help, which they readily give everywhere they go. The Aśvins conform to this paradigm. They too are sired by two fathers—on Saranyū, daughter of Tvas: t::r (RV 10.17.1–2)—by both ‘man’, Vivasvant, : (see ) and sky (god).¹³⁹ Their birth story positions them between gods and mortals. And as the intermediate beings of the Vedic pantheon, they act not only in the realm between mortals and gods, but also whenever matters of an ‘inbetween’ nature are affected—birth,¹⁴⁰ initiation,¹⁴¹ aging,¹⁴² marriage¹⁴³—and

¹³⁶ The rising sun on the other side limited this approach. (Occasionally, however, the Rgveda has : Us: as follow the Aśvins (cf. for example RV 1.46.14).) ¹³⁷ The same applies to the circumstance that the Āśvinaśastra, the recitation of which concludes the Atirātra ritual, ‘is completed when the sun has risen’ (Āpastamba-Śrautasūtra XIV 4.4). ¹³⁸ O, in his Noten on RV 1.164.38, conjectures that this stanza refers to these two stars. ¹³⁹ See RV 1.181.4 (and on that stanza, O, Religion, 211 fn. 2), 1.46.2 and 5.73.4. ¹⁴⁰ Compare in particular RV 5.78.4–9. ¹⁴¹ Initiations are the subject of those ‘stories’ that tell of how the Aśvins rescue youngsters who are trapped in holes or tree trunks. ¹⁴² For example, they rejuvenated Cyavāna, who, old and decrepit, was poised between life and death, and gave him a young woman to be his bride (RV 1.116.10). ¹⁴³ As for example Ghos: ā begged the Aśvins for a husband (RV 1.117.7).

     ̣   

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they are invoked by men to help them traverse dangerous thresholds.¹⁴⁴ They are active in locations that are also typically intermediate realms, such as mountains, the ocean shores,¹⁴⁵ or the space between heaven and earth.¹⁴⁶ And the Aśvins, as the gods who ‘are marked out by their peculiar horses’ (aśvín), access these difficult-to-reach places with all manner of strange draught animals and chariots. Youthful (cf. RV 3.58.7, 6.62.4, 7.67.10) and of exceptional beauty,¹⁴⁷ they have a particularly close relationship, with a hint of eroticism, with their sister Us: as (see RV 4.52.2–3) and especially with Sūryā, the morning twilight, daughter of the sun. The allusions to the relationships between the Aśvins and these two female figures apparently reflect—as suggest by a comparison with related myths and tales—two Indo-European myths:¹⁴⁸ one relating to the divine twins attempting to rescue their own sister, the dawn, who had been abducted (cf. RV 6.60.2),¹⁴⁹ [129] and the other concerning how the twins acquired a bride—namely Sūryā, the ‘daughter of the sun’ (see pp. 146–7). The latter myth is perceptible in the Rgveda both in : its original form and in a recast version.¹⁵⁰ In one, the Aśvins are husband to the daughter of the sun, whom they won in a chariot race,¹⁵¹ while in the other they court Sūryā on behalf of Soma, who then weds her (RV 10.85.8–11).¹⁵² The Aśvins have an unusual relationship with Soma that also extends to the ritual. According to the Rgveda they do share abundantly in the Soma, but in a : distinctly different manner than other gods. It begins with the very name of the Soma they receive. When the poets mention it, they often call it somyá mádhu ‘Somic honey’ or sóma mádhumat ‘honey-full Soma’. Next, the Aśvins come into conflict with Indra regarding this Soma (see following points). Moreover, they sometimes receive the Soma that was pressed ‘one day ago’ (tiróahnya)¹⁵³ ¹⁴⁴ This shows, as in the case of other Rgvedic gods as well, actual theological work on the part of : the poet. ¹⁴⁵ Rescuing castaways is something the Aśvins have in common with the Dioscuri (see pp. 36–7 fn. 20). ¹⁴⁶ Also the times of day assigned to them, morning and evening twilight, are characterised by an inbetween nature. ¹⁴⁷ Youthful beauty is another aspect the Aśvins have in common with the Dioscuri. ¹⁴⁸ It must be noted, however, that discerning the exact relationship between all of the myths mentioned in the following is exceedingly difficult. A detailed study would undoubtedly shed light on the matter. ¹⁴⁹ The Rgvedic verse cited unfortunately tells us neither who abducted Us: as nor where she was : taken. The related versions of this myth are more forthcoming (see pp. 37–8): Helen was rescued by the Dioscuri from Theseus, and Kudrun by Herwig, and Ortwin from Hartmut. ¹⁵⁰ For this reason, it is highly interesting that also in Latvian mythology ‘the sons of god’ appear both ‘themselves as suitors of the daughter of the sky or sun’ and ‘as bride’s attendants, if the [387] suitor is a god belonging to another divine family’ (B, Die himmlische Götterfamilie der alten Letten, Uppsala 1972, 469). ¹⁵¹ By mounting their chariot, because she has been won (RV 1.34.5, 116.17, 118.5, 5.73.5, 8.8.10)— ‘choice’ is also mentioned repeatedly (RV 1.117.13, 4.32.2)—Sūryā consents to the marriage, which is formalised by the subsequent chariot ride. See p. 253 fn. 317. ¹⁵² All of that may have a basis in natural phenomena (see also O, Religion, 52): moon, morning star, and the morning twilight come together, and sometimes the one, sometimes another unites with Sūryā. ¹⁵³ The tiróahnya Soma is offered to the Aśvins in the Śrauta ritual on the morning of the Atirātra, whose three nightly rounds are devoted solely to Indra (see Āpastamba-Śrautasūtra XIV 4.7–8,

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and sometimes ‘leftover’¹⁵⁴ (átirikta) Soma (RV 1.45.10,¹⁵⁵ 47.1, 3.58.7, 8.35.19–21; — 8.58.3).¹⁵⁶ And the younger Vedic texts mention that they formerly ‘were excluded from Soma’ (Jaiminīya-Brāhmana : III 124: 406.17), that they came too late—in a manner of speaking—to the Soma ritual and had to win their share.¹⁵⁷ They did succeed in doing so, but only such that ‘a later sacrifice was made for them’ (Kaus: ītaki-Brāhmana : XVIII 1). This special position of the Aśvins in the Soma ritual seems to result from an interleaving of historical development with mythological construct, where the latter in turn apparently reflects concrete societal circumstances. As twins, after all, who spend their time primarily in the realm between wilderness and the world of men, they have a close relationship to bees and their honey,—another notion found the world over¹⁵⁸—which results in the honey coming to them before all others.¹⁵⁹ This seems to have led to their special position, as mead was replaced by *Sáu̯ma at the start of the Indo-Iranian period (see p. 62) [130]. At the same time it is also a consequence of the special myths that are connected with the Aśvins. As sons of the Sky god, they are Indra’s (step)brothers. And Indra grows up in the house of, and to a certain extent as the son of, Tvas: t::r, whose grandchildren, in turn, are the Aśvins. Their dispute with Indra over the ‘honey of Tvas: t:r: ’, whose secret they learned from Dadhyañc (RV 1.117.22, cf. 116.12, 119.9, 10.40.6), is apparently a conflict between generations, centring around the possession of Soma and the power it bestows. Indra seeks to eliminate the Aśvins as rivals for Kātyāyana-Śrautasūtra XII 6,10, Mānava-Śrautasūtra II 5,3.23–24 and Śāṅkhāyana-Śrautasūtra IX 20,31). Although according to some text passages the Soma ‘[pressed] one day ago’ was also offered up in the Aptoryāma (see for example the sacrifice verses published in M, Some lost verses for the Aptoryāma, Berliner Indologische Studien 8 [1995] 137–52), it seems that for this elaborated version of the Atirātra, the use of the atirikta Soma was characteristic (see the next note). Full clarity, however, can be attained only through a detailed study of all passages. ¹⁵⁴ In the Aptoryāma, early in the morning the Aśvins are offered four ‘spare’ (atirikta) Soma goblets, according to Bhāradvāja-Śrautasūtra XIV 18.1, Hiranyakeśi-Śrautasūtra IX 7.63 and (here as : an alternative) Āpastamba-Śrautasūtra XIV 4.15 and Baudhāyana-Śrautasūtra XVIII 15: 360.10. And so O surmises that RV 8.57 and 8.58.3—which belong together (see Noten on 8.57)—were composed especially for an Aptoryāma, which would prove the existence of this ritual (with the Aśvins as recipients) in the Rgvedic period (see p. 238). : ¹⁵⁵ Song 1.45 is indeed dedicated to Agni, but the tenth stanza forms a transition to the subsequent Aśvin hymn. This was missed by T, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 2004, 103–10, and Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute 85 (2004), 21–31, [388] whose study fell quite short of the mark in other aspects as well. For example, it entirely escaped her notice that in the later ritual, a tiro’hnya cake is sacrificed for the Aśvins in the Atirātra (cf. for example ĀśvalāyanaŚrautasūtra V 5,24–25 and ĀpŚS XIV 4,1). And RV 3.28 shows that this was the case already in Rgvedic times (see pp. 237–8). : ¹⁵⁶ Does ‘third pressing’ in RV 8.57.1 (like 8.58.3) also refer to the átirikta Soma of the Aptoryāma? ¹⁵⁷ According to the Cyavana tale of various Brāhmanas, : the Aśvins are at first completely excluded from the Soma ritual, until the assistance they provided to Cyavana—this being the later form of the name Cyavāna—gained them access to Soma. ¹⁵⁸ See H, Boanerges, Cambridge 1913, 327–30, 348–57. ¹⁵⁹ Also the belief that honey falls from heaven to earth as dew and is brought by the Aśvins, as the gods of the morning twilight—and by Us: as, their sister (RV 3.61.5)—seems to play a role here (see O, Religion, 208 fn. 1, and O, Honig, Bienen und Zwillinge, Studien zur Indologie und Iranistik 24 [2007] 163 fn. 135).

     ̣   

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this power—and thus for the Soma.¹⁶⁰ He succeeds, but not entirely: the access to a portion, even if less valuable, of the Soma is ultimately an expression of the latency of power.

5.6.4 Aryaman In ‘pre-state’ societies, where there is no state to establish and enforce rights, it is crucial that the people agree upon fixed rules that govern their lives, as this is what makes it possible for human beings to live together. In the Rgvedic religion, : observance of these rules is watched over by a group of gods known as the Ādityas.¹⁶¹ Among the gods, these are the actual guardians of the world order, and of the laws and commands that prevail within it. One of the fundamental rules of human cohabitation is the right to hospitality,¹⁶² which primarily means abstaining from violence against defenceless strangers—and this in a society where everything that comes from ‘outside’ may, and sometimes must, be killed. Observing the law of hospitality is the quintessential feature of a civilised people, the Āryas, the ‘hospitable ones’.¹⁶³ And the god who ensures and oversees adherence to the hospitality imperative is Aryaman.¹⁶⁴ He is the god who protects the stranger on his travels,¹⁶⁵ [131] and rewards those who show hospitality to him who—according to an old German concept—is in a ‘wretched stateʼ (German ‘Elend’). This is why he, like Bhaga as well, is a god of the household, of domestic life—RV 2.1.4 calls him ‘Lord of the Dwelling’—the genius of the pater familias. Like Mitra and Varuna : as protectors of commands and laws, of contracts and oaths, Aryaman too, as protector of hospitality, is a guardian of truth and an avenger of lies: not only does he reward the observance of the law of hospitality, he also punishes any infringement of it.¹⁶⁶ And because in the strictly exogamous and virilocal Vedic society strangers marry, Aryaman also plays a very important role in weddings. He initiates them (see p. 96) by bringing together bride and bridegroom with their families, who are strangers to each other: ‘Let Aryaman and ¹⁶⁰ In the battle with Namuci, the Aśvins assist Indra (RV 1.53.7, 5.30.7/8, 7.19.5, 10.73.7, 131.4/5) as they fulfil the function of divine doctor and ‘heal’ Indra (see p. 181). ¹⁶¹ The Ādityas are declared by the RV itself (cf. 2.28.3, 7.60.5, 8.19.5) to be ‘sons of the not-bound’ (aditi) [by the shackles of guilt]. According to RV 9.114.3 they are seven in number (see p. 113). In this latter verse, Soma is called on to ‘protect the mortals together with the seven godly Ādityas’. ¹⁶² We know from Homer’s works that in ancient Greece, an act of hospitality created a friendship between families that was handed down from father to son (Iliad Ζ 215, Odyssey α 175/417). ¹⁶³ See in particular T, Kleine Schriften, Wiesbaden 1995, 1121. ¹⁶⁴ It is conspicuous that Aryaman is ‘a god without mythology’ (T, Opera maiora, Kyoto 1995, 150). ¹⁶⁵ The ‘paths of Aryaman’ are not those of the sun, but rather the paths protected by Aryaman. ¹⁶⁶ Aryaman is another deity, alongside Indra, Mitra and Varuna : (see pp. 50–1 and 53–4), who has taken on functions of the old Sky god. After all, in early times it was very [389] likely the Sky god who watched over relationships formed between strangers—this is shown by a comparison of the gods who succeeded him, such Zeus xeinios, guardian of hospitality; and Jupiter.

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Bhaga bring us [, the bridegroom and the bride,] together. United, o gods, may we have easy rule over the family’ (RV 10.85.23).¹⁶⁷ The resulting familial bonds become one of Aryaman’s areas of function. And because ethical behaviour, in old beliefs, constantly affects the environment in which mortals live, they also have a ‘cosmic’ dimension: he who observes the law that is under this god’s purview— hospitality—is rewarded with rain (RV 5.54.8).

5.6.5 Bhaga The name of this god denotes his most important function. This is the god who gives mortals bhága, ‘which provides a happy disposition, abundance, and much more’.¹⁶⁸ He is the god who ensures that everyone receives a—broadly speaking— just portion¹⁶⁹ of the goodness life has to offer by allotting happiness and benison (RV 5.46.6, 7.41.2). His connection with wealth and prosperity is so close that Us: as, the goddess of the dawn who is conspicuously associated with wealth (see p. 145) [132], is said to be his sister (RV 1.123.5), and he is often mentioned together with Pūs: an, the god of hidden and lost goods (see pp. 130–1) (RV 1.14.3, 90.4, 4.30.24, 5.49.3).¹⁷⁰ When there is a wedding, he is the god who ensures the prosperity of the new family. This is why his name is mentioned, frequently together with that of Aryaman (see p. 107)¹⁷¹ when weddings and marriages are spoken of. Bhaga is one of the sons of Aditi (RV 7.41.2) and like the other Ādityas¹⁷² is a guardian of the world order as it has been established (RV 6.51.3). This is because sharing out goods and giving away surplus wealth are significant elements of the ¹⁶⁷ This stanza is in the wedding song, preceding the section that tells of the journey to the couple’s new home. The actual marriage does not take place until they reach there (see p. 96 fn. 105). Thus it falls to Aryaman to unite the as yet unmarried couple. This is why in RV 5.3.2 the ‘unmarried virgins’ (kanyā)́ belong to him (see p. 96) and for this reason, the bridegroom can occasionally be referred to as Aryaman (see RV 10.40.12, 117.6). In the wedding song of the Atharvaveda, Aryaman is said to be ‘providing a husband’ (pativédana). Interestingly, the stanza containing this term (XIV 1,17 = Paippalāda XVIII 2,7) is a transformation of the ‘Tryambaka stanza’, which (in a duly altered form) is meant to be recited by an unmarried girl in order to obtain a husband (see p. 225 fn. 156). ¹⁶⁸ O, Kleine Schriften, Wiesbaden 1967, 400. ¹⁶⁹ Amśa, mentioned as a god in the Rgveda only in 2.1.4, 2.27.1, and 5.42.5, is responsible for : : distributing the portion to which a man is entitled, in contrast to Bhaga. Apparently for this reason he presides over the distribution of an estate in particular—the son living on as am : śa of the father. ¹⁷⁰ This connection with wealth and prosperity is surely the reason Soma, too, is identified with him: ‘[O Soma,] you are Bhaga, you are the one who gives gifts, o drop, you are generous to the generous ones’ (RV 9.97.55). ¹⁷¹ Bhaga is frequently identified with other gods; for example with Agni, who ‘creates the most treasures’ (RV 1.1.1). He is also equated with Savit:r (RV 5.42.5, 48.5), with whom he is often mentioned in tandem. This may well have to do with the fact that the latter is responsible for (the urge that drives) procreation (see p. 134), which is a fundamental condition for the blessing of plentiful progeny—for which in turn Bhaga is responsible. Bhaga may stand guard himself when the birth takes place. ¹⁷² One Āditya who is mentioned only very infrequently in the Rgveda is Daks: a. He plays a certain : role in the cosmogonic speculation of RV 10.72. See p. 189.

     ̣   

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economic life of a tribal society, and thus of vital importance for its continued existence. This is one of the reasons they are among the definitive duties of the host and also of the ruler, the fulfilment of which secures their position and increases their prestige: ‘Indra is Bhaga. . . . His many gifts propagate themselves’ (RV 3.36.5). Thus Bhaga is also called ‘Lord of the Family’ (RV 7.38.6) and (together with the other Ādityas) ‘Lord of the Dwelling’ and ‘king who rules well’ (6.51.4). Because the distribution of goods also took place in the context of competitions, Bhaga was often called upon to show his favour in them: ‘So would we once again destine you . . . for us, like Bhaga in the contest’ (RV 1.141.10).

5.6.6 Mitra Mitra, inherited from Indo-Iranian times (see p. 55), is responsible for everything to do with ‘mediation’¹⁷³ that is brought about through contract and alliance.¹⁷⁴ He creates this area of activity, and also secures it by ensuring that contracts of every kind¹⁷⁵ can be concluded and by ensuring their terms are kept. Every breach, even if committed unknowingly, is seen by this god [133] with the unblinking eye—the sun¹⁷⁶—(RV 3.59.1)¹⁷⁷ that watches the behaviour of the parties to the contract.¹⁷⁸ He who never breaks a contract under any circumstances is protected and rewarded by Mitra, in particular with health, rain, and the fertility of his land. He who goes against his given word, however, will be persecuted with bitter vengeance¹⁷⁹ which, in accordance with the justicial

¹⁷³ The frequent identification of Agni with Mitra (RV 1.94.13, 5.3.1–2, 6.8.3, 7.9.3, cf. 6.3.1, 7.12.3; Atharvaveda II 6,4) is relevant to this field of activity. Like Mitra, Agni is a ‘mediator’ who connects heaven with earth, gods with mortals, and mortals with each other. ¹⁷⁴ Unlike the highly dubious appellative [390] (*)várun: a ‘true speech, veridicium’ (see p. 53), a number of passages in the Rgveda clearly use the word mitrá with its appellative meaning of contract or : alliance: ‘Let us establish a contract/alliance with Indra by means of our words!’ (RV 8.96.6), ‘[Soma], a king, does not cheat the contract/alliance [he has established], the wise one’ (RV 9.97.30). ¹⁷⁵ This applies in particular, however, to contracts made between ‘kings’ (cf. RV 1.73.3). ¹⁷⁶ It is the sun that reports to him when contracts and alliances are breached: ‘When you today, o Sūrya . . . rising, will tell the truth to Mitra and Varuna : . . .’ (RV 7.60.1–6). Similar is said in verses RV 7.61.1, 7.62.2, and 10.37.1. See p. 35 fn. 12 and below fn. 178. ¹⁷⁷ The Mihr-Yašt (Yt. 10.7) even calls him the ‘[god] who [always] watches and never sleeps’. ¹⁷⁸ The old omniscient Sky god, linked with supervision of oaths, contracts and law, lives on in Mitra and Varuna : (see pp. 34–5). That is why Mitra also watches, with the sun as his eye (RV 1.115.1, 5.63.2, 6.51.1, 7.61.1, 63.1), over everything that mortals do. It would not be implausible to assume that the god of the night uses the stars—the eyes of the goddess Night (RV 10.127.1)—to watch over men, although this is not, as far as can be determined, explicitly mentioned in the Rgveda. That fact that Mitra is : uniformly identified with day in the Brāhmanas : and Varuna : with night—an ascription already present in RV 1.115.5—might indicate a division of functions: Mitra watches during the day, and Varuna : through the night. In the Mihr-Yašt (10,141), however, Miθra is referred to as ‘awake[/alert] in the dark’. ¹⁷⁹ Like all Ādityas, of whom RV 2.27.4 says—using Indo-Iranian phraseology (cf. miθrәm . . . ́ arәnat ̰.caēšam, Yt. 10.35)—that they ‘punished guilt’ (cáyamānā :rn: āni).

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norms of the day, would be visited not only upon the evildoer himself but on his descendants as well.¹⁸⁰ At almost every mention in the Rgveda of contracts and alliances, the poets : express the expectations that are connected with them. This is first and foremost peaceful, settled dwelling (ks: éma)¹⁸¹ safe from, and free of being beset by, enemies (cf. RV 2.4.3, 11.14, 7.82.5). Because this is the fundamental condition for prosperity, safety and integrity, these values are mentioned time and time again: ‘Who dwells upon the earth like a god, suckling all like a king, by whom a contract was concluded’ (RV 1.73.3), ‘[You Rbhus], cause the wealth to thrive, create posses: sions for us. Conclude a contract [with us, that ensures prosperity,] like those who want to settle [conclude a contract that guarantees peaceful dwelling]’ (RV 4.33.10).¹⁸² The establishment of contracts between mortals is primarily bound to the two liminal points of settled dwelling—at the beginning and the end of peaceful dwelling, or in other words: to the beginning of peace and the beginning of war. It is the critical point of the transition from yóga to ks: éma and vice versa that Mitra governs, makes controllable, alleviates.¹⁸³ He is responsible for the transition brought about through contract and alliance in the ks: éma phase, and for the transition at its end. Mitra’s obligation—at least as far as the Rgveda : shows—is first and foremost to provide for peaceful conditions. Societal circumstances are of course inseparably enmeshed with cosmic events and can exist only [134] in concordance with them. In such an interleaved view, in this parallel interpretation of cosmic and societal order (see pp. 52–3), Mitra and the other Ādityas are seen to be responsible not only for systems of power and social order within the tribe and in human society, but also for the order of the world itself,¹⁸⁴ which also relies on contracts and commands (cf. RV 4.13.2, 5.69.1). This is why the function areas of the Ādityas have both ‘earthly’ and

¹⁸⁰ This characteristic is not as prominent in the Rgveda as it is in the Avesta—Miθra afflicts the oath: breaker with destructive war (Yt. 10.87)—yet in the Rgveda, too, clear traces remain indicating that it is : Mitra himself [391] who bears the weapon in this case: ‘You guardian of truth, whose laws are truth, mount your [war] chariots in highest heaven’ (RV 5.63.1). Usually, however, it is Indra, and occasionally Agni as well, in the role of punisher: ‘You, o Indra, are a wise punisher: like the axe splits the knots [in the trees] you separate the falsehoods of them who [cheat] the edicts of Mitra and Varuna : . . . . Hone your weapon, o Indra, . . . against those who are without contract, who cheat the contract . . .’ (RV 10.89.8–9), ‘Agni shall . . . with hottest blaze snap at those who cheat the edict of Varuna, : [cheat] that of . . . Mitra’ (RV 4.5.4). ¹⁸¹ It is Mitra who ‘enables mortals to claim a fixed position’ (RV 3.59.1, 5). ¹⁸² Other parts of the text say the same: ‘Thanks to the lord of the field we gain [land] as through a concluded [contract] that feeds cow and horse’ (RV 4.57.1), ‘I revitalize Agni for you . . . whom you worship like Mitra who lets [men] attain dwellings’ (RV 8.31.14), ‘May Indra be benevolent towards us always; may King Soma be mindful of our welfare [in the same way] as [men] have always concluded contracts’ (RV 10.100.4). ¹⁸³ Mitra ‘mediates’ between the opposing sides of Indra (: yóga) and Varuna : (: ks: éma). Thus Mitra’s double-bond—to Varuna : and settlement on the one hand, and to Indra and ‘yoking’ on the other—is also characteristic. ¹⁸⁴ All Ādityas are connected with :rtá, that which is ‘joined [by word and deed]’, the ‘truth’, the ‘order of the cosmos’ (see pp. 52–3).

     ̣   

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‘cosmic’ dimensions; this is why these gods are connected with events in the cosmos. As is clear from the cosmogonic myths of the Rgveda (see pp. 91–2), : however, the existence and order of the cosmos are seen primarily in the existence of dualities: day and night, morning and evening, summer and winter, light and darkness, world and underworld. And Mitra ‘mediates’ between them; he is responsible for the transitions from one to the other: he raises the sun¹⁸⁵ and ends the night (‘The great magic of Mitra, of Varuna : has spread the radiance [of the sun] like gold far and wide’, RV 3.61.7), he separates heaven and earth (‘[Agni] pressed the two front sides [heaven and earth] apart, the wonderful Mitra, he fragmented the darkness between with [his] light’, RV 6.8.3), and ‘holds this fast’ (RV 3.59.1). In another internal interpretation, every contract between mortals is in turn seen as a replica of this cosmic contract, for example that which governs the cycle of day and night. Thus adherence to a contract is analogous to the perpetuation of cosmic dualities.

5.6.6.1 The formalities of concluding a contract As in the marriage ritual (see p. 255), a contract as such is concluded through a binding oral agreement: ‘A contract, when it is spoken, lets men take a firm stand’ (RV 3.59.1),¹⁸⁶ ‘Let us seek to conclude a contract with Indra [135] by means of [the words of] our songs!’ (RV 8.96.6). This agreement, which presumably stipulated the subject and duration¹⁸⁷ of the contract as well as the ‘legal consequences’ in the event of a breach—amounting to a promissory oath (see p. 115)—was concluded before the holy fire, which was called upon to bear witness to the binding character of the word given: ‘Like a well-concluded contract Agni shines . . . among the tribes of men’ (RV 4.6.7). Agni, the god of fire, can for this reason also be considered the god who ‘like Mitra lets mortals take a firm stand’ (RV 8.102.12) and punishes defaulters: ‘Agni shall . . . with hottest blaze snap at those who cheat the edict of Varuna, : [cheat] that of . . . Mitra’ (RV 4.5.4). Likely for this reason, one who has broken a contract is advised to offer an expiatory sacrifice to Agni.¹⁸⁸ The connection between the fire and the contract was so close that one

¹⁸⁵ The Avestan Miθra, too, as shown by Yt. 10.13 and 104, has such relationships with the dawn and the sun. ¹⁸⁶ Where these lines are immediately followed by ‘Offer up to Mitra the food offering characterised by ghee’, this clearly refers to ‘milk sacrifices’ made as a way of sealing a contract (see p. 112). ¹⁸⁷ Indications that a contract is to last one year are found repeatedly in Vedic texts: ‘For one year, a contract is made’ (Maitrāyanī II 1,2: 2.8, cf. Kāt:haka X 3: 127.5 and Taittirīya-Samhitā II 2,6.2). : Samhitā : : This seems to be related to the fact that in general, ‘circumstances’ are [392] annulled after one year has elapsed. After all, a debt that one has taken on also disappears after one year has passed (cf. TaittirīyaSamhitā II 5,1.2, VI 6,3.1). This would seem to be based on a belief in the ‘nullifying’ power of the : advent of a new year. ¹⁸⁸ Confirming passages have been noted by C, Altindische Zauberei, Amsterdam 1908, 8, and H, Aufsätze zur Indoiranistik, Vol. I, Wiesbaden 1976, 294–5 (cf. also O, Religion, 292 fn. 2). The same is advised when an oath is broken (see E-Kü, Ein Eidbruch im Rgveda, Münchener Studien zur Sprachwissenschaft 41 [1982] 27). :

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even saw in Agni an embodiment of Mitra (see p. 96):¹⁸⁹ ‘Agni has been placed in the settlements of men, the embryo of the waters, he who achieves [contracts] through truth,¹⁹⁰ he who is Mitra’ (RV 3.5.3).¹⁹¹ In addition to the fire, heaven and earth are called upon to witness the oral contract (see p. 141): ‘[Heaven and earth], you . . . bring about the truth of the contract! [As witnesses] you have set yourselves down around the sacrifice’ (RV 4.56.7).¹⁹² Thus it appears that within the Rgveda, the old Indo-European triad of oath-witnesses¹⁹³ lives on (see p. 35 : fn. 14): the sky, who sees all and punishes contract violators and oath breakers with a stroke of lightning; the earth, who hears everything and can draw evildoers into itself; and the sun—here in the form of fire. Because the partners to a contract, who enter into an oral agreement through mutual consent, are usually strangers and in many cases even potential enemies, concluding a contract requires various safeguards, and this entails an extensive contract formalism. In addition to the ritual of giving one’s word, which is at the centre of the ceremony (probably both oral contract and oath), in later times various [136] affirmation rituals took place to assure the binding character of the oral contract. Examples include pouring water or other liquids, the parties clasping each other’s right hand, pacing off seven steps together, animal sacrifice, and sharing a meal. For libations in the context of making a contract—apparently an IndoEuropean custom—primarily water was used in the younger Vedic era. For example, when gifts were given—such as a gift of land—this was usually accompanied by a pouring of water.¹⁹⁴ Various indications seem to show that in Rgvedic : times, dairy products were poured into the fire when the point was to close a contract. For example, ‘[the milk cow] shall give milk¹⁹⁵ to the covenant made with the two of you [, you Aśvins]’ (RV 1.120.9). Against this background is it clear why it is said of Mitra—as well as of Varuna : and Agni—that ‘he eat clarified butter’ and ‘drink such’ (RV 6.67.8; 8.29.9, 74.2). Clasping right hands on the occasion of closing a contract—also of Indo-European heritage—and striding

¹⁸⁹ M, The abode of Mitra, Journal of the Department of Sanskrit, University of Delhi 3 (1975) 110–14, surmises (in particular on the basis of RV 5.3.1) that Mitra’s abode is within the wood that is kindled to make the fire before which a contract is made. ¹⁹⁰ On ‘truth’, see pp. 51–3. ¹⁹¹ In RV 2.1.4 it says of Agni: ‘You, o Agni, are King Varuna : . . . , you are Mitra . . . , you are Aryaman’ (cf. also RV 1.94.13, 5.3.1, 5.9.6, 6.8.3, 7.9.3). ¹⁹² Also compare RV 10.10.5: ‘One does not cheat his vows, of this earth and heaven are witnesses’. ¹⁹³ See U, Dreiheit, Rheinisches Museum für Philologie 58 (1903) 18. The sun retained this function in Rgvedic times as well (see p. 143). Here, however, the old Sky god has been inherited to a : great extent by Mitra and Varuna. : ¹⁹⁴ O, Noten ad loc., ponders whether this is not perhaps what is meant in RV 2.13.7: ‘You, [o Indra], . . . who divided the rivers on the occasion of your[/the] gift’. There are difficulties— ́ because ‘gift’, or ‘giving’, is usually although not insurmountable—raised by the accentuation dāne, dāná. ¹⁹⁵ At the same time reference is made to the preparation of the Gharma, the sacrifice for the Aśvins, to whom this song is addressed (see O, Noten ad loc.).

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seven steps¹⁹⁶ together¹⁹⁷ are already known in the Rgveda as well (RV 10.47.1; : 8.52.3, 10.8.4). Animal sacrifice and a shared meal, also required for contracts and alliances in Greece and Rome, seem to have taken place in Rgvedic times in the : context of a Soma sacrifice that had as its focus sharing a drink of Soma to seal a contract (RV 8.69.7).

5.6.7 Varuna : Varuna : is one of the group of Ādityas (RV 2.27.1), which also includes Mitra, Aryaman, Bhaga, Amśa, and Daks: a. Although only six of them are named in the : stanza cited, RV 9.114.3 mentions seven ‘godly sons of the Aditi’, and this is confirmed by RV 10.72.8–9 insofar as it mentions one of the ‘eight sons the Aditi’, Mārtān: da : by name, the divine [137] forefather of mortals, separately from the others (see pp. 187–8). Varuna : is far closer to Aryaman and especially to Mitra— all equally heirs of the old Sky god (see p. 55)—than to any of the other Ādityas, who are not nearly as important as these three. They are repeatedly mentioned together: ‘You—Mitra, Aryaman, Varuna—are indeed the ones who punish much : injustice. They grew up in the house of truth’ (RV 7.60.5). With Mitra, in turn, Varuna : forms a divine couple, and they are frequently invoked together.¹⁹⁸ The mighty warrior Indra is nearly the opposite of Varuna: : ‘One slays the enemies in battle, the other protects the commandments eternally’ (RV 7.83.9). As the god of settling (ks: éma) in Vedic tribal society and of the fixed order of the cosmos, Varuna : is the counterpart of Indra, god of the ‘yoking’ (see pp. 82–6). Settling and cosmic order are bound together, and their continuance is ensured by commandments and vows, the strict observance of which is supervised by Varuna. : He commits mortals to ‘truth’, to full concordance of word and deed (see p. 52) and causes the processes in the cosmos to follow a strict regularity: ‘Today the same and tomorrow the same, [the dawns] follow the long law of Varuna’ : (RV 1.123.8). His function starts where that of Indra stops: he gives Indra’s raw world an orderly form by determining the path of the sun, setting the stars in their places, measuring out the earth, and digging the channels of the rivers; by defining rules for living together in a society, and punishing any breach of those rules. As a punishing god, Varuna : is feared in his anger: ‘Abiding in these fixed dwellings [we want to honour] you—Varuna : shall release his snare from us’ (RV 7.88.7). It does not matter whether the transgressions that he punishes— often with oedema—were committed consciously or unconsciously, purposely or ¹⁹⁶ This seven may—as so often in the Rgveda—stand for totality and completeness (see p. 2 fn. 3). : ¹⁹⁷ RV 8.69.7 apparently shows that one of the parties to the contract went first, and the other followed. ¹⁹⁸ RV 1.115.5 already associates Mitra with the day and Varuna : with the night (see previous note p. 109 fn. 178).

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accidentally. As heir of the old Sky god, he sees misdeeds in the daytime with his sun-eye [138], and at night his spies, the stars, bring reports of them to him, the great king (see p. 35 fn. 13). Thus he, ‘who is not to be fooled’ (RV 1.25.13—14) and is omniscient (RV 10.11.1), knows everything that happens in this world. If the behaviour of mortals is in conformity with his commands and rules, he rewards them—as does Mitra (see p. 109)—with rain and fertility: ‘You guardians of truth, whose decrees are true, mount the chariot in the highest heaven. Whom you, o Mitra and Varuna, : help here, for him the rain from heaven swells with honey’ (RV 5.63.1). Herein too his kingship is seen: ‘Varuna : has turned the waterskin with its opening downward flowing on heaven and earth and in the midspace. Through this, he is king of the entire world. As rain the grain, he wets the ground’ (RV 5.85.3). As successor to the Indo-European Sky god and as one of the Asuras (see pp. 77–8), the ‘old’ gods,¹⁹⁹ Varuna : in particular commands oath and ordeal, with which he binds men to truth (see pp. 115–16): ‘In their midst King Varuna : moves along, looking down upon the truth and lies of mortals—let these waters, divine, assist me’ (RV 7.49.3). Varuna : is believed to be present in the water in the sight of which the oath is taken. This is why the oath-taker is exhorted by the judge, in the following words, to speak the truth: ‘When one man stands or walks or staggers about or furtively creeps or lunges out, when two come together and confer, King Varuna : knows this as the third. The earth here belongs to Varuna : and the distant heaven above. The two seas are the sides of Varuna’s : belly; he is also hidden in this scant water’ (Atharvaveda IV 16,2–3). Varuna : can cause the heavens to rain because he, like Mitra, is in possession of miraculous power (māyā):́ ‘You cause the heavens to rain through the magical power of the Asura’ (RV 5.63.3). Yet Varuna : also has an extremely close relationship to ‘cosmic’ water (see p. 66), this being in fact where he resides: ‘In the sky the Maruts float [139]; on earth, Agni. This wind here drifts in the midspace. In the waters, the great rivers, Varuna : moves along’ (RV 1.161.14). The water on which the oath is sworn thus evidently stands for Varuna’s : ‘watery home’ (RV 2.38.8). And because it surrounds the entire world with the celestial ocean above and the waters of the underworld below, an oath sworn on Varuna’s waters surely will : have encompassed, in a manner of speaking, the entire cosmos: the oath is sworn upon all that exists.²⁰⁰ The punishment for violating this oath, in accordance with the oath ritual, is oedema, which Varuna : himself inflicts upon the evildoer (RV 7.89.2). A feared avenger of all violations of his order on the one hand, yet on the other a good, benevolent, even merciful ruler (RV 7.89.1), Varuna : evinces a truly ¹⁹⁹ Thus swearing an oath by Varuna : corresponds to Hera’s swearing by the Titans (Iliad Ξ 278–80). ²⁰⁰ [393] The idea of swearing an oath by the river Styx, too, ‘is a result of the last part of the cosmic formula being mistakenly separated from the rest’ of that formula, in which the oath is sworn by the sky, the earth with its rivers, and the underworld (B, Greek Religion, Harvard University Press 1985, 251).

     ̣   

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ambivalent character. Although this can be satisfactorily explained by the form of regent Varuna : embodies—a king who rules with profound knowledge, even wisdom, yet as judge nonetheless persecutes and punishes mercilessly—the roots of his ambivalence go deeper. After all, unlike Indra and the gods called Devas, Varuna : was originally one of the Asuras, the ‘old’ gods (see p. 78). Like Mitra, he too is ‘the Asura among the Devas’ (RV 7.65.2), ‘the Deva who was an Asura’ (RV 8.25.4). Although he ‘defected’ to the new gods—due to an actual evocatio that is the topic of an entire song (RV 10.124)—and is now one of them, his Asura origin makes him more unpredictable than the Devas, who are essentially always benevolent. When the primeval world of the Asuras was integrated into the newly emerged world of the gods, Varuna : retained command over the underworld and the waters that stretched from there across the firmament (see pp. 66–7). His command of the dark underworld, too, distinguishes Varuna : from the bright Sky gods, and causes mortals to have much greater fear of him than of the others.

5.6.7.1 The oath A special type of curse (see pp. 277–8)—a conditional self-curse—is the oath: ‘May I die today if I am a sorcerer or if I have burned the life force of a man’ (RV 7.104.15). It ensures that a statement, such as an oral contract, is absolutely binding.²⁰¹ A distinction is to be made between promissory and assertory oaths. The former represents a declaration of will for the future, whereas the latter reinforces a statement about something in the past. How an oath is formulated, and the ritual performed with it are constitutive elements of swearing an oath. The formula of an oath comprises speaking a vow that reinforces the truth of a statement—swearing the truth—and naming the calamity that threatens if the oath is broken:²⁰² the latter may afflict one’s own life, even continuing into the afterlife; the lives of family members—as the legal responsibility lies not with the individual, but with the entire clan, which is responsible for the actions of the individual—or objects that are very dear to the one taking the oath. Should it fall due, however, the calamity can be deflected by making a sacrifice: ‘[Agni,] the head of the (sacrifice-)chariot is gladdened [by the sacrifice], he who has deceived against the oath is not [any longer] tainted thereby with evil’ (RV 10.132.4). With these words the said evil is, so to speak, burned in the fire: ‘In this [fire] purified by cow dung, is this evil. [This fire] kills the heroes who, after making a contract, have committed [the outrage of breach of contract]’ (RV 10.132.5).²⁰³ Swearing an oath oftentimes involves calling upon non-human witnesses, which makes perjury a ²⁰¹ It is the strongest means known in pre-state societies for binding a man to his word. ²⁰² Oath breaking refers to both the breach of a promise made under oath—regardless of whether the one swearing the oath is objectively at fault—and the swearing of a false oath, i.e. swearing under oath to something one knows is not true. ²⁰³ On RV 10.132 see E-K ¨ , Ein Eidbruch im Rgveda. Münchener Studien zur : Sprachwissenschaft 41 (1982), 23–31.

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sacral offence. These witnesses are most often the sun, the sky, and the earth—the old Indo-European triad of oath witness (see p. 112)²⁰⁴—or a god responsible for oaths. In the Vedic religion, it is Varuna. : The oath ritual ultimately clothed the formulation of the oath in a certain external form that reinforced the binding character of the oral contract. This may include raising the right [141] hand, touching a given object, and/or pouring out water or other liquids while speaking the oath: ‘Varuna, : guardian of the oath . . . will not harm you . . . If you, after betaking yourself into the water, have sworn a contractual oath or have grasped the kindled fire, the untruth you have spoken, consciously or unconsciously, should not harm you . . .’ (AVP 5.36.3–4).²⁰⁵ The object touched might be the ‘forfeit’ upon which the potential destruction is to be inflicted; one’s own body²⁰⁶ or that of another other person or of an animal; a weapon or other accoutrement of battle; a rock; or any of a number of other things. Often the object is destroyed as part of the ritual, sharply accentuating the irrevocability of the oath. The weapons oath, well known in warlike societies and frequently mentioned in heroic poetry, may involve not only placing the warrior’s invaluable property ‘at stake’, but also designating the weapon as the instrument—like fire or water—by which the oath-taker will die should the oath be broken.

5.6.8 B:rhaspati B:rhaspati, a deity who in the older parts of the Rgveda is still in the process of : coming into being, owes his existence to a division of functions: the priestly function of King Indra,²⁰⁷ originally denoted by the epithet bŕ̥haspáti, has taken on the independent form of the god B:rhaspati, who was then placed at Indra’s side.²⁰⁸ The most momentous deed performed by this ‘deified ideal priest’,²⁰⁹ who also bears the name Brahmanaspati,²¹⁰ is the crushing of the Vala rock : ²⁰⁴ That the sky functions as witness to an oath in later times as well is dimly perceptible. After all, the custom of swearing oaths on the sky is likely what is behind (for example) Kaut:ilya in his Arthaśāstra demanding that legal matters ‘that . . . are concluded within the walls of a house, by night, in the jungle . . . are to be declared invalid’ (III 1.2). ²⁰⁵ As regards the Rgveda, the custom of touching water is substantiated only in the case of uttering : a curse: ‘Like water grasped in the hand, o Indra, let the speaker of untruth be not-being’ (RV 7.104.8). Yet the oath can be inferred from this curse. It is possible that RV 1.23.22 is comparable: ‘O Waters, drive away whatever is bad in me, or if I have betrayed [someone] or too if I have sworn a falsehood’. ²⁰⁶ Thus it says in Śāṅkhāyana-G:rhyasūtra I 10,9 (and very similarly in Kātyāyana-Śrautasūtra I 10.14): ‘After he had touched himself [when swearing the oath], he shall touch water’. ²⁰⁷ On the figure of the ‘priest-king’ see pp. 8–9. ²⁰⁸ With the exception of RV 4.50.3, the Rgveda has no indication of an independent Soma-libation : for B:rhaspati (see S, B:rhaspati und Indra, Wiesbaden 1968, 94 with fn. 2). And only together with Indra is B:rhaspati ever offered Soma (cf. also RV 9.85.6). ²⁰⁹ O, Religion, 146. ²¹⁰ See O, Religion, 89, and S, B:rhaspati und Indra, Wiesbaden 1968, 24. The interpretation of the god’s name, Bŕ̥haspáti, as Bráhman: aspáti took place early on, ‘although after the splitting off of the god B:rhaspati, as is clear from the absence of bráhman: aspáti as an epithet of Indra’s’ (S, B:rhaspati und Indra, 239) [394].

     ̣   

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(see pp. 169–75). In the myth that tells of this heroic deed, B:rhaspati was at Indra’s side, and then in his place—that is, in the place of the god from whom he once had been split off. For while in the original [142] version of this myth Indra and the Aṅgiras battling at his side, the primordial singers,²¹¹ smash the rock with their ‘priestly’ weapons—chants, recitations, and poems—(apparently) later versions have two main actors, Indra and B:rhaspati, who accomplish this deed together.²¹² Here it is B:rhaspati (like the Aṅgiras in the other version) in the role of Indra’s priest, fortifying him for his heroic deed. Already in the Rgveda B:rhaspati is the Purohita of the gods (RV 2.24.9, : 4.50.7),²¹³ who stands vis-à-vis Agni as the ‘priest’ of the people. And just as the Purohita later, as alter ego of the king, legitimises his rule, giving him the right to exercise power and ensuring his acceptance by his subjects, Agni does the same for the mortal and B:rhaspati for the divine ruler, i.e. for Indra. This new concept of religious legitimation apparently reflects societal circumstances in which neither the application of purely physical force to eliminate threats to power, nor birth and relationship, had been deemed sufficient as the legitimising principles of command in archaic societies. The requirement instead was contact with the gods, which was established and maintained by the Purohita: ‘Now about the office of the Purohita: the gods do not eat the food of a king who has no Purohita. Should a king wish to sacrifice, let him appoint a Brahman as his Purohita, so that the gods will eat his food’ (Aitareya-Brāhmana : VIII 24,1–2).²¹⁴

5.6.9 Gandharva The Rgveda knows two completely different sides of the divine being whose name : has repeatedly—although whether justifiably, seems highly questionable—been brought into connection with the Greek centaurs.²¹⁵ It shows Gandharva on the one hand as antagonistically disposed towards the gods, yet on the other hand assisting them [143]. Only the eighth book shows him as being in conflict with the

²¹¹ While it is true that the Aṅgiras are considered Agni’s offspring, their true father is the sky (see O, Religion, 126). RV 1.71.5 connects their birth to the incest committed by the Sky god with his daughter, i.e. presumably Us: as (see S, B:rhaspati und Indra, Wiesbaden 1968, 44–8). As Indra’s father was also the sky, they were his brothers and took part in the ‘crushing (killing)’ of their father, the Vala (= stone sky). ²¹² Only one song, namely RV 6.73, ascribes this deed to B:rhaspati alone. And yet ‘the description given there is based on notions that are borrowed from Indra on the one hand, and from Agni and the fathers (Aṅgiras) on the other’ (S, B:rhaspati und Indra, Wiesbaden 1968, 238). ²¹³ On Br: haspati as Brahman, see O, Religion, 395 fn. 1. ²¹⁴ On the institution of the Purohita, which finds particular mention in RV 10.98, see O, Religion, 375–9. ²¹⁵ It is important to consider the conspicuous commonalities. Both are closely connected to horses, both are mighty warriors and passionate lovers (which is not without hazard for the object of desire, in view of the animalistic appetites they have), both play captivating music, and both are in possession of intoxicating drinks. And Chiron, the benevolent centaur and teacher of many heroes, is—like the Gandharvas—rich in wisdom and magical knowledge.

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gods, alluding as it does to a fight between Gandharva and Indra (RV 8.1.11, 77.5).²¹⁶ While the object of their dispute is not explicitly named, there is much that indicates it is Soma. A very similar myth is found in the Avesta (see p. 62). Both this myth and that in the eighth Man: dala, which clearly exhibits connections : with the west, i.e. with Iran, thus trace back to an Indo-Iranian myth that tells of a being called *G(h)andharu̯á who guards the *Sáu̯ma in the celestial waters and had to fight the ‘dragon slayer’ when the latter attempted to take possession of the celestial libation—a fight that ended in the death of the Soma guardian (see p. 57). No mention is made of enmity between Gandharva and Indra or any other god, outside the eighth book.²¹⁷ There, Gandharva is a heavenly being who resides near the sun, or in the celestial waters (RV 9.85.12, cf. 10.139.4) and who guards— among other things—the Soma for the benefit of (apparently) the gods and of the sacrificers who worship the gods with him (see RV 9.83.4). He receives the Soma from the ‘daughter of the sun’ (Sūŕ yasya Duhitā)́ —the morning twilight—to place in the Soma plant and in this manner bring it into this world: ‘The buffalo that has grown from Parjanya, – the daughter of the sun brought him, the Gandharvas²¹⁸ received him, they placed him as juice in the Soma (plant)’ (RV 9.113.3). He does this with other things originating in the ‘beyond’ as well. He ‘leads the horse’ into this world (RV 1.163.2) and also brings the bride from ‘outside’ into her new family (RV 10.85.40–41). What he conveys in this manner, he places under a kind of ‘quarantine’ lasting three days—the usual period of time after which that which is alien has lost the menacing quality it once held.²¹⁹ Thus the notion of a being that guards the Soma, still perceptible in the eighth book of the Rgveda, has : apparently been reinterpreted in such a way that [144] this being was assigned the task of conducting things from ‘outside’ into this world and in the process divesting them of their danger. As guardian at the boundary between this world and the one beyond, and as god of the ‘transition’, special knowledge is ascribed to

²¹⁶ Because Indra and Kutsa are always battling Śus: na, : O, Noten on RV 8.1.11, surmises that by Gandharva, against whom the two fight in RV 8.1.11, actually Śus: na : is meant. ²¹⁷ Aside from RV 3.38.6, Gandharva is not mentioned at all in the ‘family books’, RV 2–7. ²¹⁸ In the Rgveda there are seventeen instances of Gandharva in the singular form as compared to : only three in the plural. In post-Rgvedic texts, however, the ratio is the exact opposite. The group of : Gandharvas seems to have gradually developed from the one Gandharva, and this is also supported by the one Gandarәßa of the Avesta. That one Gandharva was likely Viśvāvasu. : ²¹⁹ This applies to the Soma, when it was acquired; to the Veda student, who enters the house of the teacher, and also when he leaves the settlement with his teacher to go into the wilderness [395] and learn certain parts of the Veda (see Śāṅkhāyana-G:rhyasūtra II 12.6/9); to the bride after the wedding; and to the woman during her fertile period (:rtú). It is interesting to note that the Avesta also tells of a three-day period. After a person dies, his soul—if he has lived righteously—is conducted to the paradisiacal hereafter when three days have passed: ‘When the splendid [dawn as it grows light] illuminates the third night, appears, and the well-armed Miθra rises over the mountains . . . .’ (Vd. 19,27–8; similarly Hādōxt Nask 2,7–9). A three-day period also plays a role in the story of the rescue of Pāuruua (Yt. 5.62), whatever its significance there may be. In any case, it is important that the related rescue of Bhujyu by the Aśvins (see p. 183) also takes ‘three nights and three days’ (RV 1.116.4).

     ̣   

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Gandharva (cf. Aharvaveda II 1,2, Śatapatha-Brāhmana : XI 2,3.7) that enables him to detect the true nature of that to which he grants passage. He detects—in the words of RV 10.123.4—their ‘immortal names’, which he reveals to Indra (RV 10.139.6). Of particular significance for the conception of Gandharva was the conveyance of the bride from ‘outside’ to ‘inside’, which was reflected in the Vedic marriage ritual. At the moment when the bride leaves her parental home to be conveyed to her new home, the Gandharva Viśvāvasu was entreated to ‘seek himself another girl who still lives with her father’ (RV 10.85.21).²²⁰ Up to her marriage, the girl belonged to Viśvāvasu—her second ‘husband’ (RV 10.85.40–41). The Gandharvas then also accompany the girl to the abode of her husband. Sitting in trees together with the Apsaras, they watch—so says the Atharvaveda—as the wedding procession passes. This is the occasion to ask that they be well disposed towards this procession and inflict no harm upon it (Atharvaveda XIV 2,9, ĀpastambaG:rhyasūtra II 6,5). His close relationship to the bride was apparently interpreted as desire, even lust, for women and as a sign of exceptional virility (cf. Atharvaveda IV 37,11, Jaiminīya-Brāhmana : III 76; Atharvaveda IV 4,1), which gave the Gandharva a close connection to fertility and procreation (cf. Pañcavimśa-Brāhma na : : XIX 3.2). All this played a role in a concept of the creation of mankind as originating with Yama and Yamī. When Yama tries to dissuade his sister Yamī from her incestuous cravings, he reminds her that ‘the Gandharva in the waters and the water woman is our [shared] umbilicus’ (RV 10.10.4). And Āyu, the forefather of men, is ultimately descended from these two (see p. 151). [145] The Gandharvas, lovers par excellence, are companions to the Apsaras (RV 10.123.5),²²¹ which is why the term Gandharva marriage denotes a ‘love marriage’.²²² And like the Apsaras (see pp. 150–1), the Gandharvas too can cause obsession and madness (RV 10.139.6). And people who are in their ‘clutches’— called gandharvag:rhīta, which is highly reminiscent of the Greek νυμφόληπτοι (see p. 39 fn. 31)—go insane. Because this is concomitant with the power of divination, (see Aitareya-Brāhmana : V 29, Kaus: ītaki-Brāhmana : II 9), there seems to be a connection with ‘profound knowledge’ of the Gandharva. Occasionally the poets have the Gandharva becoming indistinct from that which he brings in from ‘outside’. Thus Gandharva is the Soma (RV 9.85.12, 86.36), and as such RV 10.123 calls him Vena, ‘seer’, who can be seen from earth as a celestial light phenomenon—this has been supposed to be a rainbow. ²²⁰ The Atharvaveda has the Gandharva Viśvāvasu driven away by the bride to the Apsaras, as it was, after all, ‘his origin’ (XIV 2,34). ²²¹ Gandharvas and Apsaras are extremely reminiscent of the satyrs and their playmates, the nymphs. Like the centaurs, with whom the Gandharvas are also apparently related (see p. 117 with fn. 215), the satyrs also seem to have (or to have had) something to do with horses, because they are pictured as having horses’ ears and horses’ tails. ²²² It is interesting to note that on the Greek side the bride is called a ‘nymph’ (see B, Greek Religion, Harvard University Press 1985, 173).

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5.6.10 Indra Indra, the ‘Lord of Strength’ and hero of numerous myths, evolved after the end of the Indo-Iranian period from a fusion of the Indo-Iranian god of victory, *Ṷr̥traghná (‘[god] smasher of the ramparts’),²²³ with the form—likely already Indo-European—of a ‘dragon-slaying’²²⁴ hero²²⁵ (see pp. 35–6).²²⁶ In the process, their heroic deeds devolved upon him, including the killing of the ‘dragon’, now called V:rtra (see p. 54), and, for example, of Gandharva. Subsequently the adventures of other heroes were ascribed to him, as for example the theft of Viśvarūpa’s cattle.²²⁷ In addition there were many battles in which he aided men against powerful—in most cases demonic²²⁸—opponents, usually characterised as Dāsa or Dasyu.²²⁹ For example, he helps Kutsa against Śus: na, : Rjiśvan : against Pipru, and Atithigva against Śambara. Unlike the killing of V:rtra and the smashing of the Vala, Indra accomplishes these deeds, as seen in the few examples given [146], for individual persons: on the one hand cosmogonic deeds in illo tempore for the benefit of mankind; on the other, aid in battle against enemies of the Āryas as help for certain people who are mentioned by name.²³⁰ Nevertheless, myth and history are inextricably blended in these battle tales, and history continues myth (see p. 181). It is Soma that makes Indra capable of all these feats, the theft of which from heaven is the basis of his rise to power and command. And so the myth of the Soma theft (see pp. 159–63) touches on decisive points of Indra’s birth and early youth. Like the lives of other heroes, that of Indra is no random combination of ²²³ To this effect, T, Kleine Schriften, Wiesbaden 1984, 407–9, 1105, improved upon the findings of B/R, V:rtra et V:rθragna, Étude de Mythologie indo-iranienne, Paris 1934, 116. ²²⁴ For this heroic deed, the ‘slaying of the serpent’, not only the Indo-Iranian formula (*áǰhim √ǰhan) but also the Indo-European (*ógṷhim √gṷhen), is discernible. ²²⁵ In particular, Indra shares his deeds with Kәrәsāspa, right down to certain details. In the battle with Vr: tra, for example, he is stricken with a paralyzing fear, exactly like the Avestan hero who was horribly frightened when the horned serpent, which he ultimately killed, knocked over the cooking pot which he had brought to the boil on top of the monster (Y 9.11). And it is surely no accident that the enumeration of Kәrәsāspa’s deeds in Yt. 19.38–43 is reminiscent of the ‘deed-catalogues’ found in so many of the Indra songs in the Rgveda (see also the next note) [396]. : ²²⁶ The result of this formation process is a complex deity with a highly distinctive activity profile. This is seen in the hymns that are characteristic of Indra, such as RV 5.30 or 10.49, in which virtual ‘catalogues’ of heroic feats are presented. Significantly, we find a comparable listing in the Avesta extolling the deeds of Kәrәsāspa, in whom ultimately the same dragon-slaying hero lives on as in Indra (see previous note). ²²⁷ If it were true that ‘the V:rtra myth corresponds to Heracles’ battle with the Hydra, and the Vala myth to the theft of the Geryon’s cattle’—as claimed by S, B:rhaspati und Indra, Wiesbaden 1968, 243—then the two feats that distinguish Indra would have been performed, on the Greek side, by one and the same hero. Yet the myth of the cattle theft by Geryon likely has a Rgvedic counterpart in the : Viśvarūpa myth (see p. 175), and its ‘actual’ hero was apparently Trita (see pp. 57–8). ²²⁸ Some of these demons, such as Śus: na : and Pipru (cf. RV 6.20.7), seem to have serpentine forms, as did V:rtra and Viśvarūpa. ²²⁹ See O, Religion, 148–58. ²³⁰ This happens to be an attribute Indra shares with Agni (see p. 73).

     ̣   

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wondrous deeds and events, but rather follows, to a large extent, the stereotypical structure of the hero’s vita.²³¹ This is usually arranged as follows: I. The hero’s conception: (1) The mother is a virgin; (2) the father is a god; (3) the father has taken on the form of an animal; (4) the child is the fruit of incest, and in many cases is cast out for that reason (see III–1). II. The hero’s birth: (1) The birth does not take place in the normal manner; (2) the child is born by ‘Caesarean section’; (3) the birth is accompanied by miracles. III. The hero’s childhood:²³² (1) The child is cast out, (2) but it is nursed by animals; (3) later, the child is found by shepherds or other persons who wander the ‘outside’ realm; (4) the child is raised outdoors by a person who has ‘magical’ knowledge.²³³ IV. The hero’s youth: (1) The hero’s great strength, courage, or other special characteristic is revealed at a young age; (2) the boy may, however, be very slow in his development initially; he may be mute or even considered insane [147]; (3) in some cases the hero acquires invulnerability. V. The adult hero: (1) One of the most common heroic feats is the fight with a ‘dragon’ or other monster—usually after the hero has survived other terrible dangers—and in the process he (2) rescues a virgin held captive by the monster; (3) the hero undertakes a journey to the underworld; (4) if he had been cast out in childhood or youth, he later returns and overcomes his adversary. VI. The hero’s death: (1) Often the hero dies young; (2) in some cases his death is accompanied by miracles. It is not difficult to discover the essential elements of this biography in the Rgveda—setting aside for the moment aspects of his parentage (I–1/2), of growing : up in a stranger’s house (III–4), and of fighting a dragon, including the rescue of a virgin (V–1/2). His mother (I–4) deemed Indra a blemish: ‘[She] thought Indra a disgrace and concealed him’ (RV 4.18.5). And she (II–1), too, did not bring her son into the world in a normal manner: ‘[The mother says:] “This is the ancient

²³¹ The formulas adhered to in describing these heroes’ lives are often stereotypical as well. ²³² Indra’s birth and childhood are the subjects of songs RV 3.48 and 4.18. ²³³ Many of the heroes in Indo-European mythology are raised as foster children. That the foster parents were often relatives of the mother was apparently to establish strong relationship bonds.

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    ̣  

path, on which all gods were born. In this way shall he, grown strong, be born. He shall not, in the wrong way, make the mother dead”.—[But Indra answers her:] ‘I will not go out here, that is a bad way. Crosswise, from the side, I will go out’ (RV 4.18.1–2). His birth is (II–3) accompanied by miracles: ‘At your birth . . . the mighty mountains are in turmoil, the steppes sway, the waters surge’ (RV 4.17.2cd). He is born in this manner (IV–1) ‘at the same time with strength’ (RV 2.22.3). On the other hand, however, the young hero is weak, and it is the Soma, brought by the falcon, that gives him strength: ‘Out of need, I roasted for myself the entrails of a dog . . . I saw how the woman (my mother) was dishonoured. Then a falcon brought the Soma to me’ (RV 4.18.13). And for him [148] ‘the mother poured [this Soma] . . . in the house of the great father’ (RV 3.48.2). The tremendous strength of the hero—this is another frequent motif in his vita—also requires a tremendous amount of sustenance. The hero easily devours mountains of meat and drinks enormous quantities of mead: ‘Agni roasted . . . for the brother-in-arms 300 buffaloes. [And] Indra drank the pressed Soma from Manu, three lakes full at one time, to kill V:rtra’ (RV 5.29.7). Alongside these eating and drinking sprees, which now and then lead to hangovers which must then be cured (see p. 181), Indra’s more chivalrous adventures recede far into the background. Yet like other heroes, he was no stranger to the latter. His tendency to occasionally slip into another form—an attribute that Indra shares with Vәrәθraγna (see p. 54)—is strikingly reminiscent of Zeus’ amorous escapades. So who is Indra’s father, and who his mother? The Rgveda mentions two fathers : of Indra: one is the Asura Dyaus; the other, the smith Tvas: t::r (RV 1.71.5, 3.54.9, 4.17.4; 3.48.2–4, 4.18). This curious circumstance can be explained if one assumes that Indra’s ‘biological’ father Dyaus—and his mother, the earth (see pp. 124–6)— gave him away to grow up in the care of Tvas: t:r: . It was the latter, too, who crafted his club for him (RV 1.32.2, 1.61.6, 2.17.6, 5.31.4, 6.17.10, 10.48.3).²³⁴ Thus is the figure of Indra added to the long line of heroes who are raised outside their actual family by a smith.²³⁵ This also explains how Indra was ‘cast out’ (RV 4.18.3–5)— another typical event in the life of a hero (see III–1).²³⁶ Indra takes revenge for this ignominious treatment (V–4): he kills the Sky god by smashing this stony giant with his club (see p. 126). If—as is likely—the Vala is ultimately none other than ²³⁴ According to RV 6.44.22, Indra steals his ‘father’s’ weapons. Here too, apparently an old motif lives on; to come into possession of the smith’s secret knowledge, the latter must pass it on voluntarily—which often led to betrayals—or it had to be stolen, as Prometheus steals the fire from the smithy of Hephaistos. ²³⁵ The craft of a blacksmith stands out so distinctly from that of other craftsmen in agrarian and pastoral societies that the smith was seen as a kind of sorcerer, to whom—as to a shaman—even the ability to fly has been ascribed. Myths and legends often relate [397] that the tendons in a smiths feet are severed to prevent this bearer of important knowledge from leaving the tribe, which explains the ‘lame’ smiths Hephaistos and Wayland. ²³⁶ The falcon that brings the Soma is presumably the animal that nurses/raises the hero when he is cast out as a child (see III–2). See also p. 62 fn. 84 and p. 91 fn. 84.

     ̣   

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Dyaus, the stone Sky god, Indra was assisted in this by the Aṅgiras, as the latter took revenge for their incestuous conception (see p. 184) [149].

5.6.11 Tvas: t:r: the smith Tvas: t:r: , whose name means the ‘carpentering [craftsman]’,²³⁷ has for quite some time been associated with the smiths Völundr-Wayland and Hephaistos.²³⁸ The voracious carnal appetites of Hephaistos, born of Hera who had no husband and himself the spouse of Aphrodite; Waylandʼs rape of Badhild (Böðvildr); and the repeated references to Tvas: t:r: ’s semen in the Rgveda and his relationship with the : gods’ wives²³⁹—which also distinguishes ‘his’ priest, Nes: t::r—are all of a piece, along with the connections of these smiths to fertility and intoxicating drinks: Indra drinks the Soma when he is with Tvas: t:r: , who fashioned the bowl for the potion; Hephaistos limps around pouring wine for the gods²⁴⁰ and is a close friend of Dionysos, the ‘son of the sky’ (see p. 125); Wayland, hamstrung by King Nidung, gets the king’s daughter Badhild drunk on beer and rapes her,²⁴¹ and kills her brothers and makes drinking bowls of their skulls. Among the things these ‘smith gods’ have in common are also their sons. Tvas: t::r’s son Viśvarūpa, ‘sister-son of the Asuras’,²⁴² is described in the Vedic texts as ‘three-headed’ (RV 10.8.8–9, Taittirīya-Samhitā II 5,1, Śatapatha-Brāhmana : : I 6,3.1). RV 10.8.8, furthermore, calls him ‘seven-tongued’. Viśvarūpa is clearly a continuation of an earlier serpent figure.²⁴³ In this he resembles the other two smith-gods’ sons, Erichthonios and Witege. The former is presented as either snake-footed or dragon-footed, born of or out of the earth after Hephaistos spilled his semen on the ground while trying to rape Athena;²⁴⁴ the latter has a serpent as his heraldic animal, which is why he is known as Witege mit der slange (Witege with the snake).²⁴⁵ His mother seems to have been Badhild, whom Wayland had ²³⁷ His name is derived from an Indo-Iranian root that is retained only in the Avestan √θβarәs ‘to carpenter, to carve’. ²³⁸ See, for example, O, Religion, 238 fn. 1. ²³⁹ Tvas: t::r’s incest is mentioned in RV 5.42.13 (see pp. 176–7). ²⁴⁰ This is comparable to Tvas: t::r bearing, according to RV 10.53.9, the bowls from which the gods drink Soma. ²⁴¹ See M, Der germanische Himmelsgott, Festgabe für Richard Heinzel, Halle 1898, 235. ²⁴² That Tvas: t::r is an Asura is stated apparently in only one place in the Rgveda (RV 1.110.3), and : even here it is not clear he is the one meant. When this stanza is compared with 1.20.6, however, it seems not improbable. In the Brāhmanas, : Tvas: t::r’s son Viśvaūpa is called ‘sister-son of the Asuras’ (e.g. Kāt:h XII 10: 172.5: viśvarūpo vai triśīrs: āsīt tvas: :t uh: putro ‘surān: ām : svasrīyah: ). Thus these texts seem to count only Viśvarūpa’s mother—whoever that may be (see p. 124 fn. 246)—among the Asuras, and not Tvas: t::r himself. ²⁴³ See O, Religion, 142 with fn. 3. The connection with a serpent as son is thus so characteristic of Tvas: t::r that even in the post-Rgvedic era, a legend emerged relating that Tvas: t::r brought : the serpent Vr: tra to life by pouring out Soma. ²⁴⁴ This myth is strikingly reminiscent of many Indian tales (see p. 39 fn. 244). ²⁴⁵ See M, Der germanische Himmelsgott, Festgabe für Richard Heinzel, Halle 1898, 235.

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violated.²⁴⁶ Thus we may see a figure from ancient Indo-European times not only in the skilled smith, but also in his serpent-like son.²⁴⁷ [150] Tvas: t:r: is in possession of secret magical knowledge²⁴⁸ and filled with sorcerous, demonic powers. He knows of magical potions,²⁴⁹ and it lies in his power to influence the length of a man’s life and affect the fertility of people and beasts.²⁵⁰ Thus he not only fashioned the Soma drinking bowl (cf. RV 1.20.6, 10.53.9), but also living forms both animal (RV 1.188.9) and human (RV 3.4.9, 10.184.1, cf. 10.100.9). This is why he is, in a way, the forefather of the human race²⁵¹—‘All beings are his’ (RV 3.55.19, cf. 5.42.13, 10.10.5)—also because his daughter is Yama’s mother (see pp. 176–7). All of these characteristics are easily explained if Tvas: t::r is the divine smith, especially in light of the fact that Hephaistos is considered the ‘maker’ of the first woman, Pandora (see Hesiod, Theogony 571 ff.); that ‘As a result of his curious encounter with Athena, he becomes de facto father of the first king Erichthonios, and thereby ancestor of the Athenians’;²⁵² and that the shield he fashions in his smithy on Mount Olympus is a depiction of the entire world. Presumably the course of development ran thus: the smith, due to his extraordinary craftsmanship, ultimately took on the attributes of a demiurge.

5.6.12 Indra’s mother If the Sky god Dyaus, who is none other than ‘Father Asura’,²⁵³ who is slain by Indra, is Indra’s father, then it stands to reason that Indra’s mother, called

²⁴⁶ Thus it is also remarkable that in all three versions it remains unclear who the mother of the smith’s son is. The Greek tradition would indicate it is the earth. See also p. 123 fn. 242. ). The fact the he and Viśvarūpa have ²⁴⁷ On the Avestan side, this lives on in Aži Dahāka (see their counterpart in the three-headed ‘roarer’ Geryon of Greco-Roman mythology, whose sister Echidna is half human, half [398] serpent—the Roman parallel apparently being Cacus, the son of Vulcan—raises the question of what connection there may be between Erichthonios and Geryon. ²⁴⁸ Among other things, this is likely indicated by the ‘turned away (= secret) name of the cow of Tvas: t::r’ (RV 1.84.15). See also pp. 144 and 200 fn. 19. ²⁴⁹ This is why Soma is also called the ‘Tvas: t::r’s sweet drink’ (RV 1.117.22). Incidentally, the Irish smith Goibniu is also in possession of the immorality potion (see  V, Altgermanische Religionsgeschichte, Vol. I, Berlin 1956, 255, and B, Kelten, Versuch einer Gesamtdarstellung ihrer Kultur, Vienna 1997, 609). ²⁵⁰ It is he who makes the semen fertile (RV 1.142.10, 3.4.9). On his function in the Āprī ritual, see p. 241. ²⁵¹ On Tvas: t::r’s role in the creation of the world, see p. 191. ²⁵² Burkert, Greek Religion, Harvard University Press 1985, 167–8. ²⁵³ Most important is the fact that ‘Dyāus, in the few hymns to dyāus and p:rithivī ‘heaven and earth’, is never called asura’ ( B, review of Oldenberg, Die Religion des Veda, Theologische Literaturzeitung 20 [1895] 579). And ‘the songs to Dyâvâpr: thivî are not directed to Zeus and Gaia, Jupiter and Tellus, but rather to Ouranos and Gaia, Coelum (Coelus) and Tellus’ ( B, Dyâus Asura, Ahura Mazdâ und die Asuras, Halle 1885, 49).

     ̣   

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Śavasī²⁵⁴ in RV 8.45.5 and 8.77.1–2 and referred to as a ‘heifer’ (a young cow that has calved only once²⁵⁵) in RV 4.18.10, is the earth.²⁵⁶ After all, not only is she the ‘natural’ wife of the Sky god, she is also repeatedly referred to as the quintessential mother. And Indra is the son of both: ‘For he, the bull, was fashioned into strength by the two hulls (of the Earth and Sky) as sovereign king’ (RV 8.61.2, cf. 3.49.1). And both tremble before his fierceness when he is born (RV 4.17.2). [151] Both of Dyaus’s epithets, Asura and Father, are inherited, and both point back to a time when Dyaus was the supreme god in the pantheon. Thus it may be worthwhile casting a glance into pre-Rgvedic times for Indra’s ‘nativity story’ as : well. In Indo-European times, *Diu̯ōnéh₂ was the wife of the pater familias ‘Father Sky’, *H₂éu̯sos, the ‘dawn’, the *Diu̯ós Dhugh₂tḗr, both daughters, and their son *Diu̯ós SuHnús, the ‘sky son’. The latter—including the name—lives on in the Greek pantheon in Dionysos (< *Diu̯ós SuHnús), and on the Indian side in Indra. And as Dionysos with his close relationship to wine—the ‘replacement’ of the earlier mead—so Indra with Soma. Indra is thus the god son who plays such an important role in myth and saga: Now it can be observed in many religions that . . . heaven and earth only very rarely interfere directly in mundane events and human fates. Far removed from the world, in the highest heaven God the Father is enthroned, often thought of as deus otiosus, and in the depths of the earth is the seat of the Mother Goddess. . . . Effective and active, on the contrary, is the son of these two. It is as if the godly old couple has withdrawn, after giving their son the gift of life, to their own estate, relinquishing command entirely to him. It is often he, the god son, who, having become the Demiurge, i.e. the maker of worlds, creates the world, the earth. Everywhere around the world it is the gods’ sons, these youthful gods of the ‘second generation’, who are the active element (10). . . . According to widespread myth, the Sky god and the earth goddess lay initially tightly clasped together, until the son pries them apart with his prodigious strength and thereby creates the airspace in which life on earth thus becomes possible. Since then, he supports—often depicted and worshipped in an actual image of a towering buttress or a column—the sky, the firmament, to keep it from falling back

²⁵⁴ That passage (RV 8.45.5) says: ‘To you spoke Śavasī: ‘Like [crashing] his breast against the mountain, so will he fight whosoever seeks enmity with you’. The complex song RV 10.73 seems also to speak of Indra’s mother. ²⁵⁵ Hence Indra is also called ‘son of the heifer’ (RV 10.111.2). ²⁵⁶ As the mother of Indra, and otherwise as well (see pp. 147–8), she seems to be identical with Aditi. In RV 8.52.7 Indra is even called Āditya. And the Maitrāyanī interprets the nativity story : Samhitā : of the Ādityas, conveyed in RV 10.72, as meaning that the twin brother of the eighth son of the Aditi, Mārtān: da, : is Indra. And Atharvaveda VIII 9,21 in combination with 9,24 likely show that the ‘heifer’ is in fact considered to be Aditi, who indeed often appears in the Rgveda as a cow (see p. 147). :

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    ̣  

again upon the earth (12–13). . . . It is he who leads the earth out of the primordial chaos; it is his mission to fashion the cosmos (14).²⁵⁷

[152] Yet the old Sky god not only surrendered his position in the pantheon to Indra in a historical process that entailed the loss of much of his significance, leaving him a mere domain god; he also forfeited his power, in a process of succession acted out and reflected in a myth, because his own son, as leader of the younger generation of gods, the Devas, superseded him, the Asura (see p. 164): ‘Because the Asura Dyaus has bowed to Indra, to Indra the great Earth with her expanses . . . The celestial beings have unanimously placed Indra at [their] forefront. To Indra be all pressings from men, [all] gifts from men’ (RV 1.131.1).²⁵⁸ And against this background, the disiecta membra of the Indra myth can be joined together as follows: Indra is the son of the Sky god and earth. He grows up in the house of the smith Tvas: t::r, to whom the mother has given him over as a ‘foster child’ in her fear that his father Dyaus, seeing his position as ruler threatened, would kill him. With his club, fashioned for him by his ‘foster father’, he slays his (biological) father, the stone sky, an act that frees both his sister Us: as, the dawn, and the sun. Indra is enabled to perform this heroic deed, which creates world and brings the Devas to power as its rulers, by the Soma brought to him from the ‘mountain’²⁵⁹ by a falcon (or because he drank Soma in the house of the smith Tvas: t::r, which led to a conflict with the smith’s own son Viśvarūpa—a conflict that ends in the death of Tvas: t::r’s son).

5.6.13 Maruts The Maruts, the handsome,²⁶⁰ youthful sons of Rudra and P:rśni (see following points), beautifully attired, garlanded, and belted, with faces elegantly painted, adorned with golden ornaments (RV 5.55.6; 5.53.4; 5.54.12; 1.166.10, 5.57.5, 8.20.12; 1.64.4, 2.34.2) and armed with glittering spears, are the warlike followers of Indra, his [153] comrades in arms in his victory over Vr: tra. When they ride up on their magnificent chariots drawn by dappled mares or antelopes, their cavalcade is encircled in gales of wind, torrential rains, and lightning: ‘They have ²⁵⁷ F. R. Sö, Mythos und Heldensage, Germanisch-Romanische Monatsschrift 36 (1955) 10–14. ²⁵⁸ That heaven and earth resigned their command to Indra is also mentioned in RV 1.121.11, 4.17.1, 19.1, 7.31.7, 8.76.11 and 10.113.1. In RV 1.52.10, 61.14, 80.11, 2.12.1, 4.17.2, 22.4, 5.32.9, 6.17.9, [399] 8.97.14, and 10.147.1, we hear of the fear in which Indra is held by heaven and/or earth. On the other hand, the two of them allow Indra(‘s strength) to grow (RV 5.36.5, 8.15.8). ²⁵⁹ This mountain is apparently none other than the Vala, the stone sky. ²⁶⁰ The Maruts are among the very few gods whose beauty is explicitly highlighted in the Rgveda : (see O, Kleine Schriften, Wiesbaden 1967, 857).

     ̣   

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harnessed the winds as steeds to the towing-bar, the Rudra-sons have made their sweat into rain’ (RV 5.58.7). In appearance the Maruts are quite like the Snātaka, boys at the end of their initiation period (see p. 250 fn. 306). They, too, are described in the texts as bathed, shaved, made up, adorned with gold, garlanded, and driving chariots or riding horses. The fact that it is said of the Maruts that they are ‘brothers’ (RV 5.60.5), ‘born at the same time’ (RV 1.64.4, 5.55.3), ‘grown up together’ (RV 5.55.3, 56.5, 7.58.1), ‘originating from the same nest’ (RV 7.56.1), ‘very similar like twins’ (RV 5.57.4) and ‘none of them is the eldest, none the youngest’ (RV 5.59.6, 60.5), is strikingly reminiscent—this has been long since clear—of age cohorts. And because Rudra, who is considered the father of the Maruts,²⁶¹ is the Vedic counterpart of Apollo (see p. 44) and he in turn the ‘ephebos . . . on the threshold of manhood’,²⁶² one detects in the Maruts the incarnation of youths on the cusp of adulthood.²⁶³ This is marked in Vedic tribal society by the Pravargya from which, after a full year of intense training that begins with a ritual haircut²⁶⁴—the subsequent Avāntaradīks: ā—the young man is reborn as Snātaka (see p. 251). Because the annual festival celebrating the intake of fifteen- to sixteen-year-old boys in the age cohort of the ‘Ephebes’²⁶⁵ is held right before the rainy season begins, the Maruts were closely related to the monsoon that every year brought a tremendous build-up of clouds that released torrential rains over the land.²⁶⁶

²⁶¹ As a consequence, the Maruts are called Rudras and Rudriyas. They also share various of Rudra’s characteristics: the rage of both is dreaded, both love songs of praise, and both are magnificent to look upon. ²⁶² B, Greek Religion, Harvard University Press 1985, 144–5. ²⁶³ This is presumably why they are so often called nárah: , ‘men’. It seems one was aware that these gods manifest as men, and that some men (can) become gods. ²⁶⁴ Apparently there were two Godāna ceremonies, framing the year of intensive training. Shearing the hair is also an old custom. Among the Germanic peoples, boys’ hair—long and flowing up to that point—was shorn when they were first presented with weapons and made warriors. ²⁶⁵ Apollo—according to B, Greek Religion—‘is an epitome of that turning-point in the flower of youth, télos hēbēs, which the ephebos has attained and which he also leaves behind with the festival which gains him admittance to the society of men’. This festival of Apollo, of which the Odyssey (υ 276 ff. and φ 258 ff.) tells, was apparently the annual festival admitting the ephebes among men (see A, Der drohende Untergang, Berlin—New York 1991, 409–10, 426–9). It marked the end of the ephebeia, which began when the boys were fifteen and spanned four years, after which they had become men. The same time point for this basic transformation in the life of male members of the tribe is found in the Iranian texts (see K, Une représentation trifonctionelle de lʼadolescence, Münchener Studien zur Sprachwissenschaft 36 (1977) 53–7). And that the Germanic peoples had the same division of life phases is shown by certain ordinances in their legal texts. For example, they distinguish between ‘unfull’ [400] majority beginning at the age of fourteen and ‘full’ majority at nineteen, and stipulate a payment of wergild for those killed at ages between fifteen and twenty years far lower than for those older than twenty (cf. Hoops², s.v. Alter und Altersklassen). ²⁶⁶ The Maruts are so closely connected with the heavy clouds of the monsoon that many Vedists saw these gods only as the embodiment of this natural phenomenon. In the background, moreover, the widespread notion of the Wild Hunt was surmised—the spectral horde of souls riding up through the storm, a motif commonly invoked in Germanic legends and connected with Wōdan.

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    ̣  

And indeed they are born ‘from the belly of the sky’ (RV 1.134.4), from their mother P:rśni, the ‘dappled’ sky cow (RV 5.52.16).²⁶⁷ The field of ethnology, with its wealth of material on initiation rituals and initiates, provides assistance in understanding [154] further aspects of the picture of the Maruts painted by the Rgveda. As a rule, the training that initiates receive in : tribal societies includes, on the one hand, the learning of all knowledge that is held to be relevant, and on the other hand, instruction regarding sexuality. The former is reflected in the common practice of referring to the Maruts as ‘poets’ (see p. 248) and the latter, in the fact that the wives of the Maruts are mentioned often, and several times it is emphasised that they belong to all Maruts collectively. Also the warlike nature of the Maruts is explained, if these are indeed the deified initiates. Ethnological studies have shown that when a society places its young men at the fringes of the community and deprives them of the normalities of everyday life, it is helping them to meet the challenges of the transition into adulthood. At the same time, however—and this has also been pointed out by ethnologists—they mitigate their competitiveness and aggression and channel these into a useful purpose by giving the young men the task of protecting the society from against attacks that come from outside, from the ‘un-world’ of the wilderness. This in turn helps to educate the younger generation in autonomy, fostering the ability to assert themselves in everyday life. It is there, after all, beyond the boundary of their own community’s habitat, where the ‘non-people’ live, on which battle techniques and the will to survive can be taught and practiced.²⁶⁸ Furthermore, we know that belonging to the borderlands of society is often expressed in the initiates’ finding themselves in a half-animal, half-human state. And we also know that in many cultures the pivotal transition from child to adult is accompanied by a ritual characterised by basic symbolism of birth and death, and that the initiates are very often in a particularly close relationship with the tribe’s dead. All of this can easily be recognised in the Maruts, providing a straightforward explanation of the decidedly warlike character [155] of these gods; the arms they bear; their garments—the hide of an antelope (RV 1.166.10)—their appearance at the coming of the monsoon clouds, when not only the initiation festival is

²⁶⁷ Taittirīya-Brāhmana : II 1.1.1 calls P:rśni a gharmadúh, the one ‘who gives the milk for the Gharma’. ²⁶⁸ In Sparta’s Crypteia, for example, the young men were cast out from well-ordered society and had to do battle with the Helot serfs in the border areas around Sparta for their daily bread. And in Athens, the Ephebia was a military sentry service on the border of the polis area. The Ephebes swore to guard the border with their lives. And in these battles, the youths practiced the hoplite tactic, which ‘requires the utmost in self-control and collective solidarity from each individual’ (see B, Krieg, Sieg und die Olympischen Götter der Griechen, Religion zu Krieg und Frieden, ed. by F. S, Zurich 1986, 73).

     ̣   

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celebrated but also bands were returning home from the spring raids; and also their close association with the dead.²⁶⁹

5.6.14 Narāśamsa : His invocation—in close association with Agni Tanūnapāt—in the Āprī songs (see p. 241) well established, Narāśamsa, : also called N:rśamsa : or Śamsa : for short, is a typical god of the ritual, as he most likely was already in Indo-Iranian times (see pp. 59–60). His special task is to guard the ceremonial ritual recitation and convey it to the gods to whom it is addressed.²⁷⁰ Another of Narāśamsa’s tasks is : to ‘prepare the sacrificial feast for the gods’ (RV 10.70.2), because the songs and hymns are always accompanied by food offerings that rise up to the gods with them. Because all these efforts make him a favourite of the gods, he is often mentioned together with Bhaga, the god of wealth who supervises its distribution (see pp. 108–9). That he is responsible ‘for both kinds of sacrifice’ (RV 7.2.2)— song and food—is also shown in his epithets: ‘Narāśamsa : . . . I summon to my sacrifice, the honey-tongued preparer of the offering’ (RV 1.13.3). ‘The praise of men’, which gave the god his name, is practiced by mortals in the same manner as by their ancestors before them, who thus live on in their songs, which connects Narāśamsa, as denoted chiefly in RV 10.57.3,²⁷¹ with those ancestors who ‘once by : his grace partook in the art and power of the narām (O, Kleine : śamsa’ : Schriften, 1967, 47) [156].²⁷²

5.6.15 Parjanya Parjanya,²⁷³ the creator of plants and thus also the father of Soma, is the rain god of the Vedic pantheon, variously invoked together with Vāta, the wind god (RV

²⁶⁹ The affiliation has been pointed out in particular by  S, Bemerkungen zu H. Oldenbergs ‘Religion des Veda’, Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes 9 (1895) 248–50, and H, Vedische Mythologie, Vol. II, Breslau 1929, 285–90. ²⁷⁰ See O, Kleine Schriften, Wiesbaden 1967, 383–4. ²⁷¹ That stanza tells of calling back the ‘soul’ of one who was critically ill, when it was on the brink of removing itself to the hereafter. This they would bring about through the activation of the power that had been accumulated, through the grace of Narāśamsa, by the ancestors in their Soma and in their : songs. ²⁷² O, Kleine Schriften, Wiesbaden 1967, 47. Particularly the Narāśamsa : cups handed round in the later Soma ritual shows the relationship between the ancestors and Narāśamsa: they are : dedicated to the ‘Fathers’ (pitarah: ) and stand beneath the south Havirdhāna chariot on the ground (O, ibid. 46). ́ ²⁷³ Whether the name of this god belongs to that of the Lithuanian Perkūnas and [401] of the Old Russian Perunҍ, and thus ultimately to that of the Nordic Fjo˛ rgyn, and their bearers could for that

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    ̣  

5.83.10; 9.82.3; 6.49.6, 50.12, 10.65.9, 66.10). Son of the sky, he is the bull²⁷⁴ who fertilises the earth with his semen—the rain (RV 7.102.1; 3.55.17, 7.101.1/6; 5.83.4).²⁷⁵ In the turbulent storm, driving the clouds upward, hurling lightning bolts and thundering loudly, he pours out his pails of water and empties his waterskin that is filled to bursting (RV 6.44.12; 5.83.8; 5.83.7). Thus he brings to mortals ‘prosperity through milk and honey’ (RV 4.57.8).²⁷⁶ He lays the germ in female creatures—cows, mares, women—from which new life emerges (RV 7.101.1, 102.2). This is why ‘in him is the life force of everything that moves or stands’ (RV 7.101.6).²⁷⁷

5.6.16 Pūs: an Pūs: an, like his Indo-European ancestor (see pp. 40–1), is the god of roads and pathways²⁷⁸ (RV 8.29.6, 10.17.5–6)—on them is he born, and them he keeps free of robbers and wolves (RV 10.17.6, 1.42.1–3).²⁷⁹ And as such he is also messenger and psychopomp,²⁸⁰ and in the marriage ritual he conveys the bride away from her father’s house (RV 6.58.3, 10.17.3–6, 6.58.3–4, 10.85.26).²⁸¹ He is the god of shepherds and their flocks and protects the livestock by keeping it on the right paths (RV 6.54.5–7, 10.58.2).²⁸² This is why his characteristic feature is a shepherd’s crook (RV 6.53.9, 58.2), and a billy goat—male goats also draw his chariot (RV 6.55.4)—is his share in the horse sacrifice (RV 1.162.2–4). Just as he keeps

reason be considered the continuation of an Indo-European god of thunderstorms, remains exceedingly uncertain in spite of many attempts to demonstrate it. For the latest findings on this point, see W, Indo-European Poetry and Myth, Oxford 2007, 238–47. ²⁷⁴ With reference to the cycle of drought and monsoon, RV 7.101.3 quite aptly calls him ‘a barren cow that over the course of time bears young’. ²⁷⁵ RV 5.42.14 calls him ‘Lord of Refreshment’. ²⁷⁶ While his activity is also a blessing for the entire world—‘nourishment emerges for all creation’ (RV 5.83.4)—his lightning also serves him in slaying evildoers (RV 5.83.2, 9) and in this manner protecting the good (RV 5.83.5). The presumption—indeed obvious—has often been repeated that Parjanya is an ‘offshoot’ of the old Indo-European Sky god and was likely also the god of rain and thunderstorms, as seems to be shown in particular by Zeus, who is ‘much more a weather god than the etymology [of his name] would suggest’ (B, Greek Religion, Harvard University Press 1985, 126). ²⁷⁷ Occasionally Parjanya seems not only to be the ‘container’ of all these things that are so valuable and indispensable to men, but also to be the things themselves. In other words, he is both the container and that which is contained: raincloud and rain, Soma cup and Soma, container of semen and semen (for details see P, Container/Contained: The Meaning of Parjanya in the Vedic Sam : hitās, Princeton 1981, 121–35). This is quite reminiscent of the Gandharva, who is sometimes one and the same with that which he guards (see p. 119). ²⁷⁸ In RV 6.53.1 he is invoked as pathas pati, ‘O Lord of the Path’, and in RV 1.42.1 and 6.55.1 as vimuco napāt ‘O Lord of the Unharnessing [of the draught animals] (i.e. a break in the journey)’. ²⁷⁹ On Pathyā, the wife of Pūs: an, see p. 152. ²⁸⁰ Likely because Pūs: an points out the right path, his hands are mentioned frequently. ²⁸¹ See O, Kleine Schriften, Stuttgart 1993, 1909–10. ²⁸² This function of Pūs: an’s appears to be in direct proximity to the myth of Hermes’ theft of cattle (see B, Greek Religion, Harvard University Press 1985, 156–7).

     ̣   

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man and beast from losing their way, he can also bring back what had been lost— he is the god of tracking—reveal what was hidden (RV 8.29.6),²⁸³ and bestow fortuitous discoveries [157] (RV 6.53.2, 54.4–5, 8.4.16, 10.26.9). Thus he is also the god of ‘abundance’ (pus: :t í), which is why he is repeatedly mentioned alongside Bhaga (RV 8.31.11, 9.101.7). Moreover, he is a friend to the poet (RV 6.55.3, 5) and patron of the singer (RV 9.67.10).

5.6.17 The Rbhus : The three Rbhus—the brothers Rbhu, Vibhvan, and Vāja (RV 4.36.6)—are the : : children of heaven and earth and thus are closely related to their ‘brother’ Indra and to the Aśvins, the offspring of the sky. One of their main functions is the apportionment of time. Characteristic of them—and in this they are comparable to Vivasvant and Yama (see pp. 185–6)—is that although they are mortal beings (cf. also RV 3.60.3), they acquired immortality as a reward from Savit:r for their miraculous deeds (RV 1.110.3, 3.60.3, 4.33.4). This suggests a parallel with the three²⁸⁴ seasons, which ‘die’ but are then ‘reborn’ with every new year.²⁸⁵ In this cycle of death and reemergence they renew their parents, heaven and earth—one of their miraculous deeds.²⁸⁶ Also their sleep that lasted twelve nights in the house of the Agohya, during which they bestowed fertility on the fields, guided the rivers in their course, produced herbs in the mountains and water in the depths, points to their relationship with the year, as here again a parallel to the twelve days of the winter solstice (see pp. 15–16 fn. 53) appears likely. Their participation in the evening Soma pressing appears to have similar connotations, corresponding as it does with the end—and thus to the entirety—of the year, just as the Soma ritual with the course of the year (see p. 213).²⁸⁷

²⁸³ He also finds the hidden Soma (RV 1.23.14)—together with [402] which he is invoked in RV 2.40—and tracks down Agniʼs hiding place (RV 10.5.5). ²⁸⁴ That the Cāturmāsya rituals, held at the transition from one season to the next, originally numbered three reflects the old division of the year into three periods of roughly four months each: the hot season (March to June), the rainy season (July to September) and the cold season (October to February) (see O, Religion, 439). Not until the late Rgvedic era (cf. RV 10.90.6, 161.4) was : spring counted as a fourth season. Later still there were five, six, and even seven seasons (see Z, Altindisches Leben, Berlin 1879, 373–4). ²⁸⁵ The Rbhus would thus be the Indian counterparts of the Greek Horae. Whether they are, : moreover, related to the elves is also unresolved to date. What Sö has to say on ʻdying godsʼ applies equally to the Rbhus: ‘Dying gods are always . . . seasonal gods, gods of growth and vegetation, : and they are always sons of gods, gods of the ʻsecond orderʼ . . . Their death is however a conditional dying, followed every year with ʻnatural necessityʼ by the mystery of resurrection’ (Sinfjötli, Hommages à Georges Dumézil, Brussels 1960, 195). ²⁸⁶ Fertilising the earth is another of their tasks (cf. K, Das Ritual der Feuergründung, Vienna 1982, 107 fn. 268). ²⁸⁷ RV 1.161.8 appears to justify the participation of the Rbhus in the third Soma pressing by noting : that the gods, who ‘tried to foist poor quality drink on them . . .’—the text mentions ‘water’ and ‘rinsing water’—‘ultimately granted the promised Soma’ (O, Noten ad loc., with remarks on the problematic reference of abravītana in Pāda a).

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    ̣  

The virtuosity with which they compete with Tvas: t::r is mentioned in particular.²⁸⁸ Not only do they rejuvenate their parents, they also form a cow from a hide, build a marvellous chariot for the Aśvins that moves without [158] horses to pull it, make four Soma bowls from Tvas: t::r’s one, and create two dun-coloured horses for Indra and a ‘cow of all forms’ for B:rhaspati.²⁸⁹ How these deeds are to be interpreted is to a great extent unclear.²⁹⁰

5.6.18 Rudra Magnificent to look upon with his shimmering russet-coloured skin,²⁹¹ Rudra resides in heaven (RV 7.46.2). When he flies into a rage, he kills his victims— people, cattle and horses (RV 1.114.8)—by shooting from far above with his bow and arrow (RV 7.46.3).²⁹² From his remote location he sends plagues²⁹³ that only he can cure²⁹⁴—which he is particularly inclined to do if his unpredictable anger²⁹⁵ is appeased with praise and song (RV 1.114, 2.33.4, 12).²⁹⁶ Rudra is the ‘healing god’ in the Rgvedic pantheon. He has an obvious counterpart in Apollo : (see also p. 44): a god of pestilence who strikes from afar and has the power to bring healing, and spends his time in the north, beyond the reach of mortals, behind an immense mountain range among the pious Hyperborean folk. He is particularly closely associated with the arts of song, music, and poetry, which can

²⁸⁸ The unequal distribution of only eleven Rbhu hymns is conspicuous. There is not a single one to : be found in Book 2, 5, 6, 8, 9, or 10 (although Books 8 and 10 at least have, according to the Sarvānukrama nī, : : individual stanzas addressed to the Rbhus). : ²⁸⁹ In addition to these six miraculous deeds, which are mentioned repeatedly, they accomplish a few other feats that are mentioned only occasionally. ²⁹⁰ Relating them to the evening Soma pressing, as B, Gods’ Work: The Rbhus in the Vedic : Sacrifice, attempted (in an as yet unpublished essay, for access to which I am grateful), may explain the quadrupling of Tvas: t::r’s drinking bowl, but it would be a stretch to apply the same reasoning to the other deeds. According to that reasoning, this pressing once belonged exclusively to Indra, so to enable the Rbhus to take part, the one bowl had to be made into four. In support of this interpretation it may : [403] be mentioned here that not one of the verses in the ninth book even mentions an (evening) Soma drink taken by the Rbhus. : ²⁹¹ Other characteristic features include the way his hair is twisted into the shape of a snail shell— this he has in common with Pūs: an (see p. 41 fn. 48)—and his golden ornaments. ²⁹² Rudra is also the one who punishes incest, like that of Prajāpati and his daughter (RV 1.71.5, ŚB I 7,4.3, MS IV 2,12: 35.11–18). See p. 184. ²⁹³ According to Atharvaveda VI 20,2 and XI 2,22/26, fever (takmán) comes from Rudra. ²⁹⁴ Already the Rgveda (10.136.7) has Rudra drinking poison—interestingly, together with the : ecstatic Keśin, the one ‘characterised by his long hair’. And so Śiva’s drinking of the Kālakūt:a poison seems to have a long pre-history. ²⁹⁵ Fear of Rudra’s anger leads men to avoid even speaking his name. Patañjali, for example, hands down a verse in which Rudra’s name is shortened to udra (Mahābhās: ya III 14,9), and the AitareyaBrāhmana : speaks only of es: a devah: , ‘this god’ (III 33) See also p. 200 fn. 18. ²⁹⁶ Already the Rgveda relates that Rudra is ‘compensated’ with sacrifices (RV 2.33.5), which was in : later times the common expression for the cultic worship devoted to him (cf. O, Religion, 217 and 308 fn. 1). See also p. 197.

     ̣   

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placate him when he is angry.²⁹⁷ There ‘is some likelihood that we can reconstruct the main characteristics of an Indo-European god of pestilence and healing’ from these two deities (L, Apollo—Asklepios—Hygieia, Saeculum 39 [1988] 8).²⁹⁸ The main difficulty with this deity lies in the fact that Rudra in the Rgveda : differs significantly from the Rudra of the younger texts. This applies not least of all to his appearance:²⁹⁹ in post-Rgvedic times he is a grim, fearsome god, a : terrifying hunter who lives in the mountains with his following of eldritch and demonic beings. This drastic change can be explained by the merging of the Rgvedic Rudra,³⁰⁰ god of healing and pestilence of the incoming Vedic tribes, : with gods of the pre-Vedic indigenous population [159] that had characteristics similar to Rudra’s. The resulting post-Rgvedic Rudra was a very complex deity : with myriad names and epithets.³⁰¹

5.6.19 Savit:r Savitr: is the most important of a group of gods recognisable from their names as agent gods, each with a specific area of activity in which they influence processes at certain points. Savit:r’s name expresses his function as impeller or stimulator; specifically, for the ‘punctual’ impetus to motion and activity, which is directed at a broad variety of objects from men—both living and dead—and gods to animals, light, and water. As one responsible for stimulating others to activity, it also falls to him to bring them rest:³⁰² ‘By means of the nights, [when they come and go,] quieting the world and [once again] impelling . . . . he, the impeller, is [also] he who brings to rest’ (RV 4.53.3/6). Thus the coming of the night marks Savitr: ’s impulsion to rest, and its departure, to become active. Because he also impels the coming of daybreak—and is for this reason known as the father of

²⁹⁷ Recall Iliad Α 472–4: ‘And the whole day they assuaged the god with song and dance, singing the beautiful paean, the youthful Achaeans, celebrating him who smites from afar; who however was pleased in his senses when he heard it’. ²⁹⁸ Note in particular the connection of both gods to the mole, who of course plays an important role in the traditional arts of healing. On the connection between Apollo and Rudra, see in particular the work, all too little known, by Gé, G, and M, Asklépios, Apollon Smintheus et Rudra, Brussels 1949 (Académie Royale de Belgique, Classe des Lettres et des Sciences Morales et Politiques. Mémoires XLV,1), which is, however, quite critically discussed in E, Gnomon (1954), 162–8. ²⁹⁹ The Rgvedic Rudra already has traits in common with Agni. And in post-Rgvedic times, the : : ‘identification’ of Rudra with Agni is a commonly held notion. ³⁰⁰ In the ninth book there is no mention of a Soma drink for Rudra, and of the entire Rgveda, such : is mentioned only in RV 1.122.1 (cf. O, Religion, 216 fn. 1) [404]. ³⁰¹ In Greece, too, this ‘Indo-European god of healing and pestilence . . . is syncretised with congenial gods from before or outside Greece’, resulting in the deity Apollo (L, Apollo—Asklepios— Hygieia, Saeculum 39 [1988] 8). ³⁰² As the god of impelling and ending activities, Savit:r also ordains their proper course.

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Sūryā, goddess of the morning twilight (RV 10.85.9/13)—he begins his work in the middle of the night (RV 1.35.4). ‘Turning hither with the black darkness’ (RV 1.35.2), his impulse sets in motion the chariot of the Aśvins, which brings the dew (RV 1.34.10), brings about the dawn (RV 5.81.2), impels the day to begin, and then sets the sun upon its path (RV 1.35.9). Because it is with the rising of the sun and the appearance of its light that Savit:r’s work unfurls its greatest effect, he is often associated with the sun: ‘[Sūrya] rises resplendent from the womb of the dawns . . . He appears to me to be the god Savit:r . . .’ (RV 7.63.3). Also at night, when work is done, Savit:r stimulates men to activity: this is the period they must dedicate to [160] fathering the next generation.³⁰³ And thus ́ Savitr: , as prajāpati (RV 7.38.6, 4.53.2), also presides over fertility, insemination and new life.³⁰⁴ Because Savit:r governs the coming and going of the days and nights, he is responsible for the passage of time. It is also he who grants immortality (RV 1.110.3) to the Rbhus, the deified seasons (see p. 131), by having them recur at : regular intervals. To men as well, and even to the gods, ‘he impels immortality’ (RV 4.54.2) and for this reason he is the god petitioned for long life (RV 10.36.14).³⁰⁵ Savit:r performs his activities with gestures and movements of his arms, hands, and fingers, which as a result are frequently mentioned (RV 4.54.4, 6.71.1). Raising the arms is so characteristic of him that it is frequently mentioned in analogy:³⁰⁶ ‘Like Savit:r, he raises both his arms again and again’ (RV 1.95.7). On the other hand, because the impelling is also done with words—‘Savit:r, who calls out to all these creatures with his cry’ (RV 5.82.9)—he can in turn be compared to the Upavakt:r, the priest who verbally ‘propels’ the Hot:r: ‘Savit:r has raised his golden arms . . . like the Upavakt:r’ (RV 6.71.5). His impelling and driving-hither of things puts Savit:r into close contact with other gods who are connected with the things he impels. Wealth and prosperity connect him with Bhaga (RV 1.24.4, 5.82.1, 7.37.1, 8), fertility with Tvas: t:r (RV 3.55.19, 10.10.5), and water with Apām : Napāt (see p. 103).³⁰⁷ The waters and the rivers (RV 2.30.1; 3.33.6) are set in motion by Savit:r. At his behest, too, ‘the wind in its circling comes to rest’ (RV 2.38.2). He even causes the mountains—here he plays into in the myth of the winged mountains—to set themselves in their place

³⁰³ This is why B, La Religion Védique, dʼapres les hymnes du Rig-Veda, Vol. III, Paris 1883, 56, refers to him as ‘le dieu qui “enfante” ’. This function of Savit:r’s, incidentally, lives on into the Upanis: adic period (see for example B:rhadāranyaka-Upani s: ad VI 4,19). : ³⁰⁴ Also the petition for ‘happiness filled with children’ (RV 5.82.4–5) likely refers to the nightly procreative act, as indicated by the subsequent appeal to Savit:r to ‘drive away the effect of evil dreams’. ³⁰⁵ Thus Savit:r also plays a role—if a minor one—in the Rgvedic beliefs regarding the afterworld: in : RV 10.17.4 he is invoked to move the deceased to the celestial hereafter (cf. O, Religion, 524). ³⁰⁶ F, Savit:r und die Sāvitrī, Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde Südasiens 32 (1988) 17–22, has made it appear probable that the typical form of epiphany for this god is the Milky Way. ³⁰⁷ RV 6.50.13 calls him, in addition to ‘Bhaga’, also ‘Apām : Napāt’ and ‘Tvas: t::r’.

     ̣   

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(RV 4.54.5).³⁰⁸ While most of Savit:r’s activities have a connection to the present, the latter points to the beginning of the world, the creation of which this god ‘drives’—an image of him depicted chiefly in RV 10.149. Whereas Savit:r in the old times apparently received [161] no gift of Soma, he does receive his portion in the classic Soma ritual at the evening pressing.³⁰⁹

5.6.20 Trita A few members of the Rgvedic pantheon are responsible—and this apparently in : their function as helpers—for pressing the Soma for other gods, usually for Indra. Alongside Vis: nu, : (see p. 137) this is usually performed by Trita Āptya. This is not the only aspect that marks him out as a kind of culture hero. With Indra’s assistance³¹⁰ he slays the three-headed, six-eyed Viśvarūpa, the serpentine son of the smith Tvas: t::r—the Vedic counterpart of three-headed ‘roarer’ Geryon, and of Cacus, Witege, and Aži Dahāka (see p. 57)—and sets his cows free (RV 10.8.8[–9]). And thus, as shown by related myths,³¹¹ he takes the cattle from a ‘Lord of the Animals’, namely Viśvarūpa,³¹² to earth and establishes the custom of sacrifice for mortals. He also does this by discovering the two other essential constituents of the sacrifice, the Soma and Agni, who had fled (see pp. 99–100)³¹³ (RV 10.115.4).³¹⁴ All of this explains Trita’s close relationship to Soma. Not only is it said repeatedly that Trita prepares the Soma for Indra (RV 2.11.20, 8.12.16, cf. 6.44.23);³¹⁵ not only does Trita appear in the ninth book as ‘the archetypical Soma priest’;³¹⁶ according to RV 8.52.1, Trita is the one who presses Soma for ³⁰⁸ Unlike, for example, O, Noten ad loc., B, The Rgvedic Ādityas, New Haven : 1981, 312, sees in this stanza no reference to the myth of the winged mountains. Yet it seems the yantráih: of RV 10.149.1 also refers to this deed. ³⁰⁹ See H, Vedische Mythologie, Vol. II, Breslau 1929, 101–2, and O, Kleine Schriften, Wiesbaden 1967, 720, 794–5. ³¹⁰ Various passages in the Rgveda, such as 10.99.6, ascribe this heroic deed solely to Indra. And at : no point in the Rgveda is it indicated that Trita accomplishes the deed alone. : ³¹¹ B, Structure and History in Greek Mythology and Ritual, Berkeley 1979, 85–98, was able to make it appear likely that the Indo-European myth was based on the tale of a ‘shamanic figure’ who set out upon a ‘quest’ for meat in a world in the beyond, and received it for mortals from a ‘Lord of the Animals’—a deed that always had to be repeated when meat was required. Not until the Indo-European myth—so says B, Structure and History in Greek Mythology and Ritual 97—does the hero kill [405] the ‘Lord of the Animals’ and steal his herds. Man is now in possession of the animals: the changed myth reflects a change in the manner of subsistence. ³¹² In this context, Rö’s interpretation of the name Viśvarūpa as ‘presiding over, procreating the whole animal creation’ is highly interesting (Rö, Viśvarūpa, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 6 [1930/32] 480). ³¹³ According to RV 1.128.2, Agni also comes from ‘the furthest distance’. ³¹⁴ Because it is presumed that cows, Soma and Agni are hidden in the Vala, the heroic smashing of the Vala is ascribed to him (RV 1.52.5, cf. 5.86.1). ³¹⁵ This is probably the reason fingers that press Soma are called ‘Trita’s wives’ (RV 9.32.2, 38.2). ³¹⁶ So says G of RV 9.34.4.

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    ̣  

Vivasvant after Manu, apparently as the second of the mortals. This fits with what the Hōm Yašt says in this regard, namely that Vīuuaŋυhant : is the first of the mortals to press the Haoma, Āθßiia the second, and Θrita the third, after which heroic sons are born to them.³¹⁷ Thus on the Iranian side, the figure of *Tritá Āptyá is ‘split’ into Āθßiia and Θrita (see p. 58 fn. 55. In the Indo-Iranian myth, however, it was *Tritá Āptyá who was the second to press *Sáu̯ma. As one who ‘lives in the remotest distance’,³¹⁸ whence he has [162] access to the most distant realms,³¹⁹ Trita³²⁰ plays an important role as a kind of ‘scapegoat’ on whom the people could ‘wipe off ’ quite diverse forms of evil—misdeeds and the effects of bad dreams (see pp. 270–1). These would be brought to him ‘in the distance’ by Us: as, the dawn who every morning appeared from the world beyond, where she dwelt when she was invisible (RV 8.47.13–18).³²¹ This belief, together with the notion on the Avestan side that Θrita and Θraētaona could heal (i.e. remove) illnesses, indicates that the Indo-Iranian hero *Trita had already had the attribute of obliterating various forms of evil.³²²

5.6.21 Vāyu Vāyu, his name announcing him as a wind god,³²³ drives a chariot in the early morning (RV 1.122.3, 8.46.26) drawn by magnificent animals—red and dun horses (RV 1.134.3, 4.48.5) and bulls (RV 1.135.9) are mentioned—to the Soma ritual, during which he, the guardian of the Soma (RV 10.85.5),³²⁴ drinks it ³¹⁷ To Āθßiia is born the hero Θraētaona, who slays the Aži Dahāka (Y 9.7–8, Yt. 15.24) and frees his two lovers (Yt. 5.34, 15.24); to Θrita (while splitting the ‘priest’ and ‘warrior’ functions) Uruuāxšaiia and Kәrәsāspa were born; the latter slays a ‘horned serpent’ (Y 9.11). This can be compared with the notion perceptible in RV 1.91.20 that Soma bestows upon his worshippers a sabhéya, a son, who proves himself during his training period (see F, Bruderschaft und Würfelspiel, Freiburg 1986, 92–4). ³¹⁸ According to O, Noten on RV 6.44.23. ³¹⁹ The horizon towering up from the underworld is probably what RV 9.37.4 means by ‘Trita’s back’. Trita’s access to the underworld would likely also explain his being down in a well in RV 1.105.17. After all, the well also counts as ‘underworld’ (just as does the ‘dungeon, the lap of both parents’ in which Trita sits [RV 10.8.7], as shown particularly in RV 7.104.3). This calls to mind the Grimm fairy tale, Frau Holle or Old Mother Holle, in which Goldmarie jumps down a well after her spindle and finds herself in the other world, where Frau Holle dwells. ³²⁰ Incidentally, G tends to distinguish between two Tritas; one sits in the pit and the other is that one’s ancestor (see G on RV 10.8.7, 8). ³²¹ That the essential aspect of this conceptual realm is distance is seen in RV 1.24.9, where Varuna : is asked to ‘push Nir:rti into the distance’, and RV 4.23.7, where it is said of Indra that he has ‘pushed’ the misdeeds ‘away, into the distance, to unknown dawns’ [406]. ³²² See G, Die Amәša Spәntas, Ihr Wesen und ihre ursprüngliche Bedeutung, Vienna 1916, 60–2. ³²³ It should be noted, however, that indications of wind or its manifestations pertaining to Vāyu are extremely rare, if such can even be associated with this god. Also, the word vāyú in the ‘appellative sense of ‘wind’ [is] remarkably seldom’ (O, Religion, 227). ³²⁴ Another important aspect is Vāyu’s association with ecstasy, which is particularly tangible in RV 1.122.3 and 10.136.5, 7 (cf. O Religion, 404–5, and A, Rudra, Untersuchungen zum altindischen Glauben und Kultus, Uppsala 1922, 298–9).

     ̣   

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undiluted.³²⁵ As the god³²⁶ who arrives first where the Soma is pressed, it is he who raises the dawn (RV 1.134.3–4).³²⁷ The rule in the cult dictating that he—together with Indra—shall drink of the Soma first among the gods shows we are dealing with an old god of high rank, as we also see in the Iranian Vaiiu (see p. 59).³²⁸ This and his close relationship to Indra, with whom he rides together on one chariot,³²⁹ as well as the characteristics of the Iranian Vaiiu, indicate that Vāyu was a powerful god of battle and war even before the Rgvedic era. Thus it seems, : based on various indications, that Vāyu may have developed from a wind and storm god to a battle and war god, until Indra took up the position as the latter and pushed him well into the background. In the Rgveda itself, in which certainly : traces of his earlier significance can be found, [163] he functions in accordance with his position as ‘the First’ for the most part as a god of beginnings. His activity ensures a good beginning and should accordingly come first.

5.6.22 Vis: nu : Fighting at Indra’s side—against Vr: tra, Vala, and Śambara (RV 4.18.11, 6.20.2, 8.100.12; 1.156.4; 7.99.5)—is his comrade Vis: nu: : ‘Vis: nu, : my friend! Lengthen your strides! . . . We want to slay V:rtra, we want to let the rivers flow. Once released they shall, as Indra drives them, go [their way]’ (RV 8.100.12). With the three—or sometimes seven—steps³³⁰ he takes even before Indra has slain V:rtra, he gives man the space in which to live: ‘Three times did this god stride through this earth . . . providing for men a dwelling place’ (RV 7.100.3–4, cf. 6.69.5). The third of these steps leads to the highest heights, where he ‘rules beyond this [earthly] space’ (RV 7.100.5). Yet he also lives in the mountains (RV 1.154.2/3, 155.1, 5.87.1), he supports the heavens (RV 1.154.1), he guards the highest refuge (RV 3.55.10). Moreover, he prepares the semen and protects it (RV 1.155.3, 164.36, 4.3.7, 7.36.9) and provides for good births (RV 7.36.9, 100.4, 10.184.1). He can also take on any of a number of forms (RV 7.100.6). The triad is characteristic of him and his deeds. He has a very close relationship with Soma: he

³²⁵ That he imbibes the Soma undiluted is also connected with the parallelisation of the Somamixing paraphernalia with the world. As it is pressed, the Soma passes through the midspace between heaven and earth before it reaches the mixing vessel. This is when Vāyu drinks of it (see O, Die Religion des Rgveda, 2. Teil, Vienna 1999, 155–6). : ́ :r) of Tvas: t::r; that is, of Saranyū ³²⁶ It is not clear why he is called the husband of the daughter (jāmāt : (RV 8.26.21–2). Note that this occurs in a song to him and the Aśvins. ³²⁷ Like him, he is petitioned for gifts (RV 1.134.1–3, 7.92.3, 8.26.21–2), and his generosity is mentioned in various passages (RV 1.135.7, 5.43.9, 6.45.32, 8.46.25). ³²⁸ This is decreed by the Praügaśastra (see pp. 234–5), and the same is found in RV 1.134.1, 135.1, 2.11.14, 4.46.1, 47.1, and 7.92.1 (among others). According to the tales in the Brāhmanas, : Vāyu receives the first drink because he is the fastest of all gods in competitions for the Soma (see pp. 214–5). ³²⁹ Indra is even referred to, in RV 4.46.2 and 4.48.2, as Vāyu’s chariot driver. ³³⁰ On a possible parallel in the Avesta, see O, Religion, 229 fn. 1.

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    ̣  

drinks of it, together with Indra (RV 1.155.1), and also prepares it for him (RV 2.22.1, 8.3.8, 12.16, 10.113.2), and his footprints are filled with Soma (RV 1.154.4). This relationship is expressed primarily in cosmographic and topographic commonalities: they both stand on the mountain (RV 1.154.2–3), and Vis: nu’s : highest footprint and the Soma font are located in the same position: at the highest point of the sky (RV 1.154.5–6). How these very different traits all belong to this deity can be seen in Germanic mythology [164], where dwarves often appear as such hero-assistants (see p. 40). Seeing Vis: nu³³¹ as a continuation of an older ‘dwarf figure’ explains why he is : presented in the form of a dwarf, demonstrably since the time of the YajurvedaSamhitās and Brāhmanas (Maitrāyanī III 7,9: 89.1, III 8,3: 96.4, : : : Samhitā : Śatapatha-Brāhmana : I 2,5.4, V 2,5.4; cf. Jaiminīya-Brāhmana : III 354) and why a vāmana—or ‘dwarfish’—animal is selected for him as sacrificial beast. The same idea can be glimpsed in the Rgveda as well. For example when Indra calls out to : his companion Vis: nu: ‘Lengthen your strides, Vis: nu, : : my friend!’ (RV 4.18.11 = 8.100.12), one is given to think of Vis: nu’s low stature, which permits him to take : only short steps. This also provides a meaningful explanation of the god’s name, Vis: n: u: ‘one whose back has come apart’,³³² i.e. of a crooked form, as is characteristic of dwarves.³³³ In light of all this, the following image emerges: on the one hand is a warrior god-hero who battles the old rulers and on the other, a dwarf who has very close relationships with both the underworld and its treasures; who assists the warrior god-hero and, being in possession of ‘magical’ knowledge,³³⁴ strengthens him with Soma to enable his deeds. The Vedic poets integrated the form of that dwarf into the beliefs that surrounded this god-hero figure. In this manner, Vis: nu : takes part in the primeval creation of the world. And the most important of the deeds he performs in all of this is taking those strides. With his steps, Vis: nu : surrounds the entire universe, overworld and underworld, which he also in turn, ‘dwarf ’ that he is, embodies in a way.

5.6.23 Lesser deities In addition to these greater deities, among whom Yama is also counted (see pp. 185–6 for more about him), the Rgvedic pantheon includes a number of : ³³¹ A significant difference is that Vis: nu : would be just one ‘dwarf,’ while for Germanic mythology, their plurality is characteristic. ³³² This compound can be semantically compared with vyàm : sa, ‘the serpent whose shoulders stand apart’ and, as to its formation, with mitájñu and sudrú. ³³³ Whether śipivis: :t á (RV 7.99.7, 100.5–6) denotes a physical abnormality of Vis: nu’s, as : O, Religion, 233 fn. 2, surmises, remains uncertain. But if, as it seems, Maitrāyanī : Samhitā : ́ . . . yát II 2,13 (: 25.7) explains śipivis: :t á as ks: ódis: :t ha ‘smallest’ (yé ks: ódis: :t hās tám : vís: n: ave śipivis: :t āya ks: ódis: :t ham : táñ śipivis: :t ám), this leads to a meaning like ‘of short stature’. For [407] the rest, compare K, Ritual der Feuergründung, Vienna 1982, 486 fn. 1315. ³³⁴ Vis: nu : has a number of specific commonalities with Tvas: t::r, the other possessor of such knowledge.

     ̣   

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lesser ones, who can accordingly be described here far more briefly. They are grouped by name, type, and sex, [165] after which the actual groups of gods are described. Among the lesser gods there is one group whose names are all formed following a certain pattern, signifying their function.³³⁵ Like that of Savit:r, the most important god belonging to this group (see pp. 133–5), their names are nomina agentis. In other words, each name is derived from a word denoting the activity that is characteristic of that god. These activities, moreover, are pursued at certain stages of processes.³³⁶ In addition to Dhāt:r, the ‘Establisher’, ʻcognateʼ to Dhis: anā : (see pp. 151–2), who orders the world’s elements (RV 10.190), these also include Vidhāt:r, Dhart:r, Net:r, and Trāt:r, the divine ‘Disposer’, ‘Upholder’, ‘Leader’, and ‘Protector’ (RV 7.35.3, 10.18.5, 158.3, 181.1–3, 190.3; 6.50.12, 9.81.5; 7.35.3; 5.50.1–2/5; 8.18.20). Another quite distinct group is formed by the ‘Lords’ of the various spheres of existence, each with a name that ends in °pati. They include Prajāpati, the ‘Lord of Progeny’; Vāstos: pati, ‘Lord of the Dwelling-place’; Ks: etrasya Pati, ‘Lord of the Field’; Rathaspati, ‘Lord of the Chariot’; Rayipati, ‘Lord of Wealth’, and many more, including the ‘Lords of the Forest’, the Vanaspatis. The most important of these—with the exception of Br: haspati (see pp. 116–17)—are really only the first three, along with the last, which are the trees. Prajāpati, the ‘Lord of Progeny’, is petitioned in the wedding song to bless the union with children (RV 10.85.43) and praised in a creation song as a demiurge (RV 10.121). The fact that the stanza praising him (RV 10.121.10) was retroactively appended to that hymn accords with the circumstance that Prajāpati only began to gain in significance in the post-Rgvedic era. : The ‘Lords of the Dwelling-place’ (vāstos: pati) are in possession of the earth.³³⁷ It is they who must be propitiated when one wishes to settle and establish a new household. One petitions the particular genius loci, who apparently lives underground—the one who ‘grants prosperity’ (RV 5.41.8)—to drive out all disease and pestilence; to multiply one’s cows and children [166]; to grant long life (RV 7.54.1–2); and all this this both ‘in war and peace’ (ibid. 3).³³⁸ Statements regarding the creation of such a Vāstos: pati remain unclear in the myth, presumably because he arose from an act of incest between heaven and the dawn:³³⁹ ³³⁵ On these, see O, Religion, 60–1. ³³⁶ With respect to word formation, these correspond to the tor gods in the Roman religion (Conditor, Reparator, Vervactor), which U called Sondergötter (special gods), and newer research often refers to as Funktionsgötter (functional gods). Another characteristic of these gods seems to be that they are ‘related to stages in a process, not to logical functions’ (see G, Roman Religion, The Anchor Bible Dictionary, Vol. V, New York 1992, 811). ³³⁷ Although only one Vāstos: pati is mentioned in any given instance, there are in fact several. After all, every dwelling place apparently has its own lord (see O, Religion, 258). ³³⁸ This is why the G:rhyasūtras prescribe making a sacrifice to Vāstos: pati when building a home—a building sacrifice, in other words (see W, Kleine Schriften, Stuttgart 1991, 2–3). ³³⁹ Because Tvas: t::r seems to be called Vāstos: pati in RV 5.41.8, he may play a role in this myth, in view of the incestuous act with his daughter (see p. 177 and 184).

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during intercourse with his daughter, the father spills his seed on the ground, and the gods use this to form ‘the “Lord of the Dwelling-place”, who guards the vows’ (RV 10.61.7), which is apparently a reference to punishment for the incestuous act. Judging by younger Vedic texts, this Vāstos: pati is in fact Rudra, because everything belongs to him that is left behind at a place of dwelling or sacrifice (see Taittirīya-Samhitā III 1,9.6).³⁴⁰ : The meadows are ruled by the ‘Lord of the Field’ (ks: etrasya pati). He is invoked for ‘feed for cow and horse’ (RV 4.57.1) and for the ‘dispensing of a sweet wave’ (RV 4.57.2). Together with Sītā, the plough furrow, Śuna, the blessing of the land, and the ploughshare, he is expected to ensure thriving seeds and a rich harvest. The ‘Lords of the Forest’ were seen as beings who were useful and amiably disposed towards men.³⁴¹ Nonetheless, there were—as we know from later times—those among them who were to be avoided (RV 8.1.13). These trees, unlike most of them, were not suitable for the sacrifice (cf. RV 10.66.9). Those that were well suited were called upon to make themselves inclined, when their wood was to be put to use in the sacrifice (RV 8.27.2).³⁴² In the Āprī songs, a prayer to the ‘Lord of the Forest’ is intercalated in a fixed place to ask him, who in the form of the sacrificial post takes part in carrying out the sacrifice, to convey the sacrificed animal to the gods. When, as here, an entire tree must be felled or a very large branch removed, special precautionary measures are taken to ensure its ‘intactness’ (see p. 221). Other occasions for praying to trees and plants included in particular their use in healing and as amulets and talismans.³⁴³ Yet they were by no means used solely for benevolent [167] purposes, but also to injure disfavoured persons (cf. RV 10.145.1, 6). A third group, which lacks a unifying band in its name formation, is made up of typical domain gods, all of whom embody natural forces. They were highly significant because the sun and moon, morning twilight and dawn, wind and water, mountains and rivers all played immensely important roles for the Vedic people. Nonetheless, the Rgveda says little about them, once again due to the : attention this text pays to the greater sacrifices, in which these forces of nature had only a small part, if any.

³⁴⁰ The vāstuha, ‘what was left behind on the place’, (Aitareya-Brāhmana : III 34 and V 14) belongs to Rudra. The poet who composed RV 10.61 alludes to this vāstuha with his jahatuh: of stanza 6c and the ́ : of 7d. vāstoh ³⁴¹ Doubtful assumptions regarding the ‘divine animation’ of mountains in O, Religion, 258. ³⁴² In some of the songs addressed to the ‘All Gods’, this happens without it becoming clear what actual purpose it serves. ³⁴³ See O, Religion, 259.

     ̣   

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5.6.24 Heaven and earth In Indo-European times the ‘wide earth’ stood at the side of the Sky god, yet not complementarily, as mother earth, but only as his cosmographic counterpart (see p. 34 fn. 6). In the Rgvedic era, however, she was positioned as ‘mother’ : earth alongside ‘father’ sky,³⁴⁴ and these two world-halves formed the primeval parents, ‘sire and womb’ of all living things (RV 1.164.33).³⁴⁵ This is why heaven and earth, the respective dwelling places of gods and mortals (see also p. 33), are, in the Rgvedic hymns, invoked both individually and—far more frequently—together : as ‘father’³⁴⁶ and ‘mother’, ‘who protect living beings’ (RV 1.160.2), and as ‘parents’ who should offer protection and security.³⁴⁷ ‘Full of ghee’ are they, which they ‘milk’ (RV 6.70.2), ‘dripping with honey’ and ‘rich in semen’. They are petitioned ‘to pour semen’ (RV 6.70.2) and in this way to ‘swell strength’ (RV 6.70.6). They give their juice without depletion (RV 3.6.4, 6.70.1). In the foreground, for the poets, is the aspect of the ever-renewing fertility and nourishment-giving and thus lifeenabling function of the two ‘faces’ looking at each other (RV 1.115.5).³⁴⁸ Other responsibilities are [168] mentioned only occasionally. Being omniscient (RV 6.70.6), they are called upon to witness oaths and oral contracts (see p. 112): ‘[Heaven and earth], . . . bring about the truth of the contract . . . ! [As witnesses] you have set yourselves down around the sacrifice’ (RV 4.56.7, compare 10.10.5). In contrast to the prominence he still had in the pre-Rgvedic era, Dyaus in the : Rgveda is but a pale and fading figure. After all, quite unlike Zeus or Jupiter he : remained closely connected with the realm that he personified: the sky.³⁴⁹ Moreover, an anthropomorphic conception of this typical domain god was not at all distinct, apart from his (inherited) ‘fatherhood’. And the earth as such, too, is an indistinct deity who plays a purely marginal role. The earth as deity is so firmly affixed to its own realm that it did not ‘make a name for itself ’ any more than the Sky god did. Still, the earth is now the wife of the sky (see previous) and mother of all living things. The cultic worship of heaven and earth is mentioned repeatedly: ‘With sacrifices I praise heaven and earth’ (RV 1.159.1), ‘Heaven and earth do I worship with sacrifices and veneration . . .’ (RV 7.53.1). Yet all of this is kept on a very general

³⁴⁴ Simply compare RV 1.185.11: ‘Let that, o heaven and earth, become true, for which I ask you, o father and mother’. ³⁴⁵ Again, one example may suffice: ‘The sky is my father, the sire . . . The great earth is my relation, the mother’ (RV 1.164.33). ³⁴⁶ When the sky is called ‘goddess’, as for example in RV 10.59.7, this is owing to the language, as the word dyáus is attracted to p:rthivī. ³⁴⁷ This applies chiefly to the earth, which takes men into its fold when they die (RV 10.18.10–13) [408]. ³⁴⁸ Recall the miracle performed by the Rbhus, through which their parents—apparently heaven and : earth—are rejuvenated over and over again (see p. 131). ³⁴⁹ His name is still often used appellatively for ‘the sky’.

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    ̣  

level, and we do not learn of what these ‘sacrifices’ consisted.³⁵⁰ Because heaven and earth are invoked, both in similar manner, mainly at the beginnings of songs (RV 1.112.1, 2.32.1, 5.59.1, 7.43.1, 53.1–2, 10.12.1, 132.1), this veneration seems to be purely prayer—and a literary archetype—rather than actual sacrifice. And in this prayer, they who are the spatial beginning point and basis of the sacrifice are petitioned to ‘bestow their attention [on the sacrificer] before [bestowing it on] others’ (RV 1.112.1).³⁵¹ More than their utility for mortals and the forms of worship, the Rgvedic poets : seem to have been occupied with the question of who ‘created heaven and earth’. In any event it must have been ‘a master among the beings’ (RV 4.56.3). And naturally it was [169] the divine craftsmaster Tvas: t:r: , among others, ‘who joined together the two great bowls which faced one another’ (RV 3.55.20). Thus the poets display their virtuosity—here on the subject of heaven and earth—regarding the secrets of the origin of all things (see pp. 190–6).

5.6.25 Sun, moon, and stars Sūrya, the sun, fleets between heaven and earth in the eternal pattern (RV 1.160.1), driving a chariot drawn by horses³⁵² (RV 7.63.2).³⁵³ The ‘son of the sky’, the ‘coloured stone set in the middle of the sky’,³⁵⁴ ‘the golden ornament of heaven’ (RV 10.37.1; 5.47.3; 6.51.1, 7.63.4), rests on a pillar, the ‘one-legged goat’, Aja Ekapad, which in turn stands on the ‘serpent of the depths’, Ahi Budhnya (see pp. 89–90). Through the night, the sun tarries ‘in the womb of the dawns’

³⁵⁰ While the Rgveda says nothing of any participation by heaven and earth in the Soma ritual, in the : younger ritual they are invited during the evening pressing, by means of a nivid that is inserted before the last stanza of the Dyāvāp:rthivī hymn (RV 1.159) in the litany of Vaiśvadevaśastra (see S, Die Nividas und Prais: ās der ältesten vedischen Prosatexte. Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 73 [1919] 32; cf. O, Religion, 454), as ‘the Father Sky rich in semen, the bull, and Mother Earth rich in milk, the cow, to become intoxicated with Soma’ (see RV Khila V 5,5, Śatapatha-Brāhmana : XIII 5,1.11, Śāṅkhāyana-Śrautasūtra VIII 3,11; cf. ĀpastambaŚrautasūtra XIII 13,8). In the younger Vedic cult, heaven and earth are worshipped primarily in ‘agrarian’ rituals, during which they receive many gifts (see H, Ritual-Literatur, vedische Opfer und Zauber, Strasbourg 1897, 85–6). ³⁵¹ See O, Kleine Schriften, Stuttgart 1993, 1155. ³⁵² On the chariot driver Etaśa and the horses of the sun, see p. 178 (for a very different view, see O, Religion, 155 fn. 2). ³⁵³ That the sun god drives across the sky with fast horses is a nearly self-evident notion, and thus may have arisen independently in different cultures. For example, it is also seen in the old Orient (see B, Greek Religion, Harvard University Press 1985, 175). Nonetheless, the belief in a chariot of the sun (RV 5.45.9, 7.60.3, 66.15) is likely of Indo-European heritage (see B, Greek Religion, ibid.). This chariot plays a major role in the Rgveda in a cryptic myth—one of the few about Sūrya. : According to this myth, Indra steals a wheel from the sun’s chariot to aid Kutsa in the battle against Śus: na : (see pp. 180–1). ³⁵⁴ The act of creating the sun, or of placing it in the sky, is ascribed to a number of different gods— Agni, Indra, Vis: nu, : Varuna, : and also Soma—which is why RV 7.62.1 speaks of its ‘creators’ in the plural.

     ̣   

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(RV 7.63.3) in the underworld, whence it rises every morning (RV 5.45.1), ‘following the broad path of Us: as’ (RV 1.136.2) who ‘leads the white horse’ (RV 7.77.3).³⁵⁵ After it has risen, it spurs mortals to begin their work (RV 7.63.4). Its appearance puts an end to the terrors of the night (RV 10.37.4),³⁵⁶ and to see it is the epitome of life (RV 10.37.7–8). An eye in the sky (RV 1.136.2, 7.66.16), like the Sky god (see pp. 34–5) it watches over the entire world (RV 1.164.44). And like him, it ‘sees’ what is right and wrong in mortals: ‘The sun enters the lofty fields, seeing both the right and the dishonesties among mortals’ (RV 4.1.17, cf. 6.51.2, 7.60.2). Omniscient due to its all-seeing eye (RV 6.51.2), it is a guardian of truth and justice (RV 6.51.2, 7.60.2–3, 10.35.5). In this role, it reports those who are without sin—in particular, presumably, violation of an oath or contract (RV 7.60.1, 62.2)—to Mitra and Varuna.³⁵⁷ But it is also considered the eye of : these two gods (RV 1.50.6, 7.61.1, 77.3),³⁵⁸ through which they watch everything that mortals do [170] (RV 1.50.6, 7.61.1, 63.1). As a largely visible sign of the world order running in its course, Sūrya has a special connection with the Ādityas.³⁵⁹ It was they, too, who ‘carved the paths for the sun’ (RV 7.60.4, cf. 1.24.8, 7.87.1). Sūrya naturally played an important role in the various explanations in circulation at the time of the Rgveda of how the world alternates between day and : ́ night. One of these related that Sūrya had two ‘sides’ (pājas), one brightly shining and the other black (RV 1.115.5).³⁶⁰ With one he rises and travels towards the west, and with the other he returns to the east (RV 10.38.3). To do this he has to ‘harness the seven . . . dun horses, who convey him, away from their place’ (RV 7.60.3): they turn around in the west and draw the sun-chariot back to the east, turning Sūrya’s dark side towards the world.³⁶¹ Another such explanation consisted in the simple declaration that the night has ‘spread out her garment’

³⁵⁵ Occasionally the poets speak of the sun as a whinnying horse (RV 1.152.5, 163.1, 9.64.9), while of the sacrificial horse it is said, ‘the gods had crafted it from the sun’ [409] (RV 1.163.2). This close relationship between horse and sun explains why the former is frequently a sun symbol in rituals. The same applies to the wheel and to gold (see O, Religion, 85–6). At various points in the Rgveda, Sūrya is also called a bird that flies across the heavens (RV 1.191.9, 5.45.9, 47.3, 7.63.5). : ³⁵⁶ This is also why the sun is met with rejoicing every morning when it appears (ChāndogyaUpanis: ad III 19.3). ³⁵⁷ The concepts of an all-knowing and all-seeing sun and its function as guardian of truth and avenger of untruth are widespread. Recall Helios, to name just one example, who ‘sees all and hears all’ (Iliad Β 277, Odyssey λ 109), who ‘spies upon both gods and men’ (h. Dem. 62, cf. Od. θ 302), ‘looks down upon the earth out of the ether with his beams’ (h. Dem. 69–70, cf. Odyssey λ 16) and ‘reports what he has seen’ (h. Dem. 71). ³⁵⁸ Various places in the Rgveda mention the ‘eye of the sun’ (see RV 1.164.14, 5.40.8, 59.5), which : surely denotes the sun itself in a way that adds a note of suspense, if the god Sūrya is not ‘more’ than merely the sun. The round form of the sun, which inspired this poetical construction, may have contributed to the beliefs that the sun originated from the eye of the sacrificed Purus: a and that the ‘eye’ of a dead person goes into the sun (see pp. 195 and 296). ³⁵⁹ RV 10.88.11 refers to the sun as ‘son/offspring of Aditi’ (āditeyá). ³⁶⁰ On another, see pp. 172–3. ³⁶¹ C, Kleine Schriften, Stuttgart 1990, 207–8, has shown that this notion was also common at the time of the Brāhmanas. :

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(RV 1.115.4), a ‘black robe’ (RV 4.13.4) that the sun god Sūrya, when he rose, ‘gathered together’ (RV 1.115.4), ‘rolled up like a hide’ (RV 7.63.1). In comparison to the sun, the moon is not spoken of much in the Rgveda.³⁶² In : particular he plays an important role in the measuring of time (see pp. 15–16 fn. 53), as the one who ‘goes about, looking, at night’ (RV 1.24.10) to see that Varuna’s : commandments are obeyed: he is ‘the emblem of the days, who is ever born anew’ (RV 10.85.19), the ‘apportioner of the months’ (RV 10.138.6). Although there is little said specifically about him, there are two myths entwined around him. One of them seeks to explain how the moon and stars came into being: Indra slays V:rtra and places his body in the sky as lights (RV 10.49.6, 138.6).³⁶³ According to the other, ‘Tvas: t:r: ’s cow’ can be found in a ‘house of the moon’, milking the Soma from her udder (RV 1.84.15).³⁶⁴ The Rgveda has even less to say about the stars than it does about the moon. : Whereas the moon is the home of departed ‘souls’, the stars are their embodiment. After all, the notion that the dead live on as stars is also found in the Rgveda:³⁶⁵ : ‘The ancestors adorned the sky [171] with stars like a dark horse with pearls’ (RV 10.68.11), ‘For you [pl.] (= you [sing.]), o Soma, are my ancestors, situated as the strength-giving heads of the sky’ (RV 9.69.8). The Plough (Ursa Maior), formed by the ‘seven seers’ (saptá ŕ̥:sayah: ), ‘who are born among the gods’ is considered a visible sign of life after death as souls in the stars (RV 1.164.15).³⁶⁶ The ‘Great Bear’ is emblazoned across the middle of the sky (ŕ̥k:sa, RV 1.24.10)—that being the older³⁶⁷ name of this constellation from Indo-European times—forming a counterpart to the middle of the earth.

5.6.26 Vāta The wind that blows in the space between heaven and earth is also considered a god in the Rgvedic religion: Vāta, ‘wind’, by name, mentioned in various passages :

³⁶² On the correlation of the moon with the faculty of thought, mentioned in RV 10.90.13, see p. 195. ³⁶³ On this myth see L, Kleine Schriften, Wiesbaden 1978, 421–32. ³⁶⁴ On this myth, which shows that the concept of houses of the moon was known in Rgvedic times, : see p. 64. ³⁶⁵ This belief, which is also attested in Maitrāyanī I 8,6 (: 123,18 ff.), Śatapatha-Brāhmana : Samhitā : : VI 5,4.8, Taittirīya-Brāhmana : I 5,2.5 f. and Āpastamba-Dharmasūtra II 9,24.13–14 (see also O, Religion, 565–6), seems to have been inherited from Indo-European times (see K, Der Rigveda: Die älteste Literatur der Inder, Leipzig 1881, 217 en. 286a, who substantiates it in Iranian, Greek, Roman and Germanic [410] sources, and compare H, Three Approaches to Greek Mythography, Interpretations of Greek Mythology [ed. by J. B], London 1988, 261). And this same thinking is clearly encountered when the hero in Gorki’s novel The Three (also translated as Three of Them) reads an epitaph stating: ‘By one sweet flower the earth has grown poorer, The heavens are richer—by one star’. ³⁶⁶ RV 1.164.16, if correctly ‘unriddled’, shows that already in the Rgveda the Kr: ttikās, the Pleiades, : were thought of as the wives of the ‘seven seers’ (see T, Kleine Schriften, Stuttgart 1995, 965). On the ‘Seven Seers’, see also O, Religion, 566 fn. 2. ³⁶⁷ Śatapatha-Brāhmana : II 1,2.4 also knows that ‘the seven R: s: is were earlier called the “bears” ’.

     ̣   

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together with Parjanya (see pp. 129–30). The blowing and blustering that he causes as he rides up with swift steeds (RV 2.1.6, 8.1.11, 10.22.4–5) without being seen (RV 10.168.4), his shaking of the trees, his restlessness, are described vividly by the poets. He is called upon to ‘blow the healing here’ and ‘the fever away’ (RV 10.137.3, cf. 186.1) and thus to grant long life (RV 10.186.1). He is father, brother and friend to mortals (RV 10.186.2), through whom all life becomes possible. And thus he is even the ‘breath’ (ātmán) of the gods (RV 10.168.4), into which that of mortals merges in death (RV 10.16.3).

5.6.27 Us: as Us: as, the ‘daughter of the Sky god’, is the divinised dawn.³⁶⁸ Sister of the night (RV 1.124.8, 4.52.1), the first to wake (RV 1.123.5), she awakens the people early in the morning by driving out the darkness, along with the effects of bad dreams, which she conveys to Trita Āptya (see p. 136). [172] Climbing out of her night-time abode and appearing on the easters horizon—the sign for her brothers, the Aśvins,³⁶⁹ to begin their journey—she prepares the way for the sun. She drives with ruddy cows, bulls,³⁷⁰ and steeds and opens the gates of heaven (RV 1.48.15), and so brings light and brightness to the world. Every morning as she begins to glow, ‘she carries forward the lifespan of mortals’ (RV 7.77.5), always giving new life as she does so (RV 7.80.2). Of incomparable grace, she paints her face like a dancer and bares her breasts (RV 1.92.4, 5.80.6, 6.64.2). For the poets, inspired to elaborate songs (RV 1.92.9, 113.19, 123.13) by the eroticism of ‘Sūrya’s lover’ (RV 1.92.11), she is a veritable Muse. With these notions, so easy to understand, there are others interweaved that elude direct comprehension: the established connection of the Us: as with wealth, gifts and benefactions, in particular of the Daks: inā; : her generosity; the way she is approached time and again with requests for gifts. And there are strange myths connected with this goddess: Indra³⁷¹ destroys her chariot (RV 2.15.6, 4.30.8–11, 10.73.6), which she had—it is said once—left behind (RV 10.138.5); her father Dyaus violated her,³⁷² as a result of which she brings the Aṅgiras into the world, who smash the rock in which she is held captive (RV 1.71.5, 4.2.15). The notion that wealth comes from the underworld—seen already in connection with Vis: nu : (see pp. 137–8) and Trita (see p. 136)—and that Us: as dwells there when she is not ³⁶⁸ This deity is of Indo-European age (see pp. 37–8). The same applies to the ví-√bhā often used in Us: as hymns, which continues Indo-European *u̯i-√bheh₂, which in various traditions is used for the ‘lighting up’ of the sky daughter. ³⁶⁹ There is a myth perceptible in a few traces in the Rgveda in which the Aśvins rescue their : kidnapped sister, the dawn (see p. 105). ³⁷⁰ They are usually ‘bullocks’ that are harnessed to her chariot and pull it over the horizon, a belief handed down from Indo-Iranian times (see p. 56). ³⁷¹ As the son of the Sky god (see p. 122), Indra is the brother of Us: as. ³⁷² In the Brāhmana : version of this myth, Prajāpati takes the place of Dyaus (see p. 184).

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visible, and the ultimate identity of the underworld, Vala and the Sky god (see pp. 172–3) can explain some of the following points: early in the morning the dawn arises from the underworld in which she is hidden at night, and brings riches from there for mortals, in particular the Daks: inā : for the Soma sacrifice which is proffered at this time (see pp. 212–13). Her emergence from the underworld replicates her release from the Vala, where she had been held captive before the world was created, and the apportioning of the Daks: inā : repeats that of the ‘goods’ from the Vala that made life itself [173] possible. And the Aṅgiras, by their decisive role in smashing the Vala, avenge the sexual assault on Us: as by her father, the first of the Asuras. Now the world was created, through the destruction of the Vala—the stone sky monster (see p. 126 fn. 259). And this act is repeated, when the world arises at the end of the year from the steadily lengthening nights that are threatening to return it to the primordial darkness. When Us: as makes her first appearance of the new year, she banishes the fear that the Asuras will assert their rule once more. She brings the life-giving light of the sun from the underworld and spreads it over the world. It is the Soma ritual of New Year’s eve that reiterates the first distribution of the goods enclosed in the Vala. And thus it is chiefly the Us: as of the first day of the new year of whom the poets speak when they praise the apportioning of the Daks: inā : (see p. 213).³⁷³ In the process, they developed their notion of the sacrifice from the figure of the ‘dawn’ that they clothed in new garments.

5.6.28 Sūryā Sūryā, the ‘daughter of the sun’ (RV 1.116.17, 117.13), often incorrectly identified with the dawn, is the goddess of the morning twilight, the early light³⁷⁴ that shows itself at the point when night-time meets the day. At this moment she meets with the moon, who joins with her in matrimony: the bridegroom Soma, identified here

³⁷³ K, The Ancient Aryan Verbal Contest, Indo-Iranian Journal 4 (1960) 222, embraces the explanation first presented by L, Der Rigveda . . . Vol. IV: Commentar zur Rigveda-Übersetzung, Part 1, Prague 1881, XI, and later elaborated by H, Vedische Mythologie, Vol. I, Breslau 1927, 28–35, according to which Us: as is in particular the dawn of New Year’s morning, and in the hymns of the Rgveda that praise the dawn, one sees New Year’s songs that welcome the first, the most : important, day of the year (cf. S, B:rhaspati und Indra, Wiesbaden 1968, 7). The conclusion that New Year’s Day is of crucial importance for the Rgvedic Soma ritual and consequently for the Rgveda : : itself cannot today be brushed off so easily as it once was by O, Religion, 243 fn. 1: ‘On these so pellucid texts (sc. the Us: as hymns) it seems to me the view is rather [411] more imposed, than that it could be gleaned from them, ‘that with the exception of individual verses, in the Rgveda we are in : general to think of New Year’s morning and not of the daily occurring dawn’ (H, V. M. [Vedische Mythologie] Kl. Ausg. 26; cf. V. M. II, 26 ff.)’. For more detail, see pp. 15–17. ³⁷⁴ And she seems to be the personification of the ‘joyful cry’ of the sun itself—probably above all, that of all beings towards the sun (cf. Chāndogya-Upanis: ad III 19.3–4)—upon its morning appearance. With regard to the pressing of the Soma that begins in the morning twilight (see p. 231), it may be said: ‘[Soma] drowns [out] the tender noise of Sūrya’s daughter’ (RV 9.72.3).

     ̣   

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with the moon, fetches Sūryā home, and the Aśvins are the matchmakers (RV 10.85.9, 38–41). Elsewhere in the text the Aśvins are the ones trying to win Sūryā as their bride (or whom Sūryā chooses as her husband).³⁷⁵ Thus the ‘sun daughter’ is apparently also considered in the Rgveda to be of enchanting beauty; as : beautiful as Helen, her Greek counterpart, for whose sake the Greeks and Trojans fought a fierce war. [174] In addition to Us: as and Sūryā there are other goddesses, for the most part lesser, in the Rgvedic pantheon.³⁷⁶ These are described together in the following, : although they are in some ways widely varying deities.

5.6.29 Aditi Aditi, the personification of ‘being unbound’, is associated with the concept of blamelessness, apparently in the sense of an ‘unsullied’ ‘nativeness’ that is not bound to any womb:³⁷⁷ she is the beginning of all things, the primal mother of all being, the female part of the primordial couple, which is made up of her and Daks: a (see p. 189). That is why she is entreated ‘to effect blamelessness’ (RV 1.162.22).³⁷⁸ As the mother of the Ādityas³⁷⁹ she is also closely connected with guilt and suffering, and release from these.³⁸⁰ After all, the Ādityas command the ‘fetters of guilt’ and have the power to effect release from them. Thus she is often invoked together with them to remove blame (RV 7.93.7, 8.67.14). In this way she creates ‘freedom from all hardship’ and ‘sunlike light’ (RV 10.36.3), the fullest expression of blamelessness. In form, she is a cow: ‘Mother of the Rudras, daughter of the Vasus, sister of the Ādityas, navel of immortality—I now proclaim to understanding people: “Kill not the blameless cow,³⁸¹ Aditi, knower of speech

³⁷⁵ In this is seen the continuation of the Indo-European myth of the stealing of the bride by the sons of the sky (see pp. 38–9). ³⁷⁶ An excessively romantic notion has made of Aranyā : nī, : to whom the song 10.146 is dedicated, although she is mentioned nowhere else in the Rgveda, a ‘Woman of the Woods’ (O, : Religion, 260–1), yet this idea rapidly dissipates in the light of sober grammatical analysis. After all, the word in the stated song is used as both a masculinum and a femininum, the latter through attraction to the °ān: ī nomina which designates the ‘wife of a (particular) god’. Not a ‘relative of the maid of the woods . . . , who M described exemplarily’, who shows ‘an ensoulment of the woods as a whole’ (O, Religion, ibid.), but rather an—apparently—purely poetical personification of the wilderness, who is described, entirely devoid of romance, as fearsome and terrifying. ³⁷⁷ See T, Kleine Schriften, Stuttgart 1995, 950. ³⁷⁸ On this function of Aditi’s in the horse sacrifice—O, Noten on RV 4.39.3 speaks of the ‘redemptive power of Aditi’—see p. 90. ³⁷⁹ O, Religion, 94 fn. 3, conjectures that ‘Aditi . . . was created for the purpose of being mother to her children’. After all, ‘historically, she is younger than her children. The latter date back to Indo-Iranian times, while she is . . . apparently purely Indian, not interwoven, as far as can be seen, in the old cultic orders’ (ibid. 202). ³⁸⁰ As the earth goddess, Aditi is apparently also the mother of Indra, the twin brother of Mārtān: da, : the eighth of the Ādityas (see p. 125 fn. 256). ́ ³⁸¹ Note the play on words, gām ánāgām, in the original text.

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who raises her voice, who renders her worship with all prayers, the goddess who has come to us from the gods, the cow . . .” ’ (RV 8.101.15–16). And already in the Rgveda, she is occasionally³⁸² identified with the earth.³⁸³ When the ‘womb of : Aditi’ is mentioned, for example, this very likely means the earth [175].³⁸⁴

5.6.30 Āpah: The natural multeity of the waters—RV 7.49.2 names various kinds—is embodied in the plural nature of the godhead Āpah, : ‘The Waters’. In accordance with the meaning they had for the Vedic tribes (see pp. 4–5),³⁸⁵ they were held in highest esteem and were called upon for blessings and prosperity (RV 7.35.8, 10.9.4), health and long life (RV 1.23.21), and for aid and assistance (RV 7.49.2–4). These were in their power to grant because they, the ‘Mothers’ (RV 8.89.4), give long life (am:rta) and hold within them all means of healing (RV 1.23.19, 10.9.6) and not only ‘heal everything’ (RV 10.137.6), but also ‘carry away all guilt’ and ‘every impurity’ (RV 10.9.8, 17.10). Everyday observations projected back to the beginning of the world make water a primal element from which everything ultimately has emerged and which, following the act of creation, encompasses the entire world—the earth from below, and the sky from above (see p. 193). In the Vedic rituals, too, water plays an important role, not least of all in the interlocking of earthly with celestial processes. After all, ‘celestial’ waters are used in the ‘earthly’ ritual. For example, the heavenly origin of the water with which the Soma is mixed is made explicit through certain ritual acts (see p. 231 fn. 186).

5.6.31 Sarasvatī The rivers³⁸⁶ are praised first and foremost among all waters. And of them it is the Sarasvatī, even before the Sindhu, that is the ‘best of the rivers’ (RV 2.41.16).³⁸⁷ ³⁸² Often she is however mentioned alongside the earth: ‘This let Mitra, [412] Varuna : grant us, Aditi, Sindhu, the earth and the sky’ (RV 1.94.16). ³⁸³ In later times this identification is established: p:rthivy áditih: , Kāt:haka XXIV 4 (: 93.11), mātáram ́ áditim, Taittirīya-Samhitā mahīm I 7,7.1. : ³⁸⁴ See O, Religion, 205 fn. 2. When it is said the Soma is cleaned or driven in the ‘lap of Aditi’ (RV 9.26.1, 71.5), this likely means the ritual site designated the ‘lap of the earth’—specifically the ́ Vedi (cf. p:rthivyāś tvā nābhau sādayāmy ádityā upásthé ‘gne havyám I 11). : raks: a, Vājasaneyi-Samhitā : ³⁸⁵ The gods who are closely connected with water are, first and foremost, Agni, Indra, Varuna, : and the Maruts. ³⁸⁶ The river names Asiknī ‘the black’ and Parus: n: ī ‘the grey-brown’ show how strongly the play of colours on the water impressed the Rgvedic Indians. For example, RV 6.61.7 speaks of the ‘golden run’ : of the Sarasvatī, and RV 8.26.18 of the ‘white-flowing Sindhu in its golden track’. Names from the entire colour palette, from white to black, served in India, as in all Indo-Germanic regions, as designations for rivers. ³⁸⁷ The ‘most motherly’ of all rivers (RV 2.41.16) also has a male spirit, Sarasvant by name, who is invoked together with Sarasvatī in RV 7.95 and 96.

     ̣   

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She is invoked for fertility of the land, through which she passes together with ‘her seven sisters’ (RV 6.61.10) ‘with heaving rush roaring loudly’ (RV 6.61.10), and abundance for [176] its denizens, both of which she should give them as she provided Nāhus: a with ‘ghee and milk’ (RV 7.95.2, cf. 1.164.49). She brings happiness and blessings, too, in the form of children.³⁸⁸ For example, she gave Vadhryaśva the mighty Divodāsa as a son (RV 6.61.1). Yet petitions for protection and safety (RV 2.30.8) are also directed to her, she ‘who slays the [enemies] who come from afar’ (RV 6.61.2).³⁸⁹ She is also a promotor of prayers (RV 6.49.7, 61.4).³⁹⁰ A typical local deity,³⁹¹ she forms—together with Bhāratī, the personification of sacrificial offerings to the Bharatas (see below), and with Idā, : goddess of the plentiful sustenance that comes from the cow (see below)—a fixed group of three goddesses³⁹² who are invoked in, as a rule, the eighth stanza of the Āprīsongs and asked to ‘set themselves down on the sacrificial grass’ (see p. 241) and by their presence to bless the sacrifice. What form their own worship takes cannot be determined from the songs directed to them. The fact that a portion of Soma is intended for them—from the early pressing, no less—is seen in the ‘litany of the forepart of the chariot shafts’ (see p. 235). Of the myths, only one is connected with her; it tells of the healing of Indra, who had become ill after excessive indulgence in Surāma (see p. 181).³⁹³

5.6.32 Bhāratī and Idā : Together with Sarasvatī and Idā, : Bhāratī is invoked in the Āprī hymns to set herself down with the sacrifice, having been conveyed there by Agni (RV 1.22.10). Her epithet, hótrā,³⁹⁴ designates her as the personified sacrificial offering of the Bharatas;³⁹⁵ thus she too is a local deity, with the tribe of the Bharatas under her protection (cf. RV 3.62.3).³⁹⁶

³⁸⁸ In RV 10.184.2 she is, like Sinīvalī and the Aśvins, petitioned for ‘the creation of an embryo’ (see p. 153). ³⁸⁹ In RV 2.1.11 and 6.61.7 she is even called v:rtrahā ́ and °ghnī, ́ respectively. ³⁹⁰ This could be the starting point for the transformation of Sarasvatī into the goddess of speech (see also O, Noten II 64 fn. 1). After all, in post-Rgvedic times she becomes vāgdevī (cf. : Śatapatha-Brāhmana : III 9.1.7, 9 and Aitareya-Brāhmana : III 1). ³⁹¹ One of the very few in the Rgvedic pantheon (see O, Religion, 91). Whether or not : Sarasvatī is—or is also—seen in the Milky Way, or is even perhaps identical with it, as claimed by H, Vedische Mythologie, Vol. I, Breslau 1927, 359, and W, Sur le chemin du ciel, Bulletin d’Études Indiennes 2 (1984) 217–18, has yet to be shown conclusively. On her relationship to the Avestan Arәduuī Sūrā Anāhitā, see p. 63 [413]. ³⁹² In this group she is often given the epithet mahī ́ ‘the great’ (see O, Kleine Schriften, Stuttgart 1993, 2096–7). ³⁹³ See O, Religion, 157, 505. ³⁹⁴ See O, Kleine Schriften, Stuttgart 1993, 2097. ³⁹⁵ See O, Religion, 247 with fn. 3. ³⁹⁶ See O, Kleine Schriften, Stuttgart 1993, 1865.

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Idā, : mentioned previously, embodies the plentiful sustenance that comes from the cow,³⁹⁷ and she is called ‘mother of the herd’ (RV 5.41.19). As in later times, she was apparently envisaged as a cow (cf. RV 3.55.13) even though she is spoken of as having ‘hands’ that are ‘full of ghee’ (RV 7.16.8) [177]. Particularly in the ritual she has an important role. Agni, considered ‘the son of Idā’ : (RV 3.29.3), rests ‘in her footprints’ (RV 3.23.4, 29.4, 10.91.4), which fill with ghee as she passes (see following points). When Idā : is summoned to the sacrifice, those who take part enjoy her portion of the food offering (see p. 214). This is why she is also a personification of the priest’s portion of the sacrifice.³⁹⁸ In all of this, the Rgveda : hints at a myth that traces back to the prehistoric Indo-Iranian era (see pp. 70–1): Manu, the first mortal,³⁹⁹ sacrifices ghee in the water of the deluge from which he rescued the creatures of this world (see p. 187). From this poured libation, his daughter Idā : is made. As she steps out of the water, ghee collects in her footprints. ‘Rich in progeny, rich in cows’ (RV 8.31.4), she becomes mother of all animals and of Purūravas, the first ancestor of men.

5.6.33 Apsaras Although it is by no means certain that their name really means ‘moving in water’ (ap-saras)—another (and probably correct) definition is ‘free of shame’ (a-psaras)—the Apsaras in the Rgveda, as well as later, are closely connected with : water. For example, while reciting the words ‘The Apsaras of the rivers⁴⁰⁰ have . . . flowed to Soma’ (RV 9.78.3) the priest mixes water into the Soma, which he metonymically calls Apsaras.⁴⁰¹ And water, both earthly and in particular that from the sky (see RV 10.123.5), is the actual⁴⁰² home of the Apsaras, although they can spend long periods of time away from it. Then they take on the forms of bewitching women and go among the mortals, having amorous adventures with

³⁹⁷ See O, Religion, 70–1, 243, 329–30 and id., Kleine Schriften, Stuttgart 1993, 2098. ³⁹⁸ See O, Kleine Schriften, Stuttgart 1993, 1756. ³⁹⁹ In RV 10.70.8 Manu and the ‘ghee-footed’ Idā : are mentioned together, but there is no mention made of their kinship. In light of the fact that in RV 10.95.18 Purūravas is called Ai:la, ‘son of Idā’, : and in the pravara formulas—in which the various traditional R: s: i lines are perpetuated—the sequence is ‘Manu—Idā—Purūravas’, it can be assumed that the concept of Idā : : being Manu’s daughter is also an old one. ⁴⁰⁰ This samudríyā (apsarásah: ) is strongly reminiscent of the Homeric ἅλιαι ‘belonging to the sea’ (Iliad Σ 86, Odyssey ω 47), an epithet applied to the nymphs. ⁴⁰¹ The following is clear example of this from the younger Vedic era: if the one consecrated to Agnis: t:oma ever spills semen involuntarily, he should recite a mantra so that the strength he has lost will be replaced ‘through the Apsaras’. Kātyāyana-Śrautasūtra XXV 11,21 teaches on this point that ‘he shall sprinkle the ejaculated semen with water’. Here the water represents the Apsaras, who are clearly thought of as its divine representatives (see O, Kleine Schriften, Stuttgart 1993, 2017–2018). ⁴⁰² The Rgveda does not—as far as can be determined—speak of the Apsaras staying in trees (see : Atharvaveda IV 37,4), which may be due to the particular nature of this text. That they prefer living in the mountains is first mentioned in post-Vedic texts and thus seems to be a younger notion.

     ̣   

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them that not seldom lead to the birth of heroic sons. For a mortal, however, these encounters can be disastrous. Contact with the Apsaras—and their companions the Gandharvas—can bring not only rapture (see RV 10.139.6) but also madness [178] and dementia (see Atharvaveda II 2,5, Taittirīya-Samhitā III 4,8.4). In this, : as in other aspects, they are like the related Greek nymphs,⁴⁰³ who can cause men to become obsessed (νυμφόληπτοι). These Indian nixies tie in with a saga encountered around the world: that of a connection between a female god and a human husband. The Indian heroine is the Apsaras Urvaśī. She lives with King Purūravas, the son of Idā : (RV 5.41.19, 10.95.18), under one condition—and this is another regularly recurring thread: she must never see him naked. But she does—the typical ‘disturbance of the Mahrtenehe’—due to a trick played by the Gandharvas (RV 10.95.3). And so Urvaśī leaves Purūravas and their son Āyu⁴⁰⁴ to return to the Gandharvas, who live with the Apsaras in heaven (RV 10.123.5) and in the celestial waters (RV 10.10.4). Her son Āyu, however, becomes the progenitor of mortals. Yama is likely alluding to a very similar notion when he tells Yamī, who wants to commit incest, that ‘the Gandharva in the waters and the water woman is our [shared] umbilical tie’ (RV 10.10.4).⁴⁰⁵

5.6.34 Dhis: anā : The function of putting things where they belong, putting them in their rightful place and thereby making them effective, establishing rules and setting up orders, is the purview of the goddess Dhis: anā, : the ‘Establisher’, whose name comes from her area of responsibility. When she sets Indra to slaying V:rtra (RV 3.31.13) or positions him to win (RV 6.19.2); when she sets the order of offerings so that the Rbhus and Indra receive the third Soma pressing (RV 4.34.1); when she ‘achieves a : contract’ with the waters with the consequence that Agni is set in them (RV 1.96.1)⁴⁰⁶—she is the one who ‘sets’, ‘arranges’ and thereby ‘brings about’ or ‘makes effective’. The latter is seen [179] in particular in her close connection to wealth and prosperity: ‘Dhis: anā : I invoke, the creator of riches’ (RV 10.35.7, cf. 5.41.8, 6.11.3, 7.90.3). This goddess also plays a not insignificant role in ensuring the success of the ritual. She ‘sets’ the order of oblations (RV 4.34.1 [see previous]) and establishes ⁴⁰³ Like them, the Apsaras appear to be ‘daughters of the Sky god’ (see p. 39). When the Apsaras in later times accompany fallen warriors to heavenly worlds, they are quite similar to the Germanic Valkyries. ⁴⁰⁴ He was raised by the river-dwelling Apsaras (RV 10.95.7). ⁴⁰⁵ That is why—Yama continues—‘their kinship [414] is of the highest’, as they are related by blood, which makes marriage impossible. ⁴⁰⁶ See O, Kleine Schriften, Stuttgart 1993, 2093, and T, Kleine Schriften, Stuttgart 1995, 1116.

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harmony between the utensils used in the ritual (RV 10.30.6).⁴⁰⁷ And in RV 1.109.3 and 10.17.12 the two Soma-pressing boards are referred to as ‘the womb of Dhis: anā’.⁴⁰⁸ : Because heaven and earth also set beings into their positions so that they go about their tasks in an orderly manner, they are often called the two Dhis: anā : (RV 6.50.3, 70.3, 8.61.2, 10.44.8).

5.6.35 Pathyā Svasti The later Pathyā Svasti seems to have emerged from the goddess Svasti, who is petitioned for ‘friendship’ in RV 4.55.3 together with Pastyā,⁴⁰⁹ Aditi and Sindhu, and in RV 10.63.16 for protection ‘at home and in foreign lands’; and Pathyā, the ‘[goddess] who belongs to the path’, who ‘possesses wealth’⁴¹⁰ and in RV 5.51.14 is called on for ‘prosperity’ (svastí). From this it seems the two forerunners were also tutelary deities, protecting mortals during migrations and journeys. That Pathyā Svasti is considered to be the wife of Pūs: an⁴¹¹ seems apparent already in RV 10.59.7, where that god of pathways and roads (see pp. 130–31) is petitioned to grant the ‘prosperity’ (svastí) that ‘belongs to the path’ (pathyā)́ .

5.6.36 Puramdhi : Inherited from Indo-Iranian times (see p. 60), the goddess Puramdhi is ‘accom: panied by gifts’ (RV 7.36.8) of blessings and wealth and is petitioned—often together with Bhaga and [180] Pūs: an—to bring her gifts to the people (cf. RV 7.35.2). This puts her in a close connection with Us: as, the Aśvins⁴¹² and also Soma, who are similarly responsible for the giving of goods and the granting of prosperity. This goddess is called upon in the wedding ceremony—again, together with Bhaga—when the groom takes the bride’s hand, doubtless to bring happiness and prosperity to the newlyweds (RV 10.85.36). Sometimes a rather vague figure,⁴¹³ she occasionally appears in plural form as well, since every

⁴⁰⁷ See O, Kleine Schriften, Stuttgart 1993, 2093. ⁴⁰⁸ See O, Kleine Schriften, Stuttgart 1993, 2092. ⁴⁰⁹ It remains uncertain (see O, Noten on 8.27.5) whether Pastyā is the name of a goddess who is separate from Aditi, or of one who is identified with her. Nor is it clear whether the word means ‘body of water, river’, making her the goddess of a particular river. ⁴¹⁰ O, Religion, 235, calls her simply the ‘personification of the paths’. ⁴¹¹ See C/H, LʼAgnis: :t oma, Vol. I, Paris 1906, 71. ⁴¹² Is it in fact a woman named Puramdhi whom the Aśvins grant an easy birth (RV 1.116.13, : 117.19, 10.39.7)? ⁴¹³ It is seldom really clear where púram : dhi means ‘bounteous blessings’ and where it indicates ‘the goddess “Bounteous Blessings” ’.

     ̣   

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god who brings prosperity is accompanied by his own goddess called ‘Bounteous Blessings’.⁴¹⁴

5.6.37 Sinīvālī Sinīvālī, who ‘grants easy and abundant births’ (RV 2.32.6–8), is appealed to in two songs of the Rgveda (RV 2.32, 10,184), and in both she is asked to grant : progeny.⁴¹⁵ In RV 10.184 she appears among the gods who are responsible for conception and birth: ‘May Vis: nu : prepare the womb, Tvas: t:r: carve the figures. Prajāpati shall pour in [the semen]. Dhātr: shall fashion [of this] an embryo. [You, too], Sinīvālī, make an embryo [in the womb], and you too, Sarasvatī! [And also] both Aśvins, the lotus-crowned gods, shall make you an embryo . . . , that you shall bear in the tenth month!’ (RV 10.184). Here she is invoked here together with Vis: nu, : and in Atharvaveda VII 46,3 she is called his wife, which is easily explained by the close relationship Vis: nu : has with fertility (see p. 137).⁴¹⁶ According to our texts, it is only later that she becomes a (kind of ) moon goddess to whom the day of the new moon is dedicated, as also occurs in the group of four goddesses— Sinīvālī, Rākā,⁴¹⁷ Kuhū, and Anumati⁴¹⁸—which is likewise post-Rgvedic and also : associated with the moon’s cycle.⁴¹⁹ Yet in light of the correlation between fertility, birth, and phases of the moon it cannot be entirely [181] ruled out, apparently, that this is the continuation of an older belief that is simply not mentioned in the Rgveda.⁴²⁰ :

5.6.38 Vāc Alongside Sarasvatī, whose area of activity had already begun to spread to poetry and language in general in the Rgvedic era (see p. 149 fn. 390), Vāc is a genuine : goddess of speech.⁴²¹ She is hardly thought of in any anthropomorphic form, and there is almost no mythology around her. And although she herself seems to have ⁴¹⁴ Such as Indra (see RV 8.34.6). ⁴¹⁵ See O, Religion, 244. ⁴¹⁶ Baudhāyana-Gr: hyasūtra I 10.16 calls Vis: nu : ‘the godhead of the embryos’ (vis: n: ur hi garbhasya devatā). ⁴¹⁷ She, too, is a goddess of fertility and reproduction (see RV 2.32.4–5, 8 and 5.42.12). The same apparently applies to Guṅgū, who is mentioned in RV 2.32.8 together with her and with Sinīvālī. ⁴¹⁸ Neither of the two passages in the Rgveda that mention this ‘Accord’ goddess (RV 10.59.6, 167.3) : makes it clear why she is now grouped with those other three goddesses, among whom she is the ‘Goddess of the Full Moon’. In the Rgveda, she seems to have been a kind of spirit of divine grace. : ⁴¹⁹ See O, Religion, 244. ⁴²⁰ Sinīvālī and the other goddesses listed can thus be compared with the Germanic Muhmen (‘aunts’) and the Roman Parcae. ⁴²¹ In post-Rgvedic times, the two begin to merge into one (see H, Vedische Mythologie, : Vol. II, Breslau 1929, 338 fn. 2).

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received little in the way of ritual worship, she was of great importance for the cult because she embodied the power of the spoken word, from which the hymns draw their efficacy. Judging by the songs that are addressed to her (RV 10.71, 125), she was first and foremost a goddess of those poets who reflected on their own power to make wishes and plans come true using their linguistic skills.⁴²² And they were aware that it was the creative power of this goddess, who they visualised in the form of a cow (RV 6.48.11–13, 8.100.10–11), that brought wealth and prosperity: ‘I [, language,] am the ruler who assembles the goods, the knowledgeable, the first among those worthy of worship. . . . It is through me that he who sees, who breathes, who hears what is spoken, eats the food’ (RV 10.125.3-4). The place of Vāc is ‘on the back of that heaven’ (RV 1.164.10), ‘her origin is in the waters, in the [celestial] sea’ (RV 10.125.7), ‘from whence she spreads out over all worlds’ (loc. cit.). These ‘waters she fashioned’ herself when she, ‘a buffalo-cow, lowed’ (RV 1.164.41). This unarticulated vocalisation, which establishes the earliest beginnings of this world, is followed by one articulated in syllables (aks: ara). And from the latter emerges the entire world. The naming of things, which ‘is the first beginning of speech’ (RV 10.71.1), is what causes them to come into being. And thus the goddess Vāc, at least in the eyes of the poet, is the actual creator of this world [182].⁴²³

5.6.39 Wives of the gods Like mortals, the gods too have wives.⁴²⁴ The Rgveda mentions several of them by : name—Agnāyī, Aśvinī, Indrānī,⁴²⁵ Varunānī—yet without providing any further : : information about them. Together these goddesses (see RV 6.68.4), who are invoked—singly or together—for assistance and protection (RV 2.32.8, 5.46.8, 6.49.7), form the group of the ‘gods’ wives’ (gnā)́ . They are repeatedly mentioned in connection with Tvas: t::r (RV 1.22.9, 161.4, 2.31.4, 7.35.6, 10.66.3), and together with him they also receive a portion of Soma to drink (RV 1.22.9/12, 4.34.7-8), as

⁴²² (Ultimately) it is Agni who causes language to come into being in mortals (see p. 95). ́ ⁴²³ A ‘Lord of Speech’ (vācaspáti) is called upon during a verbal contest [415] (see pp. 11–13), in which oratory of course plays a crucial role. He is asked to supply the words that bring victory: ‘Lord of Speech! Hold them down, that I may make them inferior to me in debate!’ (RV 10.166.3). ⁴²⁴ To me it seems questionable whether being joined by wives whose names identify them as ‘wife of Indra’, ‘wife of Varuna’, : and so on, can and should be termed Götterspaltung (splitting of gods), as B, Götterspaltung und Göttervereinigung, Tübingen 1933, 9, does. ⁴²⁵ Indra’s wife figures most prominently in the V:rs: ākapi song (see p. 179). As she is the quintessential ‘non-widow’ (Kāt:haka I 10: 5.8), the Indrānīkarman rite of the wedding ritual, one of the : purposes of which is to make the bride ‘be not husband-smiting’, is named after her (RV 10.85.44). The idea that she is also the leading figure in RV 10.159 (addressed as Śacī Paulomī), as G claims pursuant to the indigenous commentators, was probably gleaned from a reading of the fourth stanza, which is about Indra (see O, Noten on that song).

     ̣   

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in the younger ritual too, from the evening pressing (see p. 236) and out of the bowl of Nes: t:r: (RV 1.15.3, 2.36.3). While all of these this goddesses are basically amiable and benevolent towards man and provide him with assistance, there are a few who can do him harm and even bring ruin upon him. Particularly feared among them was Nir:rti, a goddess of death: going into her womb meant utter annihilation (RV 7.104.9).⁴²⁶ To avert the evil that she embodied—chiefly the shortening of the life span to which man is entitled (cf. RV 7.37.7)—they wished her to stay ‘far away’ (RV 10.59.1–4). When her messenger, a dove, appears, an act of ‘atonement’ is performed (see pp. 272–3). The Rgveda says nothing of any oblations for her, which are only attested later. :

5.6.40 Groups of gods In addition to the Ādityas, the Rbhus and the Maruts, there are other grouped : gods in the Rgvedic pantheon as well, of whom the Viśve Devāh: and the Sādhyas : deserve special attention. The hymns to the Viśve Devāh: are found in family books 3, 5, 6, and 7, after [183] the Agni and Indra songs and before the songs to the Aśvins, as for example in the third, or to the Maruts, in the fifth book. This fact shows clearly that these are not simply ‘all the gods’, but rather a separate group: the ‘All Gods’.⁴²⁷ The most important gods in the pantheon belong to this group, although in the songs they are invoked in various orders—in usually one stanza each—as well as many lesser godheads, some of whom, including Ahi Budhnya, Aja Ekapad, Pathyā and Aramati, are hardly mentioned at all outside of the Viśve Devāh: songs. This group likely owes its existence to the fact that when invoking the gods, one did not wish to run the risk of ‘forgetting’ any of them. And so in the Soma ritual already in the Rgvedic era the group was invoked at a fixed point in the morning pressing; : significantly, towards the end of the Praügaśastra, the first great litany that begins the soma-pressing day (see pp. 231–2). Unlike the Viśve Devāh, : the Sādhyas are mentioned only twice in the Rgveda, : but these two mentions afford us a clear picture of them, especially against the background of what younger Vedic texts tell of them. The Sādhyas were considered ‘gods who had lived before’ (RV 1.164.50 = 10.90.16), older than Indra and his ilk, yet like them always called Deva, ‘gods’, notwithstanding the significant differences between them (cf. Atharvaveda VII 79,2). It was they who performed the first sacrifice while at the same time defining the requirements for how it was to be carried out in the future. This marked the beginning of ‘civilisation’, the ⁴²⁶ This corpse demon corresponds, on the Avestan side, to druxš yā nasuš, ‘she . . . , who is the embodiment of death (/decomposition)’. ⁴²⁷ This applies in any case to songs that are dedicated to the Viśve Devāh. :

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period after the Asuras. This first sacrifice, at which the ‘sacrificial offering’ according to RV 10.90.7 seems to have been the Purus: a,⁴²⁸ conveyed the Sādhyas to the highest heaven where they have tarried ever since in exalted greatness, released from the cycle of sacrifice that links the younger gods with mortals. In the Rgveda, which serves almost exclusively the praising of great and the : greatest gods, lesser demonic beings are mentioned only [184] rarely, nor do they emerge clearly at all until the younger layers. The little that can be gleaned from the text is noted on pp. 87–8 [374].

⁴²⁸ According to this stanza, however, the Devas and the R: s: is also took part in the sacrifice of the Purus: a.

6 Myths Myths are traditional stories that tell, for the most part, of gods and heroes.¹ It is their application—i.e. their claim to authority and their ‘special’ meaning—that distinguishes myths from other forms of story-telling. The ‘knowledge’ they convey is significant for the community: gods are described, and their responsibilities ‘defined’, their relationships with one another made plausible, their deeds recounted, their latent unlimited power illustrated, their relationship to mortals elucidated. Myths also explain the existence, sequence and effects of rituals, and deduce the ‘now-state’ of the world²—its form and what goes on in it—and of society’s order and values, from events in the past. Thus the functions of the myth are multifaceted: from pure entertainment to a kind of religious education, to providing various aetiologies and creating a general legitimation that can be handed down to successive generations. The myth as tale has a characteristic base structure provided by a chain of motifemes. These constitute narrative structures that are few in number and stereotypically recurring:³ battle, conception and birth, coming of age, death, catastrophes, creation.⁴ Various methods have been developed for decoding the ‘knowledge’ handed down and for interpreting myths. It is astonishing that, in spite of considerable differences between these approaches, they share the conviction that the ‘knowledge’ of the myths is in cryptic form; that there must be a kind of code to decipher the myth’s ‘message’. This belief is reinforced to some extent by the ‘fantastic’

¹ More than this minimal definition seems indeed not to be possible. And even this scant description retains the ‘well-known difficulties of differentiation from fairy tales, sagas, and legends’ (B, Mythos—Begriff, Struktur, Funktionen, Mythos in mythenloser Gesellschaft, ed. by F. G, Stuttgart— Leipzig 1993, 15). ² As S aptly notes: The myth has a certain direction: It goes from beginning to end; the end is what is of interest, as it has an orienting character. Even what is called the aetiological myth is interested not so much in the preconditions that led to something worth explaining, as far more in the explanation of the matter in question. Philosophy turns the question around; it is concerned with the archē . . . . (Religion und Rekonstruktion, Ausgewählte Aufsätze, Göttingen 2004, 173) [416] ³ This according to B, Mythos und Mythologie, Propyläen Geschichte der Literatur, Vol. 1 (1981), 14. ⁴ The particular narrative material may be considerably altered and reworked, yet the recipients— the community—keep a check on the extent of variation introduced by storytellers (see G, Griechische Mythologie, Munich—Zurich 1991, 11).

The Religion of the Rgveda. Thomas Oberlies, Oxford University Press. © Thomas Oberlies 2023. : DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780192868213.003.0006

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[186] components of many myths. And yet ‘these . . . can be described as permutations that safeguard meaning; that ensure the meaning of the received mode, of the accepted institutions, and ultimately even of an arbitrary reality, as one alternative selected by the gods from among other (divine) options’.⁵ But such ‘mythic alternatives’ are what doomed earlier research efforts to failure in their attempts to match a ritual to each myth handed down. Nonetheless, this ritualistic interpretation may apply, if a myth is connected with a ritual that runs parallel to it—if the myth functions as a correlative of the cult; ‘if positive relationships can be shown’.⁶ This has been shown to be the case in the realm of boys’ initiation, to name the most striking example. Here, an interleaving of myth and ritual is found in a vast array of cultures. Thus ‘the prototype of the hero’s tale with banishment, quest and trial as prerequisites for marriage and rulership’—again, to give but one example—quite frequently represents ‘the direct analogue of initiation rituals’.⁷ But it has become abundantly clear from the myth-and-ritual debate that the relationship of myth to ritual is neither unambiguous nor inevitable, nor yet secondary (i.e. the myth being created by the ritual). For this reason, the ritualfocused approach only led to correct results in special instances, and other analytical models were required for the decryption of mythic ‘knowledge’, while the ‘structural-semiotic interpretation’ proved to be another, more practicable form of ‘access to myth’.⁸ In its more highly developed form, it assumes that ‘the meaning of the myth arises from its structure’ and that ‘the analysis of this structure is one method (among others) for unlocking myths’.⁹ With reference to the two methods that have led to convincing results in the past, myth structure can be analysed on the one hand in terms of the story, the mythical events recounted—e.g. through the reduction of individual texts to collective [187] patterns¹⁰—and on the other, in terms of ‘the “implicit categories” of the . . . ⁵ G, Der Sinn der Götter. Gottesvorstellung und Gesellschaftsentwicklung, ed. by P. E, Munich 1979, 51. It should be noted that G is referring to the reflected variation of myths as strategy. ⁶ S, Religion und Rekonstruktion, Ausgewählte Aufsätze, Göttingen 2004, 64. ⁷ B, Mythos und Mythologie, Propyläen Geschichte der Literatur, Vol. 1 (1981), 18. ⁸ B, Mythos—Begriff, Struktur, Funktionen, Mythos in mythenloser Gesellschaft, ed. by F. G, Stuttgart—Leipzig 1993, 11. ⁹ G, Griechische Mythologie, Munich—Zurich 1991, 49, 51. ¹⁰ The narrative theory of V P in particular—a structural model of the invariable narrative function(s) within the genre of magical fairy tales—has proved to be applicable to the myth as well. This theory describes a narrative arc, which may be called an ‘adventure’ or ‘search’ (‘quest’), as a series of thirty-one elements, or ‘functions’: loss or duty yield a task; a hero undertakes to perform it; he sets out, meets with adversaries and helpers, gains possession of some decisive magical instrument, confronts and overcomes his opponent (in some cases being injured himself or otherwise afflicted in the process); he gains what he had sought, sets off on the return journey home, shakes off pursuers and rivals; and it ends in marriage and ascension to a throne. (B, Mythos—Begriff, Struktur, Funktionen. Mythos in mythenloser Gesellschaft, ed. by F. G, Stuttgart—Leipzig 1993, 14)

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perceptions of the world and the self ’ held by the tellers and recipients of the myth, and on the ‘network of symbols with which these people made their world comprehensible’.¹¹ Furthermore, the opening remarks of this chapter regarding the definition of ‘myth’ apply to the interpretation of myths as well. At present, as has been amply shown, the only possible method is the toolbox approach: there are various ‘tools’ with which the myth’s secret—its message—can at least be explored, if not decoded. Myths are deeply rooted in human history, so it is not surprising that those of primordial Indo-European and Indo-Iranian times live on (also) in the most important Rgvedic myths, and that their linguistic and metrological forms and : their structure perpetuate old poetic language and heroic literature. Myths that may be said with some certainty to have originated in Indo-European times tell of battles between elder and younger gods, the killing of a serpent by a hero, the stealing of cattle from a ‘Lord of the Animals’—who is the son of a ‘smithing god’—by a culture hero, the abduction of the ʻDaughter of the Sunʼ by the ʻSons of the Skyʼ, the stealing of mead by a bird, or the (latent) wrath of a god that guards the waters. New myths emerged in Indo-Iranian times, such as those about Yama and Yamī, the Soma-guardian Gandharva, or the archer Kr: śānu. And in Vedic times, too, new myths were created, some recognisably based on existing ones. Thus in all likelihood the many tales of Indra’s battles with the Dasyu chiefs were gleaned from the Vr: tra myth (see pp. 179–81). As a rule, myths are set in the past: ‘once’, ‘in the beginning’, ‘before the world was made’. Yet here too, the events of which they tell follow upon one another in the mythical time, are contingent upon one another, build on one another. There are earlier and later [188] events, as a Rgvedic poet mentions explicitly: ‘Those : heroic deeds of Indra I now proclaim, which the club-bearer performed first’ (RV 1.32.1). Looking at the Rgvedic myths in chronological order, the first is about the : battle of an elder generation of gods against a younger one. That battle, however, takes place only after the elder gods have been robbed of their power; in other words, once the intoxicating Soma has been stolen.¹² Thus the Rgvedic ‘world : history’ begins with the myth about the theft of the Soma.¹³

6.1 The theft of the Soma The Devas could not seize power until the Soma, which was located ‘in heaven’ (RV 8.100.8), ‘in the distance, in the highest heaven’ (RV 4.26.6), ‘in heaven, in the ¹¹ G, Griechische Mythologie, Munich—Zurich 1991, 52. ¹² On the evocatio deorum that led to Soma and other gods switching from the Asuras to the Devas, see p. 81. ¹³ In Indra’s vita heroica this occurs directly after he is born, yet concerning his birth, which took place somewhere outside the world of the Asuras, next to nothing is mentioned.

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realms of light, with the Tritas’¹⁴ (RV 6.44.23), had been stolen. Although carefully guarded by the archer Kr: śānu, the Soma was taken by a falcon:¹⁵ ‘When I was still in my mother’s womb’—so says Soma— “I knew all the lineages of the gods. A hundred iron ramparts held me in custody.¹⁶ There, the falcon! With [him,] the swift one, I flew free. He did not carry me away on a whim. [Yet] he was superior in force and strength. At the same time the bounteous blessing of the enemies departed and [the falcon] overtook the winds, unfurling his strength. When the falcon.” —now the poet speaks— “came screeching down from heaven, or when [the cry rang out, that] someone had carried off the bounteous blessing from [heaven], when the archer Kr: śānu at the [falcon] with quickest of wits let loose, shot loose, his bowstring, the falcon darting downward brought the [Soma] to the followers of Indra¹⁷ from the high back [of the sky] . . . The arrow [of Kr: śānu] flew into his plumage, that of the bird, who darted speedily on his downward flight.” (RV 4.27.1–4)

The precious booty is intended for Indra. He was born—and this is where the myth of the Soma [189] theft flows together the vita of the great hero—outside the world of the Asuras, where he suffered bitter hardship: ‘Out of need, I roasted for myself the entrails of a dog, among the celestials I found not one who took pity on me, [and] I saw how the woman (my mother) was dishonoured—then a falcon brought the Soma to me’ (RV 4.18.13). Only after he drinks of it, ‘three lakes full’, as he also devours ‘300 buffalo’ (RV 5.29.7–8),¹⁸ is ready he to do battle with the Asuras. The Germanic myth that tells of Odin, in the form of an eagle, stealing the mead of poetry is broadly analogous to the Rgvedic myth.¹⁹ As told by Snorri, this tale : takes the following form: The truce between the Æsir and the Vanir after their battle was sealed by the creation of wise Kvasir, who emerged from the saliva of both parties, which they ¹⁴ This too means ‘at the greatest possible distance’. ¹⁵ Very similar to Śatapatha-Brāhmana : XII 7,1.6, RV 10.99.8 indicates that the falcon ‘has iron claws’ and kills the Dasyus with them. ¹⁶ O, Noten ad loc., and id., Religion, 173 fn. 2, sees the falcon [417] as the speaker of the first stanza. In that case, the fact that it is held captive in iron strongholds, thinking nonetheless about the gods and their distress, would be the well-known fairy tale motif according to which the doer of a great deed is faced with seemingly insurmountable difficulties even before he takes up his task. RV 8.100.8 can be asserted for this interpretation. ¹⁷ This likely refers to Manu, as RV 4.26.4 indicates. ¹⁸ Just like Thor consumes huge quantities of mead and beef, and Heracles an ox that is still in harness (see p. 122). ¹⁹ See O, Religion, 73.

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spat into a vessel. Kvasir roamed far and wide to share his knowledge with others. When he came one day to the dwarves Fjalar und Galar, they killed him and let his blood flow into two bowls and a kettle, and mixed it with honey. This became the mead of poetry. The dwarves invited the giant, Gilling, and his wife to be their guests, and killed them too. The son of the giant, Suttung by name, took revenge for the death of his parents and marooned the dwarves on a skerry. To save their lives, they offered to give Suttung the mead. He takes it home with him, there to be guarded by his sister Gunnlöð, hiding in a rock cave. One day Odin came to Baugi, the brother of Suttung. Through trickery he causes the giant’s servants to fight and kill each other, that he might take on their work. For this, however, he demands from Baugi a drink of Suttung’s mead. Yet the other flatly refuses to give Odin so much as a drop. But Odin succeeds in drinking all the mead, with the help of Baugi and of Gunnlöð, whose love he had won. Then he takes the form of [190] an eagle and flies away. When Suttung discovers this, he sets out in pursuit of Odin. Yet although he comes dangerously close to him, Odin manages to bring the mead to the gods at Asgard. And in this manner it becomes ‘the drink of the Æsir’ (drykkr ásanna).

In the tale of the theft of the kettle from the giant Hymir by Thor and Týr,²⁰ too, which also involves stolen mead, the kettle is in the possession of giants. This story tells of the Æsir spending time at a feast given by Ægir, god of the sea. But there was no kettle large enough to brew beer for everybody present. Týr points out that his father Hymir, who lives ‘at the edge of the sky’, possesses such a large kettle. Thor sets out together with Týr to the house of Hymir, where they did not, however, encounter him. With the help of Týr’s mother they manage, after some adventures, to take possession of the kettle. When they went forth with it, they were pursued by Hymir and other giants, all of whom they slaughter in the ensuing battle. As frequently as the Rgveda tells of the falcon bringing the Soma from : heaven, it says just as often that he ‘stole it from the rock’ (RV 1.93.6). Seeing in this merely a piece of information about the homeland of ‘younger Indo-Iranian mountain Soma’,²¹ however, is cautioned against by the Rgveda itself. After all, : Soma has other points of origin—such as the ‘Soma mountain’ Mūjavant, the Śaryanāvant lake that hides the horse’s head that knows the secret of the Soma : (RV 1.84.14), and the World Tree on which the Soma grows (see following)—that are simultaneously mountains (or located on mountains) and in heaven

²⁰ Like the Vedic, Germanic mythology also has two versions of the theft of mead. In one, the mead is stolen for the gods, in the other from the gods. Thus as early as Indo-European times, two myths may have been told regarding the theft of the intoxicating drink (see R D, Der Rauschtrank im germanischen Mythos, Vienna 1974, 168). Presumably, however, the bird that stole the potion for the gods was originally none other than one of the gods himself, transformed into a bird (see p. 62 fn. 84 and p. 91 fn. 84). ²¹ According to O, Religion, 172.

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(RV 10.34.1; 8.6.39, 10.35.2).²² In fact, not only the Rgveda itself but also the : Germanic myth of the mead theft opposes such an assumption,²³ as here too the mead is stored within in a rock that belongs to the ‘stone world’ of the giants. This is certainly compatible with another conception of the celestial home of Soma, of which traces can be perceived in the Rgveda, particularly if one places it : alongside the [191] related tale in the Avesta. RV 1.164.20–2 indicates that Soma ultimately comes from a fruit that grows on a tree: ‘Two beautifully feathered [birds] . . . clutching the same tree. One of them eats the sweet fig, the other watches without eating. Where the beautifully feathered [birds] screech for a share of the elixir of immortality . . . on which tree the honey-eating beautifully feathered [birds] perch . . . in that treetop will be found—so they say—the sweet fig . . .’.²⁴ The Soma, referred to here as ‘honey’, is apparently the ‘fig’ (píppala)²⁵ that grows in the treetop.²⁶ This is directly reminiscent of the ‘Somadripping Aśvattha in the third heaven from here’ mentioned in the ChāndogyaUpanis: ad VIII 5,3, following Atharvaveda V 4,3. This notion is seen again in a very similar form in the Avesta and thus originated almost certainly in the Indo-Iranian era.²⁷ After all, in Yašt 12 the god Rašnu is summoned from all possible places where he might be (see p. 200 fn. 17), and one of these is ‘the lake Vouru.kas: ̌a, in whose middle the healing . . . tree of the falcon, by name Vīspo.biš, stands,²⁸ on which [the Creator] set down the seeds of all plants’²⁹ (Yt. 12.17). Even without having seen the younger tradition, according to which the Gaokərəna tree, the white Hōm, grows near this one (see Bundahišn 24.1), the ‘Soma-tree’ of the Rgveda is recognisable in this :

²² Like other plants—‘Flying down from heaven, the plants spoke . . .’ (RV 10.97.17)—Soma comes from heaven and seeks its location in the ‘most heavenly’ place on earth: the mountains that tower over the northern part of ‘Seven Rivers’ region. ²³ On the Greek side, only traces of this myth are now found. Odyssey μ 62 f., for example, has ‘[by the rocks, the overhanging ones] . . . not even the timid doves that bring ambrosia to father Zeus can pass’. Further, such examples are seen in the myth about the birth of Zagreus and in that of Ganymede, whom Zeus—in the form of an eagle—abducted and made to his cup-bearer. ²⁴ RV 10.135.1 may be another such instance. ²⁵ The notion that Soma is the fruit of a tree is reflected in the stipulation in Vedic ritual texts that when no Soma is available, it can be replaced by certain other plants in its role as sacrificial substance (see p. 225). ²⁶ If T’ interpretation of the two birds—likely eagles—as the [418] waxing and waning moon (Untersuchungen zur Wortkunde und Auslegung des Rigveda, Halle 1949, 55–73) is correct, this is presumably a subtle hint that Soma comes from the moon (see p. 144). ²⁷ Because this is also found in a very similar form in Germanic mythology, the notion of the ‘honeydripping’ tree may be assumed to reach back to the Indo-European period (see O, Religion, 171 fn. 4). There, the mead not only comes from a spring near the World Tree, the ash called Yggdrasil, but also drips from that tree (see  V, Altgermanische Religionsgeschichte, Vol. II, Berlin 1957, 380, 383–4). The astonishingly abundant ethnological parallels, however, to the notion of a ‘tree of life’ (and the widespread tale of seeking and acquiring the ‘water of life’) sound a note of caution. ²⁸ This is also indicated by Dādēstān īMēnōg ī xrad 62.17 (in B, Altiranisches Wörterbuch, Strasbourg 1904, col. 1469): ‘The nest of the bird Sēn (sēnmurv) is on the tree i yutbēš i harvisp tōxmak’. ²⁹ Note that Y 10.10 also says of Haoma, ‘the daedal god’ has ‘set him down on the high Haraitī’.

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‘tree of the falcon’. Clearly, Soma was thought to come from a tree that grew in the middle of the celestial sea, in all likelihood on an island (see also p. 62). Thus all passages in the Rgveda that mention Soma’s place of origin speak of a : rock in the sky, where it either gushes from a spring that never ebbs or drips from a great tree; from heaven it comes to earth with the rain; and because the ‘easterly’ wind drives it to the west and thus brings it to the earth, this celestial rock clearly lies in the eastern part of the world—all of which are also Indo-Iranian concepts (see p. 62 and 66–67) [192].

6.2 The mythical battle between gods at the beginning of the world Strengthened by Soma, Indra takes up the battle against the Asuras, the ‘elder gods’. While the Rgveda has but few references to this battle, and those only brief : and obscure (see p. 80–1), post-Rgvedic texts repeatedly depict it in detail. The : latter are essentially in concordance with similar myths in other Indo-European religions. The basic constellation is particularly reminiscent of the Germanic religion: two generations of gods, one supplanting the other as rulers of the world; the two generations facing off in the Pantheon as two groups, of which the older possesses special powers and an elixir of immortality and is constantly entangled in conflict with the younger. In the Germanic versions, ‘giants’—as the seer at the beginning of the Vǫluspá recalls—are beings ‘who had been born long ago’ and who populated the world before man was created. Of these hulking creatures, some of them made of stone, the first to come into being was Ymir, who was formed when fire and ice clashed in Ginnungagap, the deep abyss between Niflheim in the north and Muspelheim in the south. After that there appeared more such primordial beings, some emerging from stones, some growing out of Ymir himself. One of them, namely Borr, son of Búri, begat the gods Odin, Vili, and Vé—all apparently sired in the ‘natural’ manner—with the giantess Bestla, daughter of Bölþorn. These were the Æsir, who killed Ymir the frost giant and made the world from the parts of his body: ‘From Ymir’s flesh was made the earth and from his bones, the rock; the [vault of the] sky was made of his skull and the salt water from his blood’ (Vafþrúðnismál 21). The Æsir pushed the race of giants out to the borderlands, away from Midgard, the land of [193] men that lay in the middle of the world, and from nearby Asgard, mountain realm of the gods. From there in Utgard, the giants threatened the world of the Æsir and were constantly at war with them—the protectors of the world of men—and in particular with Thor. This battle was always won by the Æsir. But in the battle of the end times, the Ragnarök, they succumb to the giants in fatal duels: Odin falls in the fight with the Fenris wolf; and Thor and the Midgard Serpent destroy one another, as do Týr and the hellhound Garm.

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This is clearly parallel to the Rgvedic conception of two generations of gods : who fight one another at the beginning of this world. What the Germanic myth doesn’t have—as far as can be seen—is a dethroning of the old gods.³⁰ Looking at the Greek myth that connects generations of gods, war between gods, and succession of power, it seems probable that the Rgvedic myth which has the : same elements traces back to Indo-European times. After all, the Greek religion also has two groups of gods, of which the younger generation succeeds the older in rulership over the world. The Titans, sons of Ouranos and Gaia (Iliad V 898), are the πρότεροι θεοί, ‘the earlier gods’ (Hesiod, Theogony 424, 486). In a huge battle they are deposed by the Olympians, their own offspring, and banished to Tartaros as gods of a bygone era. The most detailed account is found in Hesiod’s Theogony: Born . . . [of Gaia] . . . as the youngest [son of Ouranos], Kronos, he who plots crooked things, . . . hated the powerful father (137–8). . . . All the sons . . . , sprung of Earth and Sky, . . . were hated by their own father. . . . And the moment one of them was born, he hid them . . . not letting them come up into the light, in the deep cave of the earth. . . . But she groaned in her insides, the monstrous earth, harried. She thought up a cunning, wicked artifice . . . and [194] crafted a huge sickle (154–62) . . . and she hid [Kronos] and put him in an ambush. In his hands she put the sharp-toothed sickle . . . and [with it] he cut off his own father’s genitals (174–81). . . . But Rhea, united with Kronos, bore him radiant children, Hestia, Demeter and Hera . . . and Zeus the clever, the father of the gods and men. And the giant Kronos devoured the children. . . . He had learned namely . . . , that he was destined to be vanquished by his own son (434–64). . . . [But Rhea] hid Zeus . . . in a high grotto. . . . But she wrapped a large stone in swaddling clothes and gave it to the powerful lord, the sky son, former king of the gods. The stone he took with his hands and put it in his body, the fierce one, and did not perceive in his senses that what he kept for the future, switched for the stone, was his own son . . . , who was soon to vanquish him . . . and driven from grandeur, yet to rule in his own right among the immortals (482–91). . . . They, the illustrious Titans, down from high Othrys, but they from Olympus, the gods, giver of goods, . . . they fought back then against each other (632–5).

The battle sways long to and fro. Neither side can tally decisive advantages. But then Zeus sends the ‘Hundred-Handers’ into the fray, sons of Gaia and Ouranos like the Titans (146–53), whom he had rescued from their imprisonment by Kronos (624–6). And in the end they gain the victory for him: But when he had provided those (Hundred-Handers) with all things fitting to a welcome, such as nectar and ambrosia, dishes as belong to the gods alone, manly ³⁰ This seems to be associated with the fact that the notion of the gods’ victory over the giants being ensured through possessing the mead of poetry had faded into the background.

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courage grew in every breast when they had fed on nectar and on the tempting ambrosia (639–642). . . . [And] a huge battle they all awakened, . . . here the Titan gods and there all those who were sprung from Kronos and those whom Zeus had brought to the light from Erebos under the earth (666–669). . . . With their missiles [the [195] Hundred-Handers] covered up the Titans there. And now they buried them under the wide-pathed earth and bound them in cutting shackles when they had conquered them with their arms (716–717), . . . in a dank place at the outermost edge of the monstrous earth (730–731).

With Zeus as the third ruler, the succession of power comes to an end, because he devours his wife Metis and thus prevents the birth of a son who could one day disempower him: in Zeus, an order established for all time is fulfilled. Because Hesiod connects the Titanomachy with a succession of power which however is not found in Germanic myth, for example, but is seen in HittiteHurrian myth, it has long been assumed that the latter is the source of this passage of the Theogony. And indeed the similarities with the Hittite-Hurrian myth about the Kingship in heaven are striking: Formerly, in ancient times, Alalu was king in heaven. Alalu sits on the throne. Anu the strong, first among the gods, stands before him. At his feet he bends low, he hands him the goblet to drink. Nine years long Alalu was king in heaven. In the ninth year, Anu came out in battle against Alalu and overcame Alalu. And he fled from him and went down into the dark earth. Down he went into the dark earth, but Anu took his seat upon the throne. Anu sits on the throne and Kumarbi the strong serves him. At his feet he bends low, he hands him the goblet to drink. Nine years long Anu was king in heaven. In the ninth year . . . . Kumarbi came out in battle against Anu. Anu did not withstand the eyes of Kumarbi, he slipped from the hands of Kumarbi and he, Anu, fled. And he flew to heaven, behind him Kumarbi drew nearer, he caught Anu by the feet, and he pulled him down from heaven. He bit off his genitals, his sperm was united like bronze with Kumarbi’s innards. When Kumarbi had swallowed down Anu’s sperm, he rejoiced and laughed. [196] Anu turned back to him and began to speak to Kumarbi: “You rejoice at your innards, because you have swallowed my semen. Do not rejoice at your innards! I have set a burden in your innards. Firstly, I have made you pregnant with the heavy weather god, secondly I have made you pregnant with the river Tigris, which is not to be endured, thirdly I have made you pregnant with the heavy god Tašmišu, and I have set two (other) terrible gods in your innards as a burden. You finally will come to the point of beating your head against the rocks of the mountains!”³¹

³¹ This passage was translated into English based on the German translation in Wilhelm, Grundzüge der Geschichte und Kultur der Hurriter, 82 f.

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Nonetheless the differences cannot be overlooked: the four generations of rulers in this version are countermatched by only three in Hesiod. Genealogy, a central means of world interpretation in Hesiod, is entirely lacking. With the castration of Ouranos, moreover, Hesiod sets the separation of heaven from earth at the beginning of the formation of the ordered world. Rather than Teshub, the last ruler, Kumarbi is consistently the ‘father of the gods’. These differences are striking, particularly when comparing the Near Eastern succession myth not only to Hesiod’s Theogony but also to that of Orpheus, of which we have a fairly precise understanding thanks to the analysis of the Derveni papyrus. According to the latter, Ouranos, son of the night, is the first king (14,6). Descended from him is Kronos, who commits a ‘great deed’ against Ouranos and takes the kingship from him (14,5). The ‘phallos’ of the one so castrated, ‘who was the first to ejaculate the heavenly radiance, is swallowed by Zeus’ (13,4). Thus Zeus becomes ‘the sole one’ who carries within himself ‘blessed gods and goddesses and rivers and lovely springs and everything else that had then been born’ (16,3–6). And so the theogony of Orpheus aligns more precisely, in major points, with the HittiteHurrian model than with Hesiod’s version. It must be possible to conclude from this—especially against the backdrop of Rgvedic beliefs—that the two theogonies : have incorporated [197] similar beliefs from the Near East in an older version of the war of the gods and succession of power.³² One such older version is found—if only in references, albeit lengthy ones—in Homer, as he already sees Zeus as the son of Kronos (Iliad I 397, IV 59, XV 187) and calls the Titans, including Kronos, ‘children of Ouranos’ (Iliad V 898). Furthermore, Homer states that the Titans are disempowered by the Olympians in a great battle and banished to Tartaros as gods of a bygone era (Iliad VIII 478–481, XIV 200–204, 274, 279, XV 225) while the Olympians established their rulership over the world (Iliad XV 187–193). And when the Iliad I 402–406 speaks of a revolt by the Olympians against Zeus, who put down the rebellion with the help of the hundred-handed Briareos, it is reminiscent of the decisive role played by the ‘great and mighty sons of Ouranos and Gaia’ (Theo. 147–53) in Hesiod’s Titanomachy (713–20): fed on ambrosia and nectar, which gave them strength and courage, they help Zeus and the Olympians vanquish the Titans, their own brothers. Hesiod’s depiction of these events is strikingly similar to what can be gleaned from the Rgveda: crucial for the victory of the younger generation in the : battle against the older is, on the one hand, the assistance of gods who had been held captive by their own kin and forced to live underground, until the younger gods rescue them; and on the other, the ‘drink of the gods’. If one may consider this detail of Hesiod’s Theogony old and put it together with Homer’s version, it is in exact agreement—excepting only one additional generation of disempowered

³² It may be relevant in this context that Hesiod’s father came from Asia Minor.

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gods—with what the Rgveda describes: Indra kills his father Dyaus, the stone Sky : god (see pp. 80–1, 126 and 171), and in this manner establishes the rulership of the Devas. Ouranos, in view of his epithet Akmon(ides) most likely the stone sky, is castrated by his son Kronos, who in turn is ousted by Zeus, who makes the Olympian gods the rulers over the world. Alongside these two versions of a single underlying [198] myth, a third can be placed: the killing of the giant Hymir by his son Týr and Týr’s companion Thor (see p. 161): Týr and Thor steal the brewing kettle from the giant and when the giant chases them, Thor slays him with his hammer. The comparison of these three versions points to an old, presumably Indo-European prototype that tells of how the ‘old’ Sky god (Ouranos, Dyaus, Hymir), a stone giant who makes any form of life impossible, is crushed by the ‘new’ Sky god (Zeus, Indra, Thor/Týr) who then, as highest of the (new/young) gods, rules over the newly created world.³³

6.3 Killing the serpent and releasing the waters To make life possible in this new world of the Devas, the waters held captive by a giant serpent must be released. This is recounted in the myth from Indo-European times about the vanquishing of the serpent Vr: tra. According to this myth Indra, with the Maruts as his companions in arms, slays Vr: tra and releases the waters that the serpent had enclosed. The most vivid account of the battle of the ‘deceptive’ Vr: tra and his mother Dānu (see p. 81 fn. 35) against the club-wielding Indra is found in the song RV 1.32, in which the god, contrary to his usual modus operandi, fights on his own. He is the only one who dares attack the serpent: 1. Now I shall proclaim the heroic deeds of Indra, that the club-wielder performed as the first: he slew the serpent, he drilled for the waters, he split the flanks of the mountains. 2. He slew the serpent that had nestled itself against the mountain. Tvas: t:r: had carved him the club from the radiance of the sun. Like bellowing milk cows hurry [to their calves], the waters ran straight to confluence [199]. . . . 4. When you, o Indra, slew the firstborn of serpents and diminished the deceits of even the deceitful as you caused the sun to form, and the heavens and the dawn, truly you have not found another enemy since then.

³³ On the Avestan side, the Indo-Iranian myth about the struggle between the powers benevolent towards life and those hostile to it gave rise to the concept of a struggle between good and evil that endures both throughout the life of each individual and—as an apocalyptic vision—at the ‘final turning point of existence’ (see pp. 48–49 fn. 10): ‘And when these two spirits [, the good and the bad twin (see stanza 3),] clash in hostility, [man] shall create for himself in the beginning life and (= or) not-life and [also], how it shall be at last, the worst to the deceitful, the best thought to the veracious’ (Y 30.4).

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5. Indra slew Vr: tra, the great rampart, with its crest splayed, with the club, the mighty drubbing weapon. Like tree trunks that are hewn with the axe, the serpent lies there as the copulator of the earth. 6. As though it had no need to fight [in earnest], in vainglorious drunkenness [the serpent] had challenged the great champion, the powerfully besieging one, forward-charging one. It did not survive the collision with [Indra’s] weapons. Crushed by shattering, faceless,³⁴ is the one whose enemy was Indra. 7. Handless, footless it attempted to fight Indra. Then he brought down his club in a mighty blow on its back. The ox that wished to compete with the bull, Vr: tra lay there, flung apart in many places. 8. As it lies there, a burst reed, the waters flow away over it as they pledge themselves to man. They whom Vr: tra had encircled with his greatness, at their feet the serpent now lies. 9. The life force of the mother of Vr: tra ebbed. Indra had brought down his weapon upon her. Above lay the one who had borne, below the son, Dānu³⁵ lies there like a cow with her calf. 10. The body of Vr: tra was caught in the middle of the tree trunks, that did not come to rest [in the waters] that did not stop. The waters washed over the pudenda of Vr: tra. In long darkness he laid himself down, whose enemy was Indra. 11. The waters stood still—closed in as the foreigner keeps his women, guarded by the serpent like the cows by Pani. : The opening of the waters that was covered, [Indra] uncovered, after he had slain Vr: tra. 12. You, o Indra, the only heavenly one, became the horse’s tail, when the [serpent] struck its two barbs [200] [fangs] against you. You conquered the cows, you conquered, o hero, the Soma, you sent down the seven rivers, so that they sprang loose. 13. Nothing held [Indra] back from the serpent, not the lightning, not the thunder, not the fog and the hail, that the [serpent] strewed. When Indra and the serpent fought, the bounteous one remained the winner also for all the future. 14. Who did you see, o Indra, as avenger of the serpent, that to you, who slew him, came a fear in your heart? That you crossed the ninety-nine rivers like a frightened falcon crossing the realms. 15. Indra is the king of those who walk and those who rest, of the unhorned and the horned, he, who carries the club in his arms. It is he who rules as king over the lands [of men]. Like the wheel’s rim the spokes, so he holds them enclosed. ³⁴ On this maschalismos, see p. 296 fn. 100. ³⁵ On Vr: tra’s mother Dānu, see p. 81 fn. 35 [419.]

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As he fights the serpent, Indra lets loose the waters it had been guarding and they gush forth from the depths of the rock and pour the salvation of men in rivers over their fields. This is the most beneficent of all deeds for the Vedic tribes in their arid settlement area. Whereas here it is the waters that are torn from the serpent’s control, related version sometimes have in their stead a beautiful virgin, held captive by a ‘dragon’. In such cases the hero usually has to penetrate a fortress and free the captive. The eleventh stanza of the song given previously implies that the poet was aware of this trait of the myth.³⁶ And several other passages in the Rgveda (4.17.3, 5.30.3, 8.15.6, 96.18) show that the Rgvedic myth uses a typical : : fairy-tale motif.³⁷

6.4 The Vala myth The Vr: tra myth contains various traces of another mythical theme whose hero is also Indra. Here ‘the serpent is nestled against the mountain’ and by [201] killing it, ‘Indra causes the sun, the heaven, the dawn to form’ (RV 1.32.2, 4). This alludes to the greatest heroic deed next to the releasing of the waters (see p. ), celebrated repeatedly in the Rgveda: the stealing of the cattle from the Pa nis, : : enemies of the Vedic tribes, despised for their miserliness.³⁸ The Panis—according : to the myth—own giant herds of cattle that they keep hidden far away, beyond the earth-encircling river Rasā, in a rocky dungeon to withhold them from men. Indra’s messenger Saramā,³⁹ the female dog of the gods, finds them after she hears the lowing of the cows. She demands in Indra’s name to take possession of them and is met by the Panis : with scorn. Now Indra and his helpers, the Aṅgiras, ‘who detect the trail of [the cattle] [leading into the dungeon]’ (RV 1.62.2), begin to sing loudly their ‘foe-slaying’ songs (RV 6.73.3). The cows in their imprisonment answer with penetrating bellows. And this loud bawling causes the rock to burst, so that the cows can break free. Thus are they reclaimed from the Vala, and

³⁶ The fight against a dragon in the heroic saga was adopted from the myth and became one of the most popular motifs. And here too it is almost always coupled with the rescue of a virgin. In the Avesta, this deed is performed by Θraētaona (Yt. 15.24). There, however, the women have taken on—as far as can be determined—the position of the cattle that Trita captures in the Rgvedic counterpart (see : ). p. ³⁷ As a side note, the Rgveda (see RV 10.49.6 and 138.6) seems to have already known of the myth : about Indra making the moon by placing one half of the slain Vr: tra in the sky (see G on RV 10.49.6 and 138.6 and L¨ , Varuna, : Vol. I: Varuna : und die Wasser, Göttingen 1951, 71). ³⁸ That Indra was not secondarily assimilated into the Vala myth, as claimed by L¨ , Varuna, : Vol. II: Varuna : Göttingen 1959, 531, has been shown by S, Br: haspati and Indra, : und das Rta, Wiesbaden 1968, 136. ³⁹ J, Eleusis: Das indogermanische Erbe der Mysterien, Innsbruck 2000, 220–2, compares her and her role in the Vala myth to Hecate and her role in the Persephone myth, and infers a ‘Proto-IndoEuropean goddess who is involved in the search for the dawn’ (J, Eleusis: Das indogermanische Erbe der Mysterien, 222).

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men attained this good of all goods. And ‘the Vala lamented the loss of the cows as the trees their leaves, stolen by the winter wind’ (RV 10.68.10). The weapons with which the Aṅgiras, primeval singers (see p. 184),⁴⁰ open the dungeons—songs, litanies, and chants—are of a priestly nature, just as Agni, the sacrificial fire, is sometimes also involved in the rescue of the cows. The same applies to the naming magic that they sometimes use as well—‘dawn’ is the secret name of the cows. The first among the Aṅgiras, their leader, is Indra,⁴¹ who rewards his helpers with looted goods that they receive as Daks: inā, : ‘gift for the sacrifice’ in which they played their part so successfully. The role of the kingly sacrificer, played by Indra in this myth, took on an independent existence in the person of Br: haspati (see pp. 116–17), who alongside the Aṅgiras acts as Indra’s priestly helper in the rescue of the cows and—exactly [202] like Indra—split the Vala with ‘fire-heated songs’ (RV 10.68.6). Winning the cows is closely linked with attaining light, the dawn, and the sun. Thus the Aṅgiras ‘drive the cows forth, calling for the dawns’. And in this manner ‘they found the light’, ‘the ruddiness [of the dawn] became visible’, ‘the black darkness dispersed, the heaven lightened, the light of the dawn rose up and the sun entered the high realm’ (RV 4.1.13–17). With the release of the dawn and sun, as well as of the moon and the stars (RV 10.68.10–11), the waters too—which sometimes are also called cows—are released from the Vala.⁴² At the same time the sky is created, where the aforementioned bodies of light float in the celestial ocean (see p. 67), the earth is spread below it and the supports of the sky separate the two: ‘He has the spread out the earth . . . , the wide earth, you raised, [standing] upright, the heaven high, o Indra’ (RV 6.17.7, cf. 3.34.10). The smashing of the Vala rock by Indra and his helpers is thus an act that leads to the creation of the world. Because the Vr: tra myth also tells of a cosmogonic deed that Indra performed at the beginning of the world (see p. 167), the poets often combine the Vala and Vr: tra myths as recounting two phases of a single heroic deed (see p. 79–80) and even have the two blurring together into one,⁴³ although they are clearly separate—one has a serpent and water, with the Maruts⁴⁴ as helpers, while the other has the Vala, cows,⁴⁵ and the Aṅgiras. ⁴⁰ The Aṅgiras may have a counterpart in the Frauuas: ̌is of the Avesta. After all, both are divine, warlike ancestors who provide man with assistance. Their help is motivated by a sacrifice through which they gave a god strength for a heroic deed that contributed decisively to the creation of the world (see p. 59). ⁴¹ Agni, too, is called ‘the first of the Aṅgiras’ (see p. 94). ⁴² The release of the waters, however, does not play anywhere near as important a role in the Vala myth as it does in the Vr: tra myth. ⁴³ This happens in particular when winning the sun and its light is presented as a result of vanquishing Vr: tra: ‘When the [serpent] hostile to gods did challenge the gods, they chose Indra in the battle for the sun’, RV 6.17.8, ‘When you, o Indra, with strength had slain Vr: tra, the serpent, you caused the sun to rise to heaven, so that it can be seen’ (RV 1.51.4). Yet this is nowhere near as important as the winning of the cows (see O, Religion, 148 fn. 2). ⁴⁴ They do not take part in the winning of the cows (see O, Noten I, 5 with fn. 1) [420]. ⁴⁵ There is no rescue of the cows in the Vr: tra myth (see S, Br: haspati and Indra, Wiesbaden 1968, 244 fn. 114).

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According to the Rgveda, the Vala is located beyond the Rasā (see pp. 65–6). : This great, earth-encircling⁴⁶ river must be crossed by the she-dog Saramā that she may reach the rock to which the trail of the cows leads (RV 10.108.1–2).⁴⁷ High above in heaven (RV 1.130.3, 5.45.1, 8),⁴⁸ it also encloses within itself ‘the place of order’ (RV 10.68.4), the place where also the sun, the dawns and Agni are found (see p. 52).⁴⁹ Thus it is abundantly evident that the formless rock was thought to be far away in [203] the ‘other world’ above the earth—RV 1.33.10 speaks of the ‘end of heaven and earth’—corresponding to the high mountains visible on the horizon, rising as it were out of the underworld into the sky over the sapta-sindhavah: region. That the dawn and the sun rise from there every day and bring their light into the world is a consequence of their having once been rescued from the Vala. This makes it quite likely that the Vala was thought to lie in the east. The Vala rock, however, holds not only cows, horses, gold, water, the sun and the dawns, the moon and the stars imprisoned, but also the Soma and fire: ‘He espied the mead enclosed in the rock like a fish living in shallow water. Br: haspati pulled it out like cutting a cup from a tree after hewing [the rock] with a loud roar. He found the dawn, he the sunlight, he the fire . . .’ (RV 10.68.8–9).⁵⁰ In the process, Br: haspati ‘floods’ the aforementioned ‘place of order’ ‘with mead’ (RV 10.68.4). The liberation of Soma and Agni from a rocky dungeon located in heaven—or perhaps better: in the beyond—is directly reminiscent of RV 1.93.8: ‘The one [, Agni,] Mātariśvan brought from heaven, the other [, Soma,] the falcon stole from the rock’.⁵¹ Thus there is every indication that the place from which the Soma and the fire are stolen on the one hand, and the Vala on the other, are one and the same: a huge rock in ‘heaven’. When it is further said that Agni ‘dwelt in the Asura for many years’ (RV 10.124.4) and was finally ‘born from its belly’ (RV 3.29.14), this could allude to his confinement in the Vala. This would mean the Vala was none other than the Asura Dyaus, the father of Indra (see pp. 122–3). As though to confirm this unavoidable assumption, a younger Vedic text even calls the Vala ‘the cave of the Asuras’ (Pañcavimśa-Brāhma na : : XIX 7,1). The Vala rock from which Indra/Br: haspati liberates the Soma and the fire, and the rock in heaven from which the soaring hawk fetches the Soma and from which the fire is also stolen (see p. 100), thus seem to be the same [204] amorphous mass of stone—the unworld of ‘Father Asura’. While the Rgveda does not directly : express their consubstantiality, it does have the myths that report on them converging, in the misty past at the beginning of the world, in a manner that ⁴⁶ See RV 9.41.6. ⁴⁷ The ‘river’ (síndhu) in RV 3.32.16 refers of course to the Rasā. ⁴⁸ RV 5.45 describes the first sunrise of the new year using a diction that is very similar to that of the Vala myth. ⁴⁹ See L¨ , Varuna, : Göttingen 1959, 589–605. : Vol. II: Varuna : und das Rta, ⁵⁰ From RV 6.17.1, too, it is clear that the Soma is enclosed in the Vala. ⁵¹ Naming heaven and the rock side by side in a manner that suggests that one and the same place is meant occurs not only here, but also in RV 5.43.11 and 76.4. Saying that ‘the sun is in this rock’ (RV 7.88.2) fits this schema as well.

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    . 

repeatedly suggests their identity with one another. From this perspective, the many details given in the Rgveda concerning the battle of the gods, the theft of : Soma, the smashing of the Vala, and killing of Vr: tra coalesce into one cohesive picture. Accordingly, the Asuras existed as the ‘old gods’ (see p. 78) even before the beginning of creation and the origin of all life, in an unworld of perpetual darkness that holds everything imprisoned (RV 10.124.1, 4). Thus the Soma, too, is in the possession of the highest of these Asuras: the Dyaus, a stone monster. Outside the lifeless world of this primeval giant, his son Indra is born. When a falcon brings him the Soma it had stolen from Dyaus, Indra is able to take up the fight against his father. Their battle marked the beginning of the ‘first age of the gods’ in which ‘the existent was born from the non-existent’ (RV 10.72.3). The latter was the stone mass, the undifferentiated and elemental ‘chaos’ in which the Asuras lived. Indra smashes it, at the same time killing his father Dyaus, the ancient Sky god (see pp. 122–3). In this deed he is assisted by the Aṅgiras, who are born of incest—also darkly hinted at—between the Sky,⁵² the ‘great father’ (RV 1.71.5), and his daughter the dawn, Us: as, Indra’s sister (see p. 184). For this deed, which had come about because the Sky god held Us: as imprisoned within himself,⁵³ Indra took revenge and freed Us: as from their father, who met his death in the process. This put an end to the power of the Asuras, the gods of a distant primeval age, and the rule of the Devas began.⁵⁴ But in order that life might flourish in the world of these new gods, to whom the light of dawn and the sun had been brought, Indra had to slay the serpent Vr: tra to release the waters which the latter held enclosed. [205] Thus the Asura Dyaus is—just like the Germanic giants—a stone monster. The idea that the Sky god is a huge stone, ergo the sky is of stone (see pp. 66–7 and 284), is found among many, and specifically other Indo-European, peoples.⁵⁵ Undoubtedly it was the black vault of the night sky, with the stars seemingly affixed to it, that led to this belief. It was held to be the unworld of the Asuras, where light was held trapped. By smashing the rock, Indra—son of the highest of the Asuras and the first of the new gods—created the day sky that rests atop the remains of the stone sky, which can yet be seen in the form of mountains on the horizon. That the night sky and the day sky alternate in the heavens was a ⁵² Just as RV 6.12.4 speaks of the sky as the ‘lover’ of Us: as, so too is the sun referred to in RV 1.69.1, 9 and 152.4. This idea seems to have been derived from the fact of their daily meeting in the sky, and from their former confinement together in the ‘belly’ of the Vala—reminiscent of Yama and Yamī (see p. 60 fn. 74). ⁵³ RV 10.31.6 seems to be speaking of the sojourn of the Aṅgiras, the ‘heroic sons of the great Asura (Dyaus)’ (RV 3.53.7, 10.10.2, 67.2), ‘in the bosom of the Asura’ (see O, Notes ad loc.; cf. also  B, Dyâus Asura, Ahura Mazdā und die Asuras, Halle 1885, 45). ⁵⁴ The rulership of the gods must remain precarious, for it is directly tied to the possession of Agni and Soma: if Agni flees, which he attempts from time to time (see pp. 99–100), their rule falters. Likewise when Indra does not drink of the Soma regularly, he loses his (physical) power and the old rulers set about regaining the upper hand, or non-divine demons threaten the world. ⁵⁵ Aside from the myths presented, there are but few references to this idea in the Rgveda. :

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frightening miracle that could ultimately be explained only with reference to Varuna’s order:⁵⁶ ‘Those bears that are set up there, that one sees at night, are : gone away by day, whithersoever. Varuna’s : commandments cannot be cheated’ (RV 1.24.10).⁵⁷ Setting aside the notion that this refers to the two ‘sides’ of Sūrya (see p. 143), one is content with—awestruck—descriptions. The precursors of the Vala myth can provide information about its formation in the Rgveda, which at the same time can explain why the myth of the struggle : between generations of gods was pushed so far into the background in the Rgveda. : The Vala myth may date back—at least with regard to its beginnings—to IndoIranian times, as suggested by the correspondence of the Avestan phrase⁵⁸ yaθā as: ̌āt̰ hacā gąm vīdat̰ / vāstriiō ‘How the shepherd found the cow on the basis of truth’, Y 51.5, to the Vedic gā ́ ávindan (RV 1.62.2), tásya pathā ́ . . . vidad gā h́ : (RV 5.45.8) and ténā b́ hindan . . . valám (RV 10.62.2), all describing the release of the cows from the Vala. In terms of content, however, it has an astonishingly close parallel in the Roman myth of Cacus. Coupled with the myth about Heracles and Geryon (see p. 175),⁵⁹ it tells of the cattle theft by the son of the smith god Volcanus (huic monstro Volcanus erat pater, Aen. VIII 198):⁶⁰ [206] After killing Geryon, Hercules—as the tradition says—drove his magnificent cattle to this place, and . . . lay himself down, exhausted from his journey. When sleep overtook him . . . there, a shepherd named Cacus, who lived in that region, impetuous with his strength, beguiled by the beauty of the cattle, with the

⁵⁶ The claim asserted by K, The Heavenly Bucket, India Maior: Congratulatory Volume presented to J. Gonda, Leiden 1972, [421] 144–56, that the Vedic people believed that the dark underworld rotates upward and the light upper world downward at night, moved by means of some kind of hinge, is not at all supported by the texts, beyond the mere probability of the existence of such a conception. ⁵⁷ And yet explanations are given for this phenomenon too (see pp. 143–4). ⁵⁸ This passage occurs in a context concerning the claim of the pious to earthly goods, and thus exactly matches its Rgvedic counterpart. : ⁵⁹ The motif of Cacus pulling the cattle into his cave by their tails so that all footprints point outward (Aen. VIII 209–12, Livius I 7,5, Ovid, fasti I 549–51, Properz, Elegies IV 9,12–13) is also found in the Greek myth of Hermes’ cattle theft. ⁶⁰ If it were not for this parallel, apparently genuinely Roman, which with its cave (spelunca, Aen. VIII 193/210, antro, ibid. 217, 254)—Ovid, fasti I 543–580, and Propertius, Elegies IV 9,1–20, also mention the ‘cave(s)’ (antrum) of Cacus repeatedly—and the lowing of the cows in reply (reddidit una boum uocem uastoque sub antro, mugiit . . . , Aen. VIII 217–18) accords so truly with the Veda (see O, Religion, 142–3 fn. 6), the Vala myth would have to be considered Indo-Iranian, which stands alongside the myth about stealing cattle from a three-headed monster (see pp. 57–8), the latter of which dates from primeval Indo-European times. As it is, however, it avouches the Indo-European age of the Vala myth as well. O, Religion, 146–7 fn. 3, and id., The Literature of Ancient India, Stuttgart 1903, 17 with the endnote on p. 288, infers the Indo-European age of the Vala myth through a comparison with the Geryon myth. Yet this shows with certainty only the Viśvarūpa myth to be inherited from early times, since—as indeed O, Religion, 142–3 fn. 6, himself points out—the cave as hiding place for the cows and their lowing in response are not in the old version. B/ H, Roman Myth and Mythography, London 1987, 53, assert that the Cacus narrative cannot be of Indo-European origin because the name Cacus is apparently Etruscan. Yet this argument is far from cogent.

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    . 

intention of stealing the herd as his prey, pulled the cows backwards by their tails into his cave. If he had driven them there before him, their tracks would have led the owner seeking them there. When Hercules, having awakened from sleep at the first light of dawn, examined the herd with his own eyes, and noticed by their number that some were missing, he set out for the nearest cave to see if the tracks perhaps led thither. But when he found the tracks all leading out from there and nowhere else, he began to drive his flock away from that eerie place. When some of the cattle, being driven away, bellowed for anxiety about those left behind, the lowing in response from the cows enclosed in the cave made Hercules turn back. When Cacus tried to hold back by force him who strode towards the cave, he sank, hit by the club . . . to his death. (Liv. I 7,4–8)⁶¹

Where the Indo-European and also—as far as can be seen—the Indo-Iranian myths tell of how men came into possession of their cattle herds, the version in the Rgveda has placed the tale of the origin of light alongside this theme.⁶² This was : probably derived from the image of the reddish-coloured cows as the dawns so common in Vedic metaphor.⁶³ And the poets do repeatedly speak of the dawn in terms that are evocative of, or even directly referring to, the myth of the cows’ release from the Vala. Because the appearance of the dawn and the celestial lights that follow it, however, became possible only once the midspace had been inserted between heaven and earth, the myth of releasing the herds of cows from the stone [207] Vala was transformed into a creation myth. And this transformation clearly occurred on the basis of the myth about the world as created from the stone primeval world of the ‘giants’, which in the process was pushed completely into the background—the more so as it was connected with a ‘patricide’. At the same time, the myth of stealing Soma from the stone sky, from Indra’s father Dyaus (see pp. 171–2), was also appended to the Vala myth. Winning the light is an act attributed to Indra even outside the Vala myth. It is he who caused the sun to rise in the sky, who anchored it there and made it shine ⁶¹ Herculem in ea loca Geryone interempto boues mira specie abegisse memorant, . . . et ipsum fessum uia procubuisse. (5) lbi cum eum . . . sopor oppressisset, pastor accola eius loci, nomine Cacus, ferox uiribus, captus pulchritudine boum cum auertere eam praedam uellet, quia si agendo armentum in speluncam compulisset ipsa uestigia quaerentem dominum eo [422] deductura erant, auersos boues eximium quemque pulchritudine caudis in speluncam traxit. (6) Hercules ad primam auroram somno excitus cum gregem perlustrasset oculis et partem abesse numero sensisset, pergit ad proximam speluncam, si forte eo uestigia ferrem. Quae ubi omnia foras uersa uidit nec in partem aliam ferre, confusus atque incertus animi ex loco infesto agere porro armenturn occepit. (7) lnde cum actae boues quaedam ad desiderium, ut fit, relictarum mugissent, reddita inclusarum ex spelunca boum uox Herculem conuertit. Quem cum uadentem ad spe1uncam Cacus ui prohibere conatus esset, ictus claua fidem pastorum nequiquam inuocans morte occubuit. (8) ⁶² There are abundant passages that mention cows alongside the dawns (see, for example, RV 1.62.5 and 6.60.2). ⁶³ The validity of this explanation depends, however, on just what the exact relationship is between the Vedic Vala and the Avestan Vara. After all, Yima’s Vara is also a kind of stone cave, in which the sun, moon and stars, water and—to all appearances—also the Haoma are ‘enclosed’.

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(RV 1.51.4). To do this, however, he first had to ‘anchor the swaying earth, bestill the cavorting mountains, measure wide the midspace, and shore up the sky’ (RV 2.12.2–3).⁶⁴ As that passage further states that Indra ‘drove out the cows by opening [the dungeon of] the rock’,⁶⁵ it may be assumed that it was precisely due to the splitting of the Vala and the reinterpretation of this myth into a cosmogonic one that he was also credited with bringing the light, separating sky from earth, raising the heavens, and anchoring the earth (see pp. 80 and 192).⁶⁶

6.5 Battling a serpent This myth has a theme very similar to the splitting of the Vala, but it seems much more ancient. It is certainly a continuation of an Indo-European myth, which tells of the victorious battle of a hero against a multi-headed serpent. The hero of the tale steals cattle from this creature, which is described by the Veda, Avesta, and Hesiod—Theogony 287⁶⁷—as three-headed.⁶⁸ This myth lives on in the Rgvedic Viśvarūpa myth; in the Greek myth of the robbery of Geryon’s cattle by : Heracles;⁶⁹ and, in the Avesta, in the myth about Θraētaona killing Aži Dahāka and liberating the two [208] women⁷⁰ he had held captive.⁷¹ Again, one version is cited here by way of illustration:

⁶⁴ Also compare RV 1.103.2, 2.15.2, 6.17.7, and 10.55.1. ⁶⁵ It should be noted that Indra, ‘who created fire between two stones’, is also credited here with the act of bringing fire (see p. 100). ⁶⁶ O, Religion, 148, too, supposes that ‘here we encounter a younger layer of the beliefs related to Indra than those encountered in his savage, heavy-handed show of strength in killing the dragon’. It should be noted, however, that the Son of the Gods also performs these demiurgic deeds (see pp. 125–6). ⁶⁷ This heroic deed, which is most often given as the tenth labour imposed on Heracles by Eurystheus, king of Tiryns, is related as follows in Theogony 287: ‘Three-headed Geryon . . . was slain by the mighty Heracles . . . in sea-girt Erytheia, on that day when he drove away the cattle, the broadbrowed ones, to sacred Tiryns, having forded the river of Oceanus and slain Orthos and the herdsman Eurytion in his gloomy pen beyond the famous Oceanus’. The term βοῦς ἤλασεν used here, ‘drove the cattle’, agrees only partially with the poetical expression*gu̯ou̯- √h₂eĝ, which survives in gā ́ ajati, RV 1.33.3 (see S, The Indo-Europeans, Innsbruck 1973, 37 en. 10). ⁶⁸ Both Veda and Avesta describe it as six-eyed by contrasting it to ‘human’ appearance. ⁶⁹ See O, Religion, 142 with fn. 6 [423]. ⁷⁰ In the more recent version found in the Avesta, women rather than cattle are stolen from the serpent (Yt. 5.34 and 17.34, while no robbery is mentioned in Y 9.8, Yt. 14.40 or 19.37, 92). This probably owes its origin to the widespread abduction of girls fairy-tale motif. Various songs in the Rgveda suggest that the women take the place of the waters (see p. 169 with fn. 36). This, in turn, : indicated that on the Iranian side, the Θraētaona-Dahāka myth had been influenced by the Vərəθraγna myth, as indeed Θraētaona performs his heroic deed with assistance from Vərəθraγna (see Yt. 14.38). In the Avesta, the task of taking back the cows that had been held captive by an enemy power devolved upon Miθra: in Yt. 10.86 a cow begs him to lead her from the house of the Druj—the ‘lie’—whither she had been led away captive, to the ‘path of truth’ (see p. 31). ⁷¹ Concerning him, see p. 58 fn. 55.

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    . 

He, (Trita) Āptya, knowing the weapons of the fathers, fought, driven by Indra, against (Viśvarūpa). After he had slain the three-headed, seven-reined one, Trita let out for himself the cows of Tvas: t:r: ’s son.⁷² Indra, the Lord of the Dwellings, split him, who aspired to great power, who thought himself [powerful], from top to bottom. After he had made (many of ) the cows of Viśvarūpa, the son of Tvas: t:r: , to his own, he twisted off his three heads. (RV 10.8.8–9)

Thus the Rgveda attributes the slaying of Viśvarūpa to Indra and Trita.⁷³ The : Avesta shows, however, that Indra, the celebrated doer of all the greatest heroic deeds, was only later associated with this particular one, which explains the sometimes prevalent indeterminacy as to who actually conquered the monster.⁷⁴ Viśvarūpa’s father, the blacksmith Tvas: t:r: , had raised Indra, whose mother had given him up for fear that his father—the Sky god—would kill him (see p. 122). It was also Tvas: t:r: who had turned his mighty club for him, the one Indra used to kill the blacksmith’s own son, Viśvarūpa. The fact that the hero is brought up by a blacksmith, away from his own family, and that the blacksmith crafts the weapon with which the hero performs his feats, are ancient motifs.⁷⁵ And the figure of the blacksmith Tvas: t:r: himself also has close ‘relatives’: the greedy sexual desire of Hephaestus—son of spouseless Hera, and husband of Aphrodite—Wayland’s ravishment of Badhild (Böðvildr), and the repeated references to Tvas: t:r: ’s seed in the Rgveda and his relationship to the wives of the gods, are all of a piece; as are : the affiliations with intoxicating potions that is characteristic of these smiths: Indra drinks the Soma with Tvas: t:r: , who fashioned the bowl for the potion; Hephaistos limps about⁷⁶ pouring wine for the gods and is a close friend of Dionysos, god of wine and intoxicated ecstasy; and Wayland, hamstrung by King Nidung, gets the king’s daughter Badhild drunk on beer before [209] raping her, and kills her brothers and makes drinking bowls from their skulls. Another essential feature these three figures have in common is a serpent-like son (see p. 123). It seems Tvas: t:r: ’s lust extended even to his own daughter.⁷⁷ RV 5.42.13 mentions—quite obliquely, as in similar cases—their incest: ‘To the great one who is of good protection I recite . . . the song, [to Tvas: t:r: ]⁷⁸ who, swelling in the belly of his daughter interchanging his forms, has created this [world] of ours’. ⁷² In RV 10.48.2 Indra says of himself that he ‘created the cows from the serpent for Trita’. This would seem to suggest a belief that Viśvarūpa had devoured the cows. ⁷³ Thus once again, a helper fights at Indra’s side (see also p. 36 fn. 17 and p. 137). ⁷⁴ The fact that on the Greek side it is Heracles who conquers the monster nevertheless speaks for the fact that Indra had his place in this myth from the very beginning. ⁷⁵ Similarly, the hero Sigurd of the story of the Nibelungs slays the dragon Fáfnir with the sword made by his foster father, the blacksmith Regin. ⁷⁶ On the blacksmith’s limp, see p. 47 fn. 2. ⁷⁷ According to RV 10.17.1–2, it is Saranyū : who is named as his daughter. ⁷⁸ O, Noten ad loc., rightly asserts that both ‘the catchword rūpā ́ and also suśaraná : (VII, 34, 22)’ point to Tvas: t:r: —and not to Dyaus.

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The creator is apparently himself reborn in a new form in his daughter. RV 10.10.5 may indicate that Yama and Yamī were created in this incest (see p. 185 fn. 124):⁷⁹ ‘In the womb the creator made the two of us spouses, the god Tvas: t:r: , the impeller, the one of all forms. [Hence] none [of us] deceive his commandments. Heaven and earth know this about us’.⁸⁰ In any case, the myth of the incest of Yama and Yamī is entwined around Saranyū. As the wife of Vivasvant, to whom she was : given in marriage by Tvas: t:r: , she gives birth to Yama (RV 10.17.1)⁸¹ whose twin sister tries to persuade him into an incestuous relationship, which he however refuses (see p. 119).⁸² Tvas: t:r: ’s daughter is characterised not only by this proximity to incest, but also by the birth of twins—and the former is in turn often associated with the latter. After all, ‘when [the gods] hid the immortal from mortals, they made one of like form and gave it to Vivasvant. When that was, she bore the two Aśvins. Saranyū abandoned the two sets of twins’ (RV 10.17.2).⁸³ She is thus : regarded as the mother of two sets of twins, the Aśvins and Yama and Manu— who, as his matronymic Sāvarni : (RV 10.62.11) shows, is likely the one referred to here. That the gods created an image of her as Vivasvant’s wife and ‘foisted’ it upon him may have something to do with his mortality and her immortality (see pp. 186–7) [210].

6.6 Indra’s disputes Intertwined with the stealing of Viśvarūpa’s cattle and his killing is a dispute over the Soma, the ‘sweet potion of Tvas: t:r: ’ (RV 1.117.22), that Indra steals from his foster father (RV 3.48.4). The younger Vedic myth⁸⁴ reports that drinking this Soma, meant for Viśvarūpa, disagrees with Indra and causes him to vomit. These are apparently reflections on the consequences of illegitimate seizure of power and rulership.

⁷⁹ This is also assumed by O, Religion, 239 with fn. 2. ⁸⁰ This may allude to the fact that heaven and earth—witnesses to violations of vows—are themselves twins, and thus were subject to incestuous temptations similar to those of Yamī and Yama (see B, The dialogue of Yama and Yamī [RV : 10,10], Indo-Iranian Journal 52 [2009], 266–7). ⁸¹ If Tvas: t:r: is the one father of Yama and Yamī, Vivasvant could be the other, since twin births are often considered a [424] consequence of dual paternity (see p. 104). For more, see p. 284. ⁸² This, however, refers not to Yamī as the twin sister of Yama, but—very probably—to the latter and his twin brother Manu. ⁸³ The myth of the birth of the Aśvins as told by the Br: haddevatā (VI 162–VII 6)—Saranyū : takes on the form of a mare; Vivasvant follows her in the form of a horse and mounts her; the semen falls to the ground and she sniffs at it, thereby becoming pregnant—is strongly reminiscent of the myth of Poseidon and Demeter as conveyed in Thessaly and Athens on the one hand, and in Arcadia on the other. B, Myth, Mythology, and Mythography, The Oxford Handbook of Hellenic Studies, Oxford 2009, 679, sees in the Greek myth ‘a type of myth with clear Indo-European parallels’. ⁸⁴ See, for example, Śatapatha-Brāhmana II 4,3, Kāt:haka XII 3, and : I 6,3, V 5,4, Maitrāyanī : Samhitā : II 4,12. There, this narrative is partly linked with that of the Aśvins and Sarasvatī Taittirīya-Samhitā : healing Indra’s ‘hangover’ (see p. 181).

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Similarly, the subject of the quarrel between Dadhyañc⁸⁵ and Indra, which the Rgveda⁸⁶ tells of in various passages, is ‘Tvas: t:r: ’s sweet potion’ (RV 1.117.22). : Dadhyañc plans to betray the secret of this drink to the Aśvins. Indra threatens to cut off his head if he reveals it. To protect Dadhyañc from Indra’s vengeance, the Aśvins replace his head with that of a horse (RV 1.116.12, 117.22). He then tells them the secret of the Soma. When Indra ‘decapitates’ him, the Aśvins put his own head back on. Because this brings the next generation into conflict with Indra— the Aśvins are Tvas: t:r: ’s grandsons (see p. 104)—this, too, is likely addressing the questions of rightful entitlement to Soma, and hence to power. The secret itself can be learned from another myth, wherein Dadhyañc and a horse’s head play a tenebrous role (RV 1.84.13–15). According to this myth, the secret revealed by the horse’s head worn by Dadhyañc is ‘the secret name of the cow of Tvas: t:r: in the house of the moon’ (RV 1.84.15).⁸⁷ That is the source of Soma: the udder of a cow (RV 3.48.3).⁸⁸ The idea of Soma falling to earth with the rain emerges not from the Rgvedic but from the related Avestan myth (see p. 64). Significantly, this : myth also mentions the ‘name of the cow’ (gə¯ ušca nąma, Yt. 8.2), which in turn is reminiscent of the epithet gaociθra borne by the moon in various passages of the Avesta, identifying it as the ‘origin(al place) of the cow:’⁸⁹ the cow in the [211] moon— apparently its ‘(secret) name’—gives Soma (from its udder) to the earth.⁹⁰ In the otherwise tranquil world of the gods of the Rgveda, it is most frequently : Indra who is embroiled in discord. With his club he smashes the chariot on which Us: as rides up, whereupon she takes flight in fear (RV 2.15.6, 4.30.8–11, 10.73.6, 138.5). He clashes with the sun god when he helps Kutsa oppose Śus: na : (see p. 51) and again when he assists Etaśa in his race for the sun:⁹¹ the dun horses of the sun that ran ahead of Etaśa are placed behind him by Indra; the sun cannot advance and Etaśa⁹² wins the race (RV 1.54.6, 61.15, 121.13, 5.29.5, 31.11). He also has strife with the Maruts over Agastya’s sacrifice (RV 1.170). Although Indra has some disputes with Sūrya, he comes to his aid against the ‘Asurian Svarbhānu’ when the latter ‘pierces the sun god with darkness’ (RV

⁸⁵ In RV 6.16.14 he is called ‘Son of Atharvan’. For more on him, see p. 188. ⁸⁶ The addenda found in RV-Khila I 9,3–5 can likely be posited for the Rgveda as well. : ⁸⁷ Jaiminīya-Brāhmana : III 126 (407.2–3) seems to see the Pravargyavidyā as being the secret that Dadhyañc reveals to the Aśvins. ⁸⁸ It should be noted that according to RV 4.18.10, Indra’s mother is a ‘heifer’ and that in Atharvaveda VIII 9.24, a ‘heifer’ gives Soma (from her udder) for Indra. However, the precise connection remains unclear. ⁸⁹ H, The cow that came from the moon, Bulletin of the Asia Institute 19 (2005) 57–66, argued persuasively that the Middle Persian myth that has the cow and other animals originating on the moon may already be postulated for the Avesta. ⁹⁰ This concept was already known in Indo-Iranian times (see p. 64). ⁹¹ Etaśa, referred to in RV 1.61.15 as Soma presser, apparently won the Soma for Indra when he won the race (RV 5.29.5). When the Rgveda speaks of several Etaśas, [425] i.e. when the plural form is : used—with an ‘adjectival’ accent (as śoká- beside śóka–)—it names Sūrya’s horses as ‘those governed by Etaśa’ (S, Kleine Schriften, Stuttgart 1991, 412). ⁹² In some passages it is said (just as in the Śus: na : myth) that Etaśa ‘carried the wheel [of the sun’s chariot away]’ (RV 1.121.13, 5.31.11).

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5.40.5); Indra ‘beats down the magic arts of Svarbhānu’ (RV 5.40.6). The actual saviour of the sun, however, which was darkened by an ‘eclipse contrary to the vows [i.e. unnatural]’—referring to sunspots⁹³—is Atri, the eponymous hero of the family in whose song circle the Svarbhānu hymn is found, who in some hymns of the Rgveda is described as the one saved by the Aśvins, as the twin gods freed : him from a pit (see p. 183).⁹⁴ The quarrel that breaks out between Indra and his wife Indrānī : involves Indra’s pet, a handsome monkey named Vr: s: ākapi, ‘who has Indra for a friend’ (RV 10.86.1). The monkey has caused damage among the things Indrānī : ‘holds dear’ (RV 10.86.5), and for this she seeks revenge. To gain control over him, she speaks quite explicitly of her own physical charms (RV 10.86.6). The monkey cannot resist the temptation and approaches. Indrānī : beats him mercilessly and then chases him away (RV 10.86.8). Indra, deprived of his monkey, is overcome with grief (RV 10.86.12). And this apparently weakens his manhood temporarily, as occurs when [212] he is not given any Soma to drink. But Vr: s: ākapi, who now dwells in the wilderness, is able to mix a remedy for the god’s weakness from things he has at hand there. This propitiates Indrānī, : who asks him to come back. A number of very different attempts have made to come to terms with this farce.⁹⁵ Considering the position of this song in the Rgveda—immediately after the : wedding song, even though it has more stanzas than the subsequent song—the most likely explanation is that it reflects a widespread marriage custom that involves amusing the newlyweds, both to ease the awkwardness about their first sexual encounter and to enhance the fertility of their intercourse with ribaldry.

6.7 Other martial feats performed by Indra The myth about the slaying of Vr: tra was a model—far more so than the sacerdotally tinged tale of the Vala—for further martial deeds performed by Indra:⁹⁶ ‘After

⁹³ That sun spots are meant, and not an eclipse, is indicated by, among other things, the use of the verb ‘to pierce’ in the myth (see previous). This is probably why the Svarbhānu and Rāhu myths have remained strictly separate. The latter may be traceable to a myth about Vr: tra attested in TaittirīyaSamhitā II 4,12 and 5,2 (see W. C, Kleine Schriften, Stuttgart 1990, 552–3). : ⁹⁴ Contrary to my own review (see Orientalistische Literaturzeitung 89 [1994] 583–93), it now seems to me—as to B, Indo-Iranian Journal 40 (1997) 59–68—that the wide-ranging deductions of J, The Ravenous Hyenas and the Wounded Sun, Ithaca—London 1991, are, at least in part, far from convincing. Her explanation of the Svarbhānu myth is indeed—as B, Indo-Iranian Journal 40 (1997) 66, noted—arrived at through a quite arbitrary exchange among, and mutual identification with, the protagonists of various myths. For example, the incest between Prajāpati-Us: as, which has been shown to have originated with Dyaus, in her interpretation becomes incest between Sūrya and Us: as (J, The Ravenous Hyenas and the Wounded Sun, 293), for which, however, there is not the slightest evidence. And yet it is purported to be the reason for Sūrya’s punishment by Svarbhānu, who in turn is supposedly none other than Agni-Rudra. ⁹⁵ That this is part of the Aśvamedha sacrifice, as claimed by J, Sacrificed Wife/Sacrificer’s Wife, New York—Oxford 1996, 74–88, is highly doubtful. ⁹⁶ On such replication of myths, see p. 159.

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he had slain [Vr: tra] with his club, he caused the waters to flow out. He slew the serpent. He split apart Rauhina.⁹⁷ Him that splayed his crest he smote with his : powers, the bounteous one’ (RV 1.103.2). Mythical and actual deeds seamlessly converge here, even if at times—regarding Śus: na, : for example—the mythical element is the more prominent (see following). Concerning many of those defeated by Indra we learn only the names, of which dozens are given in the Rgveda.⁹⁸ And quite a few of them vary widely from the familiar Vedic onomas: tics, with such names as Cumuri, Dr: bhīka, Ilībiśa, and Sr: binda, to name but a few. A foreign sound is also clearly perceptible when those Aryans are named for whom Indra strikes down the Dāsas (see p. 120):⁹⁹ ‘Down from the mountain you strike the Dāsa Śambara. Divodāsa you help with visible aids. [213] For Dabhīti, O Indra, . . . you put Cumuri to sleep.¹⁰⁰ For Pit:hīnas you strike down Raji’ (RV 6.26.5–6). The allocations follow a pattern for the most part: each Aryan warrior has a particular Dāsa enemy.¹⁰¹ Some of these dwell in the mountains, as does Śambara, where they store up their possessions in ramparts that Indra has no difficulty in breaking down: ‘You struck down [from the mountain] the hundred ramparts of the Dasyu Śambara without resistance, when with your strength . . . you helped Divodāsa, who presses [for you the Soma], to gain treasures’ (RV 6.31.4). Because there are also cattle in the mountains to be captured, some of which the Dāsas had stolen from the Aryans, many of these fights also recall the smashing of the Vala: ‘Cattle of the Arbuda, of the cunning Mr: gaya, of Parvata are driven out by you, [O Indra]’ (RV 8.3.19).¹⁰² More distinctly mythical is the struggle between Indra and Śus: na, : the ‘hissing one’, apparently also a serpent like Vr: tra (see p. 167).¹⁰³ Indra and Kutsa, the son of Arjuna, do battle against Śus: na : together, riding a chariot drawn by the steeds of the wind. Strengthened by the Soma given him by Kāvya Uśanas¹⁰⁴ and armed

⁹⁷ RV 2.12.12 says of him, ‘he ascends to heaven’. ⁹⁸ RV 8.32.1–2 is a typical example: ‘Proclaim . . . the deeds of Indra . . . who slew the Sr: binda, the Anarśani, the Pipru, the Dāsa Ahīśū’. Some passages tell us a little more, such as that the Urana : killed by Indra possessed ‘ninety-nine arms’ (RV 2.14.4) or that Emus: a was a boar (RV 8.77.10, cf. 1.61.7). The myth about Emūs: a—this being the younger form of his name—was later embellished by the Brāhmanas : (see M, Vedic Mythology, Strasbourg 1898, 41) [426]. ⁹⁹ On a few occasions, however, Indra’s favourites appear as his enemies; for example Kutsa, Āyu, and Atithigva in RV 2.14.7. ¹⁰⁰ Indra also puts Dhuni, who is regularly named together with Cumuri, to sleep (RV 2.15.9, 6.20.13, 7.19.4) so that they can both be easily killed by Dabhīti (RV 7.19.4). RV 4.30.21 even says that Indra ‘put thirty thousand Dāsas to sleep with his magical power’, again for Dabhīti. ¹⁰¹ Accordingly, Śambara is always the enemy of Divodāsa Atithigva. ¹⁰² Note the (níh) : gā ́ ājah: (to which compare p. 175 n. 67), so characteristic of the Vala myth. ¹⁰³ RV 1.33.12 calls Śus: na : ‘horned’, RV 8.40.10–11 speaks of his ‘eggs’, from which his ‘offspring’ seem to emerge (RV 10.22.11), and RV 5.34.2 even seems to call him a ‘beast’. ¹⁰⁴ According to RV 8.23.17, it is he who employs Agni as Hotr: for Manu, and RV 1.83.5 has him ‘drive the cows in’, apparently to perform the first sacrifice, or one of the first (see p. 188). In the younger Vedic literature, however, he is considered the ‘messenger of the Asuras’, the counterpart of Agni, who performs that service for the gods (Taittirīya-Samhitā II 5,8.5). :

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with a club he made for him (RV 1.121.11, 5.34.1), Indra aids Kutsa by ‘plucking out the wheel of the sun’ (RV 1.51.10–11, 121.12;—1.174.5, 4.16.12, 30.4, 5.29.10, 6.31.3).¹⁰⁵ It seems this prevents the sun from setting, and in the twilight, ‘before the sun’s brilliance goes into the darkness’ (RV 1.121.10), Kutsa succeeds in defeating his demonic opponent.¹⁰⁶ This narrative motif is highly evocative of the tale of the Dāsa Namuci. Indra ‘tears’ his head ‘off ’ for Namī Sāpya (RV 5.30.8, 6.20.6)¹⁰⁷ by making it ‘roll upward with the foam of the waters’ (RV 8.14.13)—and this is one characteristic of the myth that is also familiar from younger Vedic texts,¹⁰⁸ according to which this beheading takes place in the twilight of dawn, not of evening (MS IV 3,4: 43.11).¹⁰⁹ Indra is connected with this demon ‘well-versed in magic’ (RV 1.53.7) in another encounter, apparently a proper [214] drinking spree. The Aśvins drink, with the ‘Asurian Namuci, the adulderated Soma’, in the process separating the alcoholic Surā and Soma that Namuci served to Indra. And with this they cured the ‘hungover’ Indra, along with Sarasvatī (see p. 149 and 244–5). Among all of Indra’s battles, one stands out as being of particular importance, especially with regard to early Indian history. In the ‘Battle of Ten Kings’ fought on the banks of the broad Parus: nī : river, Sudās, the son of Divodāsa Atithigva, led the Bharatas in their defeat of an alliance of ten kings who commanded the ‘Five Tribes’. Vasis: t:ha and the Tr: tsus (RV 7.33.3), the priests of Sudās, prayed to Indra—who was surrounded by their enemies (RV 7.83.8)—to cause the armies of the ten kings to perish in the floods of the Parus: nī. :

¹⁰⁵ RV 1.130.9 also speaks of Indra’s theft of the sun-wheel, without making clear the details of the myth referred to there (see O, Noten ad loc.). ¹⁰⁶ Like other Dāsas and Dasyus, Śus: na : also barricaded himself within ramparts. Thus RV 2.19.6 (and apparently also 1.54.6) blends the fight against Śus: na : with that against Śambara, whose ramparts are mentioned repeatedly. When RV 8.1.28 calls Śus: na’s : ramparts ‘movable’ and when RV 1.121.11 refers to him as ‘lying in the flowing [waters]’ (Vr: tra here means Śus: na), : it might indeed be plausible, as S, Kleine Schriften, Stuttgart 1991, 396, suggests, to picture this as some type of ‘ship-city’. ¹⁰⁷ Makha, too, a demon hostile to Soma (RV 9.101.13), is beheaded by Indra (RV 10.171.2). Various younger Vedic texts say the Mahāvīra pot used in the Pravargya ritual (see p. 246) is the head of the decapitated Makha. According to these texts, Makha is beheaded with the aid of ants who bite through the string of the bow that Makha leans on, so that he is killed by his own weapon. In exchange, the ants are granted their wish to find [427] food and water wherever they dig for it. Whether this ‘continuation’ of the Makha myth was also known to the Rgveda, as O, Fragments of a Lost Myths: Indra and : the Ants, Proceedings of the American Philological Association 41 (1910), lv–lix, asserted, is highly uncertain. O does not see vamr(ak)á (nor vamrī́) as the proper name of a demon (as G does for RV 1.112.15 and 10.99.5, 12), but as the ordinary words for ‘ant’, which he says are always found in the context of this myth. ¹⁰⁸ G, on RV 1.104.3, presumes that this motif recurs in the killing of Kuyava, or of his two wives, which is why Namuci and Kuyava could be ‘virtually identical’. ¹⁰⁹ According to these younger Vedic texts, ‘Indra and Namuci [ . . . ] agreed not to strike each other by day or by night, with nothing dry and nothing wet. Indra struck him at dawn, when it was neither day nor night’, with a weapon of foam ‘that is neither dry nor wet’ (O, Religion, 157 fn. 2). Even more than with the ‘fairy tale motif of finding a way out where seemingly every way out is blocked’ (O, Religion, ibid.), we are dealing with the equivocal oath motif.

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6.8 Indra in history With the previously mentioned and all his other victories, Indra reveals himself in history.¹¹⁰ His heroic deeds are often called ‘true’, i.e. objectively real (RV 1.84.17, 2.15.1, 22.1–3), and they are reported in various passages in proper chronological order: ‘Despite the Soma pressed by Pāśadyumna Vāyata, Indra chose the Vasis: t:has; verily he crossed with them . . . the Sindhu, verily he slew with them the Bheda, verily he helped . . . Sudās’ (RV 7.33.2–3). Thus the beginnings of historical thinking in the Rgveda are found primarily in the Indra hymns. For : the Vedic poet, of course, history begins with the smashing of the Vala and the killing of Vr: tra, heroic feats by which Indra first created the world. With other such deeds he established order in it, though only in a kind of raw state (see pp. 83–4). In the tremendous act that first established the world,¹¹¹ he separated heaven from earth (RV 5.29.4, 31.6, 6.44.24, 8.37.4, 10.44.4) and supported ‘the great sky without baulk’ (RV 2.15.2)¹¹² by inserting [215] the midspace between heaven and earth so that ‘it might not fall down’ (RV 2.17.3). He anchored the swaying earth below (RV 2.12.2), partly in that he ‘brought to rest the mountains that cavorted in agitation’ (RV 2.12.2) by cutting off the wings they had previously possessed (RV 4.19.4, 54.5).¹¹³ Then he ‘dug out the courses [of] the all-nourishing [streams]’ (RV 4.19.2) and in the sky he fastened the sun and other lights (RV 8.12.30, 14.9). While these myths describe how Indra once created and ordered the world,¹¹⁴ ‘accounts’ of his further achievements write this ‘primordial story’ into the present time of the Rgveda. In other words, the Indra songs : with their cosmogonic ‘allusions’ also make statements about the present—about events taking place at the time of composing, about the capture by the Vedic tribes of space for living and lands for settling, and about the ordering of this new world.¹¹⁵

¹¹⁰ The term ‘history’ is used here to refer to a mixture of mythical history and the report or recollection of events that actually occurred. ¹¹¹ It is a deed that none could perform so well as he. Because Indra is an ‘innovation’ of the Vedic tribes, the myth about separating heaven and earth was not originally connected with him, but rather, like other such tales, transferred to him—from whom, is not clear. ¹¹² For more on the world pillar and the world tree, see p. 192. ¹¹³ A more detailed account is given in a younger Vedic myth (Kāt:haka XXXVI 7: 74.5–8, Maitrāyanī I 10,13: 152.12–15). : Samhitā : ¹¹⁴ These are myths about the sovereignty of Indra, celebrating the power of this god who rules over the entire universe. ¹¹⁵ The Rgveda is not alone with this type of cosmogonic myth. The core message of this type of : myth is, almost entirely, less concerned with the question of how exactly the world came into being, than with proving that it is right and proper that the world came into being in the way it is currently experienced by man, and that the world can only continue to exist if the present order is maintained [428].

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6.9 The Aśvins and their rescues Man invoked Indra, god of war, for assistance in battles against human as well as superhuman enemies. In plights that required help of a different kind he frequently turned to the Aśvins, who rush to the aid of the afflicted on their miraculous chariot. They, in particular, are celebrated in the Rgveda as saviours : from all distress, and the songs addressed to them are filled with glorification of their acts of deliverance: they freed Atri from a smouldering crevice in the earth, after having first provided him with means of cooling down; they liberated Saptavadhri from a tree he was trapped in, and Rebha and Vandana from dark holes in the ground; they rescued Bhujyu from distress at sea and ‘brought him up out of the darkness where there was no hold [into the light]’ (RV 1.182.5–6); they restored the sight of Rjrāśva, who had been blinded by his own father, and they : made the lame to walk; they rejuvenated the aged Cyavāna, and gave a husband to the aging maiden Ghos: ā; they saved the quail from the [216] wolf ’s jaws. As briefly as these acts of rescue are mentioned, many others are hinted at in the Rgveda even more sparingly. Yet commonalities can be discerned among the : afflicted: they are often trapped in dark holes and the like; their predicaments are often brought about by their own fathers; their rescue by the Aśvins often consists in a ‘liberation’, a ‘bringing up’ to the light so that those who had been trapped ‘see the sun’.¹¹⁶ Many of these acts of rescue—as has long been perceived—probably thematise events that take place around the ritual initiation of young males. The fact that the sun plays an important role in the liberation of Atri and the hot drink Gharma is involved connects this initiation with the Pravargya ritual (see pp. 246–51 for details).

6.10 Impregnations and incest Compared to the profusion of Indra mythology, that of the other gods fades entirely into the background—a further indication of Indra’s special significance for the Vedic tribes. And yet there were indeed myths told of other gods; for example of the Maruts, of Sūryā and the Aśvins, and of Pūs: an. Some gods, however, are conspicuously ‘mythless’, most notably Varuna : and the other Ādityas (on Daks: a, see p. 189). For where the Ādityas as a group do play an important role in an anthropogonic myth (see pp. 187–8), the narrative of the birth of Vasis: t:ha attests only one real myth associated with Varuna : and Mitra (see p. 39 with fn. 33), while Aryaman, Amśa, and Bhaga are entirely without : mythology.

¹¹⁶ This is also true of the blind man to whom the Aśvins restore sight.

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The myth of the birth of Vasis: t:ha¹¹⁷ is one of a group telling of supernatural or unnatural impregnations and pregnancies. Within this group, incest myths in turn stand together, of which that concerning Yama and Yamī is the most detailed (see [217] p. 186). Others are perceptible only in hints. For example, of Pūs: an it is said merely that he is ‘his mother’s husband’, referring to her as ‘unmarriageable’, and that he is ‘his sister’s lover’ (RV 6.55.5). Even the incest of Tvas: t:r: with his daughter, which may have led to the birth of Yama and Yamī (see p. 176–7), is only obscurely mentioned (RV 5.42.13). The incestuous procreation of the Aṅgiras is spoken of far more directly, and more frequently. They, the first priests and ancestors of the great Brahmin families, are born of Us: as after her father, the Sky god, impregnated her (RV 1.71.5, 8, 3.31.1, 6.12.4, 10.61.5–7, cf. 1.164.8, 33, 4.2.15).¹¹⁸ The fact that incest is punished was probably in accordance with the prevailing legal norm. According to Śatapatha-Brāhmana : I 7,4.3 and Maitrāyanī Sa mhitā IV 2,12 (: 35.11–15), it is Rudra who punishes : : Prajāpati—he has taken the place of Dyaus, the Sky god—for committing incest with his daughter Us: as.¹¹⁹ And the ‘archer’ who shoots his arrow at Dyaus (RV 1.71.5) may indeed be Rudra.¹²⁰ But when Yamī is warned by Yama that ‘the sons of the great one, the heroic men of the Asura, the upholders of heaven can gaze all around at a far distance’ (RV 10.10.2) and would therefore surely punish the sexual intercourse that she desires, he evidently means¹²¹ the Aṅgiras who, after all, killed their father to punish the incest through which he had begotten them (see p. 172). Abnormal births are also attested in the Rgveda. The Maruts, for example, : are born of the sky cow Pr: śni (see pp. 126–7). And Indra is born from his mother’s side (see pp. 121–2). One special miracle in which the poets revel is the many births of Agni, whether from stone, from water, or even from a lotus blossom (RV 6.16.3) [218].

¹¹⁷ The motif of involuntary and uncontrolled ejaculation, which subsequently became so widespread, characterises not only this myth but also that of the Sky god’s incest (see pp. 139–40). His semen falls to the earth and from it the gods form the ‘Lord of the Dwelling-place’, or one of the Lords of the Dwelling-place (RV 10.61.7)—presumably Rudra, who punishes this incest. In Greek mythology, this motif is found in the tale of the begetting of Erechtheus by Hephaistos (see p. 123). On this, see B, Kleine Schriften I, Homerica, Göttingen 2001, 8–9. ¹¹⁸ S’ assertion, in Br: haspati and Indra, Wiesbaden 1968, 44, that RV 1.164.33 and 10.61.5–9 call the earth the mother of the Aṅgiras is not correct, as there too, the ‘daughter of the Sky god’ means Us: as. RV 10.61.7 does, however, allow that the earth is her mother. And according to RV 10.62.5–6, they seem to be descended from Agni. ¹¹⁹ See O, Religion, 216, and O, Orientalistische Literaturzeitung 89 (1994) 591. ¹²⁰ Rudra may also be meant by the ‘Lord of the Dwelling-place’ who arises from the seed which the father spilled on the earth while committing incest with his daughter (see pp. 139–40). ¹²¹ After all, ‘the Aṅgiras’ are ‘the sons of the great’ (RV 3.31.3), just as they are ‘the sons of the sky’ (RV 4.2.15). And in RV 3.53.7 and 10.67.2, too, they are called ‘the sons of the sky, the men of Asura’. Why they are also called ‘bearers of the sky’ in RV 10.10.2 remains unclear, notwithstanding RV 10.66.10, where this epithet appears again.

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6.11 The anthropogony of the Rgveda : Creation as conceived by the Rgveda does not culminate in the formation of man, : for he is but one of many beings that populate the world. And so in the Rgveda his : emergence is treated only in passing. These few traces indicate that, as among many other ethnic groups, the prevailing notion was that the human race was ultimately descended from the sun. This might be because of its ‘mortality’, manifested every night when the sun sets, which is always followed by its new ‘birth’ in the morning, which makes human life possible: ‘Then [the Aṅgiras] impelled the [sun god], in accordance with his purpose, to [ever] recurring [new] birth’ (RV 1.6.4).¹²² This concept, which has the roots of humanity running beyond the first man to the world of the gods and attaches to that the hope of a post-mortal existence, found expression in Rgvedic times in a number of different : myths handed down side by side (see pp. 187–8). Several of these have in common the figure of Vivasvant, not only himself regarded as the ancestor of man (RV 10.63.1) and founder of the sacrificial orders (RV 1.139.1,¹²³ cf. 1.58.1, 10.21.5)—both being apparently related—but also as the father of Yama and Manu (RV 8.67.20, 9.113.8, 10.14.5, 58.1; 8.52.1, 10.17.2), who are also examples of the ‘first mortal’ and also of the ‘first man’ type. His name, the ‘one marked by shining’, identifies him as the sun god, which RV 1.96.2 clearly shows him to be: ‘[Agni, begotten] with ancient invitation by the poetry of Āyu, created these offspring of men. With Vivasvant as his eye [he gazes on] the sky and the [celestial] waters’. And RV 10.17.2 states explicitly that he is mortal (see p. 177). Yama is descended from Vivasvant (see p. 104)—and Saranyū, Tvas: t:r: ’s daugh: ter (see RV 10.17.1).¹²⁴ The [219] firstborn of creation (RV 7.33.9, 12),¹²⁵ he is also the first to die. ‘As the first, he found the path’ (RV 10.14.2) upon which men follow him: ‘Yama, who died first among mortals, the son of Vivasvant, who went forth first into this world, the king who makes men [in his otherworldly kingdom] go together, worship with food offerings’ (Atharvaveda XVIII 3,13). He died,

¹²² Accordingly, it is said in the Atharvaveda: ‘[The sun] enters into the womb [of the world] and the same is born again [from it]’ (XIII 2,25). See Gʼs note ad RV 1.6.4. ¹²³ On this stanza, compare O, Noten ad loc. ¹²⁴ It is possible that Yama and Yamī were born of the incest of Tvas: t:r: and Saranyū : (see pp. 176–7). Since the birth of twins was believed—including in the Rgveda—to result from dual insemination of the : mother, Tvas: t:r: would be one father and Vivasvant the other. Yamī’s hidden reference to this highly questionable origin seeks to invalidate Yama’s misgivings that they are after all ‘bodily siblings’ (RV 10.10.4) via ‘the Gandharva in the waters and the water woman’—apparently an Apsaras [429] (see p. 186). But Yama is loathed to acknowledge his origins: ‘Who knows about it, from the first day? Who has seen it, who has proclaimed it here?’ (RV 10.10.6). ¹²⁵ Just as RV 1.66.8 says of him that he is ‘the born [and] that which will be born’ (here identifying Agni with him), RV 1.89.10 says the same of Aditi. In both cases reference is clearly made to an origin from which what comes later is descended. Thus with regard to Aditi, compare RV 10.72.4 (see p. 189).

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however, not as the first man, but as the divine ancestor of man.¹²⁶ This he became—and was able to become—because he had renounced his divine immortality¹²⁷ in favour of progeny: ‘For the gods [Yama] chose death, for offspring he did not choose immortality. [The gods] made Br: haspati, the seer, their sacrifice. Yama gave up his own body’ (RV 10.13.4). We hear the same of Mārtān: da, : another divine ancestor of man: ‘For the sake of progeny, but also for death, [Aditi] brought Mārtān: da : here again’ (RV 10.72.9). He too, the father of Yama, from whom—according to post-Rgvedic texts—Vivasvant was formed (see : p. 187), must be mortal if he is to have offspring. But it is not possible to be divine at the same time:¹²⁸ ‘[The gods] have attained the glory of happiness. . . . Happy they will be, but no progeny will be theirs’ (Kāt:haka VIII 4: 87.5–6). Yama and his sister Yamī, whose names identify them as ‘twins’, are the subject of a tale of incest—although the act did not ultimately take place (see p. 119).¹²⁹ Yamī wants to persuade her brother to this act, arguing that ‘the Creator has made them spouses in the womb’ (RV 10.10.5)—a common motif in the context of twin births (see p. 60 fn. 74). Having the race of man begotten by a pair of twins, a single being, precluded questions such as whether the man or the woman was the elder of the two, or what third party had impregnated the woman.¹³⁰ And with its aspect of a singular provenance, this solution is in line with the concept of the One, which crystallised from the aspiration (particularly in the younger parts of the Rgveda) : to trace the multeity of the world of appearances [220] back to a single principle (see pp. 191 and 194–5). Yamī, however, probably owes her existence to comparatively later times (see p. 60 fn. 73), as Manu had been the twin brother of Yama before her (see p. 61). As is also typical for twins, Manu and Yama not only form a unit, but also differ fundamentally from one another. Unlike Yama,¹³¹ the immortal god (RV 10.12.6, Atharvaveda XVIII 1,34) who chose mortality, Manu, the son of the ‘image’ of Saranyū, is the first man, an inherently mortal and non-divine being.¹³² Thus : contact with the gods is something he must seek out. That is why Manu—like his father Vivasvant (see previous)—is considered the first sacrificer, as well as the first to use Agni (RV 10.63.7;—1.44.11, 5.21.1). And just as other twins, as prōtogenoi, are often progenitors of the entire human race or of individual

¹²⁶ It is significant that both the invocation to sacrifice used for gods, svāhā, and that used to invoke the dead, svadhā, are addressed to Yama (see O, Religion, 282 fn. 2). ¹²⁷ Not all gods are immortal: mortal gods include the Rbhus, one of the Aśvins, Sūrya, and—as : noted in the text—Yama. Soma too is mortal, as he can be ‘killed’ (see p. 233). ¹²⁸ This despite the fact that gods and goddesses can produce offspring. ¹²⁹ Saranyū : herself, the mother of the two, seems to have been the victim of an incestuous assault by her father Tvas: t:r: , the grandfather of Yama and Yamī (see p. 176). ¹³⁰ See O, Religion, 281. ¹³¹ RV 10.62.11 calls him sāvarni, : who RV 10.17.2 says was created as the image : the ‘son of Savarnā’, of Saranyū, the actual wife of Vivasvant (see p. 177). : ¹³² This pair of twins is joined by another: the Aśvins (see p. 104).

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peoples¹³³—Romulus and Remus, for example, and Tuisto and Mannus (‘twin’ and ‘man’)—the same applies to Yama and Manu.¹³⁴ If it is indeed the case that RV 10.13.4, following on an Indo-European myth (see p. 37),¹³⁵ tells of Yama’s sacrifice—‘Yama gave up his own body’¹³⁶—then the reasons for it may lie in a ‘custom’ that is common in connection with twin births: one of the twins is killed—as was Remus, the quintessential ‘twin’¹³⁷—to avert the danger twins pose to the community. And on the basis of this killing—or from the twin thus killed¹³⁸—man and the world come into being. Even the Rgveda knows Manu as the father of Idā, : : the ancestor of mankind— again, following on older tradition (see p. 70). As Manu himself is the first man and there is as yet no woman with whom he could procreate, he spawned his daughter Idā : out of a sacrifice. She becomes the ancestor of mankind (see p. 150) through her son Purūravas and grandson Āyu (see RV 1.96.2).¹³⁹ In addition to the Yama myths, the Rgveda inherited another [221] from Indo: Iranian times that is supposed to explain how man came into being (see pp. 60–1). In this tale, Aditi miscarries her eighth son, Mārtān: da. : Man is descended from him, since Aditi had first ‘set aside’ this son and then ‘for the sake of progeny, but also for death brought [him] here again’ (RV 10.72.8–9). Thus, like Yama, he is not immortal, in contrast to his brothers, the Ādityas. Younger Vedic texts have connected this myth to that of Vivasvant and Yama, thus integrating two traditions that tell of man’s origin, both from Indo-Iranian times. According to this version, the Ādityas took their brother Mārtān: da, : the ‘round miscarriage’, to fashion from him Vivasvant, antecedent of Yama: the first to die without returning. This expresses the concept of a gradual descent from god to man—the two

¹³³ No doubt this is related to the fact that twins often function as city founders (see p. 37). ¹³⁴ It is notable that such was not said of the Aśvins. ¹³⁵ There is only one passage in the Rgveda that speaks of this, and that passage is extremely unclear : (RV 10.13.4). Yet the fact that the Avestan Yima is killed—cut in two by his brother Spitiiura (Yt. 19.46)—supports this interpretation of that passage in the Rgveda (see also p. 37 and 68). : ¹³⁶ Regarding the translation into German, on which the English here is based, see O, Kleine Schriften, Wiesbaden 1967, 825. ¹³⁷ In the saga of Romulus’s murder by senators, to which Livius 1,16,4 alludes—fuisse credo tum quoque aliquos qui discerptum regem patrum manibus [430] taciti arguerent—the dissecting of Remus was secondarily transferred to Romulus. ¹³⁸ Slain deities whose dismembered body parts give rise to food crops and other things important to man’s life are generally called ‘Dema Deities’. ¹³⁹ Manu is the central character in the Indian version of the Flood myth, which is not told in detail until its appearance in Śatapatha-Brāhmana : I 8,1.1–17. There we find that Manu builds a boat on the advice of a fish he has reared, and when the great flood comes, the fish pulls the boat to a mountain, where Manu moors it to a tree and in this way survives the catastrophe. When the water begins slowly draining away he unties the ship, which gradually sinks with the water level so that Manu finally regains solid ground under his feet. The Atharvaveda, too, in its allusion to this ‘saga’ (see XIX 39,8 = Paippalāda VII 10,8), identifies Manu as its hero, though only implicitly. On the Iranian side it is Yima who saves the living creatures from the flood. That other creatures are with Manu on the ‘Ark’ and survive the flood with him is a characteristic feature of Flood myths—including Indian variants— yet is missing from the Śatapatha-Brāhmana : version, as that variant aims to substantiate the efficacy of the sacrifice through which Manu became the creator of the other creatures.

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being related despite all differences between them (RV 1.139.9, 4.10.8, 10.63.1)¹⁴⁰—and from divine immortality to human mortality.¹⁴¹ According to one version (Kāt:haka XI 6), through sacrifice Vivasvant secures his own divine immortality,¹⁴² which he, ‘formed’ as he was from the miscarried Mārtān: da, : had not possessed before. This legend—or one quite similar—of the origin of man was probably already known in the Rgveda. It is discernible in the myth of the first : sacrifice,¹⁴³—also of Indo-Iranian heritage (see p. 62)—which is made by Vivasvant (see p. 185), whose name alone identifies him as a sun god (see p. 61 fn. 7). According to RV 1.83.5, the sun god Sūrya arises from the first sacrifice, performed here—obviously—by Atharvan: ‘Through sacrifice, Atharvan was the first to stretch the paths for himself. From this Sūrya was born, keeper of the vows, the scout. Uśanas Kāvya herded the cows together.¹⁴⁴ We venerate the immortal race of Yama’. In RV 10.21.5 we hear again of Atharvan’s sacrifice that connects men and gods:¹⁴⁵ ‘Agni, born through Atharvan,¹⁴⁶ found all knowledge. He became the messenger of Vivasvant,¹⁴⁷ the dear friend of Yama . . .’. If Atharvan, as the first [222] to make fire, but also considered the first to perform the Soma sacrifice (RV 10.48.2), takes the place here of Vivasvant, we would have the same constellation as in the younger Vedic myth: Atharvan performs a sacrifice from which the sun is born; through this sacrifice, the sun shares in divine immortality— although it is mortal, since it is created anew every day. The same cannot be said of Yama: he is the first mortal god who does not return after his death. What lies in the background of these—probably also intentionally—nebulous visions of the origin of man may become clear when we consider that Vivasvant was the first to offer a Soma sacrifice, and that Yama and Manu are born to him ¹⁴⁰ Thus gods and men are termed the ‘two races’ (RV 1.141.11, 2.6.7, 8.52.7, 9.70.3) and the ‘two settlements’ (RV 9.70.4). ¹⁴¹ Because the Maitrāyanī considers Indra the twin brother of Mārtān: da : Samhitā : : (see also p. 125 fn. 256), and Indra was ‘born full-grown, to drink the Soma, to be the mightiest’ (RV 1.5.6), Mārtān: da’s congenital mortality seems to have been devised as a counterpart to Indra’s congenital : superiority (on a possible parallel in the Avesta that may show this notion to be of Indo-Iranian origin, see K, Langues et religions Indo-Iraniennes, Annuaire de Collège de France 1999–2000, 726). ¹⁴² This is also referred to in the stanza cited previously, RV 10.13.4 (see p. 186): ‘[The gods] made Br: haspati, the seer, their sacrificial offering’. ¹⁴³ The beginning of the ‘riddle hymn’ RV 1.164 seems to speak of a sacrifice from which the sun was born (for a detailed account, see N B, Agni, Sun, Sacrifice, and Vāc, Journal of the American Oriental Society 88 [1968], 199–218). In ‘The Creative Role of the Goddess Vāc in [431] the Rig Veda’ (Pratidānam, 395), N B surmises that RV 10.72 speaks of this sacrifice, in which case it would have been offered by the Ādityas. This did fit perfectly well in the above constellation, but apparently cannot be proven. ¹⁴⁴ Since Kāvya Uśanas ‘uses fire as a Hotr: ’ for Manu (RV 8.23.17), we can safely say he is acting here, too, as a priest. ¹⁴⁵ Apparently RV 10.92.10 also refers to this first sacrifice (see S, Br: haspati and Indra, Wiesbaden 1968, 55–6). ¹⁴⁶ In RV 6.16.13, too, it says Atharvan created Agni, in this case by reaming him out of a lotus flower (cf. also RV 6.15.17). ¹⁴⁷ This ‘messenger’ is not Atharvan, but apparently Agni, as indeed in RV 1.58.1, 4.7.4 and 8.39.3 as well. Another such example is RV 6.8.4, where Mātariśvan is referred to as the ‘messenger of Vivasvant’. On the designation of the place of sacrifice as the ‘seat of Vivasvant’, see pp. 216–17.

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as sons.¹⁴⁸ Through his sacrifice—the first ever made—he gained immortality, which he had not possessed before because his mother had ordained that he would have offspring. These two, Yama and Manu, gradually distance themselves from the divinity of their father. The poet of song 10.72, to whom we owe this concept of the emergence of man, sought even beyond the gods to find the origin. What he found there were two beings, each descended from the other: ‘Out of Aditi was born Daks: a, and out of Daks: a was born Aditi. For Aditi was born, O Daks: a, as your daughter. After her the gods were born, the happy ones, bound to immortality’ (RV 10.72.4–5). This circularity—also seen in RV 10.90.5 (‘Virāj was born out of [Purus: a], out of Virāj, Purus: a’)—is a sign that this is a primal beginning. But the poet looks even beyond this, to arrive at the ‘first age’, which was ‘earlier than that of the gods’ and in which ‘the existent was born out of the not-existent’ (RV 10.72.2). A common thread running through these anthropogonic concepts is the idea that the earthly order was established by a first sacrifice, which at the same time is what helped to unite humans with the gods, even though they are [223] related to each other (see pp. 188–9). Different traditions of such a sacrifice can be discerned. In addition to the sacrifice by Vivasvant already mentioned (see p. 188), RV 1.164.43 and 50 also speak of ‘first rules [of sacrifice]’.¹⁴⁹ The latter stanza recurs in RV 10.90.16, the Purus: asūkta. And this song surely tells of another first sacrifice:¹⁵⁰ the ‘butchering’ of the primordial giant Purus: a (see pp. 155–6 and 195). The same is true of RV 10.67 and 130, where it is the Aṅgiras who ‘devised the first order of sacrifice’ (RV 10.67.2) and ‘were the first to offer this sacrifice’ (RV 10.130.6). The first sacrifice performed by the Aṅgiras is also mentioned in RV 10.63.7. There we learn that these ‘seven priests’ offered this sacrifice for Manu. This all fits together nicely: the first priests offer the first sacrifice for the first man. The divine ancestors of the priestly clans, who frequently number seven and go by different names,¹⁵¹ and who form the retinue of Yama in the hereafter (see p. 283), also act for the benefit of mankind, as divine ancestors often do.¹⁵² They cleave the rock that encloses the cows hidden by the ¹⁴⁸ If we add to this the account of the first sacrifices in the Avesta, described in the Hōm Yašt (and elsewhere), the two points can be connected: these sons are born to him because he offers the first sacrifice (see p. 136 with fn. 317). ¹⁴⁹ RV 8.59.6 also seems to speak of a primal sacrifice. The poet observes the consummation of this sacrifice in a vision brought on through asceticism (tapas; see O, Religion, 403). RV 10.88.7–8 tell of the installation of the first sacrifice by the gods. ¹⁵⁰ The ‘Soma sacrifice and its origin in the beginning’ is reported in RV 10.11 (see O, Noten on this song). ¹⁵¹ Besides Aṅgiras, they are also called Navagvas (RV 6.22.2), and besides (seven) Rs : : is they are also called (seven) singers (kārú, RV 4.16.3), poets (vípra, RV 3.31.5, 4.2.15, 6.22.2) and ( former) fathers ([pūŕ ve] pitárah, : RV 1.62.2, 71.2, 4.1.13, 2.16, 42.8, 6.22.2). ¹⁵² In the (Rg)Veda, too, the idea is discernible that the deceased ancestors can bestow sons (cf. RV : 10.15.11, 64.14, Atharvaveda XIV 2,73 = Paippalāda XVIII 14,3, Kauśikasūtra LXXXVIII 25, LXXXIX 6). The semi-divine Trasadasyu is ‘turned through a sacrifice by the seven R: s: is’ to the wife of King Purukutsa (RV 4.42.8–9). Since in the Avesta the same is said of the Frauuas: ̌is (see p. 170 fn. 40), who

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Panis, : thus providing man with an abundance of food and, more importantly, with the light that makes life possible for him (see p. 170). They also win the first Daks: inā, : the ‘gift’ without which no sacrifice is possible—and this is the connection with the ‘first sacrifice’.

6.12 The creation of the world: Cosmogonic myths and philosophical concepts Although the older books do contain some statements concerning the origin of the world, mainly found in the accounts of Indra’s battles (see p. 182), specifically cosmogonic songs are not seen until the younger parts of the Rgveda, primarily in : the tenth Man: dala. Lacking any possibility of [224] empirical substantiation, : cosmogonies must compensate through the use of analogy. Everyday experiences, such as procreation and birth among humans and animals; the germination, growth and ripening of plants; and the fabrication of things, are projected onto a first time. Thus technical, biological, and even social processes preferentially¹⁵³ lend themselves to that scheme of interpretation according to which the derived models are defined as technomorphic, biomorphic, and sociomorphic.¹⁵⁴

6.12.1 Technomorphic interpretation models Technomorphic interpretation models often find dual application in cosmogonic myths, explaining on the one hand the process of creation, and on the other hand that which is created. The world is created through the processing of matter by a craftsman or artist, whether in carving, carpentry, forging, pottery, weaving, baking, or even merely measuring. The world thus made is a house, a tent, or a fabric. Since heaven and earth are carved out (RV 3.38.2, 10.31.7), welded together (RV 10.72.2, 81.3), measured out (RV 1.159.4, 6.47.3), and also woven (Atharvaveda X 7,43),¹⁵⁵ questions arise as to the nature of the material processed and the one who processed it. The level of technology attained by the respective

are related to the Aṅgiras (‘By the power and the [432] radiant fortune of the sovereignty of the Frauuas: ̌is, the women conceive sons, . . . bear them with easy birth’, Yt. 13.15), one may well infer that the notion is of Indo-Iranian age. ¹⁵³ Models that integrate play, riddles, mysteries, and discovery are not considered here. With regard to the Rgveda they are still too little studied to be presented even briefly. : ¹⁵⁴ The combination of different models enables a nuanced interpretation of a set of facts. It should be noted, however, that in complex cultures, interpretive models are fundamentally in competition with one another, and their simultaneous use can also engender paradoxes, both real and apparent. ¹⁵⁵ RV 1.25.13 and 8.41.10 indicate that the Rgveda also knows of the idea that the heaven, indeed : the world, must be the garments of a god (see p. 67 fn. 109).

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culture provides the answer to the question of the material: ‘What was the wood, what the tree, out of which they carved heaven and earth? . . . On what did he climb when he affixed the worlds?’ (RV 10.81.4). Naturally there is also speculation regarding the person able to shape such matter in this way: ‘Among the heavenly masters, the greatest master is the one who created heaven and earth . . . who measured out both spaces . . . and stiffened them with beams that do not moulder’ [225] (RV 1.160.4), ‘He among beings verily has been a great master, who created this heaven and this earth’ (RV 4.56.3). The answer to the question of which god has done this is left in obscurity by the poets. Where they do attempt an answer, where a certain god is identified as the creator of heaven and earth—whether Indra (RV 8.36.4), Agni (RV 1.96.4) or Soma (RV 9.90.1)—it leads to paradoxes, since all gods are regarded as the sons of these divine parents (RV 1.159.1, 185.4, 6, 4.56.2, 6.17.7, 7.53.1). The Vedic poet deliberately lets such paradoxes stand, using them to express the fundamental mysteriousness of the world. The fact that the technomorphic interpretation presumes the existence of matter and of one who shapes it must almost inevitably lead to the question of the Before time: ‘What then is the One in the form of the Unborn, who¹⁵⁶ has pried apart these six realms?’¹⁵⁷ (RV 1.164.6). The gods cannot be the ones responsible for creation, since they are ‘themselves on this side of it’ (RV 10.129.6) and thus part of this world. The ‘unborn’ Asuras, however, are different. At times it may seem that the Asura-like¹⁵⁸ blacksmith Tvas: t:r: is seen as a genuine god of creation.¹⁵⁹ But the poet knows the limits of such speculation: ‘Whence this emanation has come, whether it is put to use or not—if there is a guardian of this [world] in the highest heaven, he well knows: or does he not know?’ (RV 10.129.7). The very enormity of asking ‘whether creation has been effected or not’ leaves the poet speechless. He seems to think it too bold to ask, ‘By whom?’, as portrayed by his letting the question trail off and leaving the verse unfinished.¹⁶⁰ For another poet, this did not suffice. He found the creator in a new god, Viśvakarman by name, the ‘one God’ (RV 10.81.3). Nevertheless, this One remained the old craftsman who smelted heaven and earth out of primordial chaos. The interpretation of the state of the [226] world in which, having once been established, it now finds itself is also technomorphic. It is quite clear that the world

¹⁵⁶ In the original, this relative pronoun has the masculine gender (yás), referring to neuter kím . . . ékam. ¹⁵⁷ These six realms must be the three earths and three heavens spoken of in RV 7.87.5 (cf. 2.13.10 and 6.47.3). The possibility, however, that the six cardinal points are meant—north, south, east, west, zenith, and nadir—cannot be ruled out. ¹⁵⁸ RV 1.110.3 explicitly calls him Asura. ¹⁵⁹ According to Atharvaveda IX 4,2, Tvas: t:r: and the waters are there simultaneously, with the latter forming the primeval substance out of which Tvas: t:r: creates the world. ¹⁶⁰ This pleasing explanation of why the verse is two syllables short comes from W. K, Conspicuous Absence, T. Ya. Elizarenkova Memorial Volume, I. Moscow 2008, 183–95.

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was seen as a house with the sky, as roof, resting on a mighty post, which itself is mounted in a foundation—the earth—in which it stands firmly. In order to build this house, the two halves of the world, heaven and earth, were first pulled apart, as they had previously been lying flat, one on top of the other, preventing any form of life from emerging: ‘They separated the two great ones who were joined together’ (RV 3.38.3), ‘The two Dhis: anā : facing each other¹⁶¹ [Indra] pries apart after drinking from the bull [Soma] . . . ’ (RV 10.44.8).¹⁶² After the act of separation, a space was inserted between heaven and earth, keeping the two apart: ‘He who steadied the earth when it swayed, he who brought to rest the mountains that cavorted in agitation, he who gave the midspace wider measurement, he who propped up heaven—he, ye people, is Indra’ (RV 2.12.2). But as this midspace, ‘out of which Br: haspati drove the darkness with light’ (RV 10.68.5), is empty,¹⁶³ the sky had to be supported so that it would not fall to earth, as that would re-establish the original state that prevailed before the beginning of the world. This support was provided by a pillar: ‘[Varuna] : who [holds] heaven and earth apart with a pillar’ (RV 8.41.10). And so ‘heaven stands firm as a well-erected pillar’ (RV 5.45.2). This pillar keeps heaven and earth not only apart, but also joined together, ‘as two wheels are joined by the axle’ (RV 10.89.4). To ensure this column stands securely, the swaying earth had to be steadied. This was done by driving stakes into it: ‘You hold [, O Vis: nu,] the earth firmly all around with : stakes’ (RV 7.99.3). This purpose was served by the mountains, from which Indra had cut off the wings to keep them from fluttering about (see p. 182). Not only a pillar keeps heaven and earth apart, but also a mighty tree. In keeping with the idea that everything in heaven and in the other world is a mirror image of what is in this world (see p. 279 fn. 2), the [227] world tree directs its roots upwards: ‘With no supporting ground, King Varuna : . . . holds the upturned tuft of the tree. Pointing downward [trunk and branches] stand there, above is their ground . . . ’ (RV 1.24.7).¹⁶⁴

¹⁶¹ Heaven and earth are repeatedly referred to thus (RV 1.160.1, 6.50.3, 77.3). See pp. 151–2. ¹⁶² The act of separation (cf. RV 10.121.6) is carried out primarily by their son Indra with his tremendous strength (see for instance RV 5.29.4, 31.6, 6.44.24). In addition to him and Varuna : (see RV 6.70.1, 7.86.1), Agni (RV 6.8.3), Soma (RV 9.70.2, 101.15), and Vis: nu : (RV 7.99.3), for example, are also mentioned in this context. ¹⁶³ Apparently, the pillar on which the sun rests, enabling it to cross the midspace day after day without falling to the ground (see p. 89), is also considered to be supporting the sky: ‘How [is it possible that] this [sun], without being held, [433] without being tied, . . . does not fall down? By what power of its own does it drift along? . . . Installed as a pillar, it protects the firmament’ (RV 4.13.5). ¹⁶⁴ The World Tree, where Yama’s seat is also located (see p. 283), partly merges with the mead-dripping sky tree (see p. 162) in the Rgveda: ‘You, O Maruts, shake from this firmament, : whose embers cannot be taken from the stranger, the shimmering fig’ (RV 5.54.12). Thus the top of the tree spoken of here reaches up to the sky. There, as on the Soma tree too, grows the ‘fig’. Such a tree also figures in the allusion to the Flood saga that has been handed down to us in the Atharvaveda (see p. 187 fn. 139).

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6.12.2 Biomorphic interpretation models According to biomorphic interpretive models, which are also based on the plausibility of everyday experiences, the world (or parts of it) came into being through begetting and giving birth, seeding and sprouting; what emerges in this manner then goes through various phases of growing, maturing, aging and decaying. The most common biomorphic notion is the origin of the world from water: ‘They know the parentage of heaven and earth. Hence the flowing waters listen’ (RV 7.34.2). In the ‘featureless salt tide’, which was all that existed in the beginning, ‘a germ covered with emptiness’ formed, and this ‘was born as the only one through the power of a [sweltering] heat’ (RV 10.129.3). Here the image of an egg has been introduced, hatching in water to become the world. This is made possible by the fire that is in the water (RV 10.121.7). Since the sky was thought of—in accordance with its natural appearance—as a hemisphere that canopied the earth in a wide circle, and since the same form was attributed to the earth, this cosmogony simultaneously explains the spatial conformation of the world. The analysis that has the world emanating from an egg can in turn be linked to that of a creator: ‘A golden embryo¹⁶⁵ formed at the beginning. When the lord of the created was born [from the egg], he was alone. It is he who holds this earth and this heaven—Who is the heavenly one to whom we would pay homage with food offerings?’ (RV 10.121.1).¹⁶⁶ At the end of this prolonged process of growth is Prajāpati, who eventually creates the beings that populate the world. [228] In the biomorphic interpretation of the world, special importance is attached to the acts of begetting and of giving birth. Here, the world or parts of it come into being mostly through the sexual union of heaven and earth: the firstborn (RV 7.53.2); the ‘world-parents’. The sky, a bull, copulates with the earth, giving it his seed—the rain: ‘[Vis: nu] : seduces the two parents to the enjoyment of semen’ (RV 1.155.3), ‘From the multi-coloured milk-cow and the bull possessing good semen, [the sun god] milks his semen and [her] milk every day’ (RV 1.160.3).¹⁶⁷ An important moment here is the separation of the two halves of the world that originally lay one on top of the other, or formed a unit. Putting an

¹⁶⁵ Hiranyagarbha, the ‘golden germ’, may be nothing more than the water’s reflection of the golden : sun, whose presence means light and thus life. ¹⁶⁶ B, The refrain kásmai devya havís: ā vidhema (RV : 10.121), T. Ya. Elizarenkova Memorial Volume, I, Moscow 2008, 79–98, sees this somewhat differently, although he still had to render the clear devā ý a, ‘[to the] god’, as ‘deity’ in order that he might speak of a ‘non-theistic concept of cosmogony’. ¹⁶⁷ The other—very few—passages of the Rgveda which speak of such an impregnation are similarly : obscure. In later times, the divine sexual act was preceded by marriage which, in accordance with the prevailing legal norm, raised the status of the resulting descendants above that of illegitimate offspring. This hieros gamos—often viewed very one-sidedly from the point of view of fertility (or fertility magic)—is not mentioned in the Rgveda, perhaps because heaven and earth play only a minor role : there (see pp. 141–2).

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end to this life-preventing primordial state is what creates space for the world, and for existence in it. This act alone can create the world: it is created by separating heaven and earth. The result of this separation process is usually interpreted technomorphically (see pp. 191–2). Once separated, they beget man—‘Heaven is father to me, who will sire me. There is my navel. This great earth is my mother, my umbilical cord’, RV 1.164.33—and even the gods are born of them (see p. 191). Questions with a temporal perspective also arise in the biomorphic interpretation of the world. They ask how heaven and earth, the ‘firstborn’, the ‘two goddesses whose sons are the gods’, were ‘born’ (RV 7.53.2;—1.106.3;—185.1) and which of the two is older: ‘Which of the two [these halves of the world do you suppose] is the earlier, which the later? How did they come to be, o wise ones? Who can discover that? Everything that has a name, they themselves carry in their lap since days and nights turn in circles like two wheels’ (RV 1.185.1). More specifically, RV 10.129.5 asks: ‘Stretched across before the [poets] was a rope: did a Below exist? Did an Above exist? Did inseminators exist? Did pregnancies exist? Were there intrinsic forces (masculine principles) later, devotion (the feminine principle) earlier [or vice versa]?’ The answers are known ones, and here too the poet uses the paradox to approach the [229] riddle of the world’s creation. There, it is said that ‘the begetters . . . of the gods’ (RV 1.185.6) are ‘begotten by their sons’ (RV 1.159.3), and also that ‘Indra created them’, the twins (RV 9.68.3), ‘at the same time from his own body’ (RV 10.54.3).¹⁶⁸ Another biomorphic interpretation is the idea of a bisexual being that begets the world within itself through self-copulation and releases it from itself in an act of birthing: ‘This [world] forsooth is [the work of] him who is bull and cow [at the same time]’ (RV 3.38.7).¹⁶⁹ This conception does not have to answer the question which of the two mating partners is the older, and the problem of the temporal relationship between matter and creator does not arise: androgynous creators, like Prajāpati, are simultaneously causa materialis and causa efficiens. All of creation is traced back to a single principle: ‘One only is this [world], and [this One] has unfurled itself to all’ (RV 8.58.2). And this One—no longer specifically conceived of as an androgynous being, but rather as the unborn (RV 1.164.6)—hides behind the multeity of the world, which is ultimately only a consequence of naming: ‘ . . . What is only the One, the poets give many names’ (RV 1.164.46). When this One is placed above the world, is withdrawn from it—at first no doubt purely spatially¹⁷⁰—models of the important whole and its less important parts develop:

¹⁶⁸ Similarly it is said of Agni: ‘You [, O Agni, ] became the father of the gods, though [you are] their son’ (RV 1.69.2); ‘In the womb of the mother, father of his father’ (RV 6.16.35). ¹⁶⁹ Compare also RV 3.56.3 and 10.5.7. ¹⁷⁰ For example, RV 10.82.2 states: ‘. . . where, as they say, beyond the seven R: s: is, the One is’.

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‘That which moves and that which rests, that which walks and that which flies—all these governs the One: Indeed varicoloured it was born’ (RV 3.54.8). One very special kind of primordial matter is a giant primeval being from whose body the world is formed.¹⁷¹ This primeval being, the Purus: a, is slaughtered and divided in sacrifice, and the world is formed by the distribution of the elements thus obtained.¹⁷² The song describing this sacrifice (RV 10.90) explains—in the broadest sense—not only the origin of the world and the beings populating it, but also the ordering of society: a [230] predetermined structure— the division of society into four layers—is thereby confirmed as the ‘ordering of creation’: When the gods laid out their sacrifice, with Purus: a as their oblation, spring was its sacrificial fat, summer its firewood, and autumn its sacrificial offering (6). Him, Purus: a who was created in the beginning, they doused as an oblation on the sacrificial grass; him the gods sacrificed, the Sādhyas and [those] who [were] seers (7). The dappled sacrificial fat was made from this sacrifice when it was offered in its entirety; from this they created¹⁷³ the animals living in the air, in the forests and in the villages (8). From this sacrifice, when it was offered in its entirety, arose the hymns and the songs; the metres and the sacrificial formulas arose from it (9). From it came horses and all [animals] that have [cutting] teeth on both sides;¹⁷⁴ from it came the cattle, the goats and the sheep (10). When they dismembered Purus: a, into how many parts did they cleave him? What did his mouth become, what his arms? What shall his thighs and feet be called? (11). The Brahmin was his mouth, the arms became the Ks: atriya, the thighs are what the Vaiśya is, from the feet arose the Śūdra (12). From his mind arose the moon, from the eye the sun, from the mouth Indra and Agni, from the breath the wind (13). His navel became the midspace, from his head was formed the sky, from his feet the earth, from his ear the regions of the world; thus did they make the realms. (14) (RV 10.90)¹⁷⁵

¹⁷¹ This is an example of an exceptional technomorphic interpretation: the (de-) composition model, i.e. based on the assembly and/or separation of heterogeneous elements. The fact that the individual elements may be of differing value, or judged as such, is significant [434]. ¹⁷² Other Indo-European peoples have comparable concepts. Here we note only the dissecting of Ymir, of Romulus, and of Gayōmart (see p. 37). ¹⁷³ The singular cakre is likely a ‘makeshift’ for the plural (O, Noten ad loc.). The ‘dappled sacrificial fat’, the preparation of which is described in Āpastamba-Śrautasūtra VII 9,3, is ghee mixed with a bit of curdled milk (see also Amarakośa II 7,24: prsadajyam sadadhyājye). This particular sacrificial substance is repeatedly ‘identified’ with animals in Vedic ritual texts: ‘Verily the dappled sacrificial fat is the cattle’ (Taittirīya-Samhitā III 2,6.2). : ¹⁷⁴ Meaning all non-ruminants (see Z, Altindisches Leben, 72–6). ¹⁷⁵ The dismemberment of Purus: a prefigures the decomposition of the human body after death (see p. 296); in hymn RV 10.16—to be performed on the occasion of cremation—it says: ‘Into the sun shall thine eye go, into the wind thy breath; go into heaven and into the earth accordance with the purpose’ (RV 10.16.3).

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Those cosmogonies which assume that the material of the world is older than this world and its order are distinct from those according to which the world originated from nothingness. Indeed RV 10.72 seems to speak of the latter: ‘In the first generation of the celestials, the existent was born out of the not-existent’ (RV 10.72.2). Yet ‘the non-existent’ (ásat) here does not actually mean nothing, but rather the undifferentiated [231] primordial ‘chaos’ (see pp. 78–9). The composer of RV 10.129 even goes beyond the non-existent when he claims—at the same time creating another paradox—that ‘at that time non-existence did not exist, nor did existence’; and that ‘space did not exist, nor did the sky beyond it’. He then proceeds to ask himself: ‘What enclosed? Where? Protected from what? Did the [fresh] water exist?— [No, only] a deep abyss!’ (RV 10.129.1) [415].

7 The Cult of the Rgvedic Religion : 7.1 Cultic acts, ritual complexes, ceremonies Throughout history and around the globe, man has developed forms of worship intended to secure the aid of the gods. The rituals with which these were carried out were often centred around the practice of sacrifice. That this might involve any attempt at coercion, however, is ruled out to a great extent¹ by the gods’ far superior powers, let alone the fact that they were predominantly seen as benevolent. An exception to the latter is Rudra, whose worship served primarily to ward him off and keep him away. Even the Rgveda already speaks of ‘compensation : (in order to appease him)’ for this much-feared god (RV 2.33.5)—essentially, paying him off to ensure his absence or self-restraint—and that remains the standard expression used in reference to sacrifices to Rudra (see p. 132 fn. 296)—and similar beings. The demeanour towards lesser demons and spirits, most of whom are hostile, is different. Man believes himself a match for them, not least of all in being assisted by the great gods.² Consequently, he does not primarily use worship to ward them off, but rather employs certain forms of magic (see pp. 274–7): attempting amicable resistance³ is far more seldom than driving them away. In this respect, and not only in this, the cult of the dead is deeply ambivalent. The veneration and care shown to the dead exist alongside rejection and expulsion. The asymmetry of the relationship between God and man noted previously— man’s need for assistance juxtaposed with the great power of the gods—is mitigated by the fact that the gods are dependent on man’s offerings—[233] indeed they live on them. This is particularly pronounced in the case of Indra. The Soma that he requires both frequently and urgently must be pressed by man so that he can drink it: ‘The Soma does not, when it is not pressed, intoxicate Indra, nor the pressed [Soma drops] the Bounteous One, when not accompanied by ¹ Some passages in the Rgveda do, however, seem to express such an idea, but most of these refer to : the rival of the speaker (cf. for instance RV 3.45.1 or 8.2.6). The god is advised, in a way, of that person’s efforts to coerce him. The tenor is that one believes it to be utterly impossible that such an attempt could succeed (see O, Religion, 319–20). ² This is seen very clearly in, for example, the songs RV 7.104 and 10.87 directed against Raks: as demons. ³ See O, Religion, 484–5, and H, Vedische Mythologie, Volume II, Breslau 1920, 415.

The Religion of the Rgveda. Thomas Oberlies, Oxford University Press. © Thomas Oberlies 2023. : DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780192868213.003.0007

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formulations’ (RV 7.26.1). And this impresses upon the cult its characteristic form: the main element in and focus of Vedic cult practice is the offering of food and drink. This reproduces human conditions, and indeed many rituals resemble a feast laid out for guests (see ). The giving of oblations establishes a connection with the recipients—usually gods—that is modelled on the social relationships between mortals. In many cases, such as animal sacrifice, the gods are fed an offering⁴ and then a ‘secondary distribution’ of portions is meted out to the participants in the sacrifice (see ). The same notion recurs frequently throughout the Rgveda: a sacrificial food or drink is offered to sate, strengthen, : and please the god; this engenders his benevolence, which in turn leads him to fulfil the requests and wishes of man, who has described these very specifically: ‘Receive [the Soma drinking bowls]. Satisfy your desire for them. Then turn your mind to the giving of treasure’ (RV 1.54.9). In this way, the time-honoured bond of friendship is continually renewed. And from the right hand (RV 10.47.1)—the covenant-hand—man receives the reciprocal gifts for his part of this bond.⁵









7.2 The Rgveda as a cultic text : The Rgvedic cultic rituals in which mortals seek to establish contact with gods that : is modelled on social relationships (see p. 74) are devised as banquets to which these gods are invited (see p. 199). The prayer hymns⁶ of the Rgveda play a crucial : role here.⁷ The object is to (1) attract the attention [234] of the gods and ensure that they will come,⁸ and then, when they have arrived in response to the call, to (2) welcome them and ask them to sit down on a seat prepared specifically for them. Next, they are (3) offered food and drink, during the consumption of which (4) songs are recited to delight them. Having elicited in the gods an amiable mood, (5) the mortals put forward their petitions. To conclude the summoning, the gods (6) are ceremoniously bid farewell.⁹ ⁴ On sacrificial food and drink, see pp. 222–5. ⁵ See O, Religion, 314–15. ⁶ On this designation, see p. 204. With regard to the details that follow, it is important to keep in mind that the actual order of the elements in the songs is often different, as the rituals not only used whole songs, but often—and [435] primarily—triads of stanzas. And these exhibit, for the most part, the given sequence for the components described here. On the very rare use of individual stanzas in Rgvedic ritual, see p. 229. : ⁷ Besides the preponderance of sacrificial songs—most of them intended for the Soma sacrifice—the Rgveda, especially in its younger parts, includes songs used for sorcery (see pp. 274–7) as well as the : beginnings of narrative and philosophical poetry (see pp. 22–3). The classic ritual shows that narrative poetry, most of it appearing here in some twenty dialogue hymns—referred to in the Indian tradition as sam : vāda, ‘conversation’ (cf. B:rhaddevatā II 88, IV 44, 47)—could have also been used in the ritual, such that its recital would have bridged the pauses between the individual rites. ⁸ Sometimes only one God is called, but sometimes two or more. ⁹ The classic ritual begins with devatānām āvāhana, the ‘bringing hither of the gods [by Agni]’, and concludes with devānām too, it is very : vyavasarjana, the ‘dismissal of the gods’. In the Rgveda, : frequently the fire god Agni who is asked to bring and take away the gods (see p. 129).

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Thus the role of the Rgveda songs is to (1) bring about the divine presence; to : effect, initiate, and accompany the encounter with the gods.¹⁰ This is achieved through formulations that are (at least the vast majority of them) merely appeals—in keeping with the conception of man’s relationship to the gods (see p. 197)—and contain no elements of coercion: “Hear the call, O Indra!” (RV 2.11.1); “Hear us, O Indra, we call you” (RV 6.26.1); “Across the invocations of the stranger hear ours, [you Aśvins]” (RV 7.68.2); “Indra, . . . with your racers harnessed [to your chariot] by our formulations,¹¹ . . . draw near! We call you, O Indra, to the pressed Soma” (RV 1.177.2); “To our poems, O Indra, draw near as the knowing one. Facing us shall your dun horses be harnessed. Though all mortals are calling you, hear only us, you who sets all in motion!” (RV 7.28.1); “May you come at my call” (RV 6.50.10);¹² “Agni, bring the gods [to our sacrifice]” (RV 1.13.1); “Agni, bring the gods on the best-naved chariot.” (RV 1.13.4)¹³

In all these epicleses—which may also include gestures and other signals—the mention of name and epithet is important (however, see p. 76):¹⁴ the phonetic articulation of name and epithet normally ensures the appearance of the god who up to that point had not been present. Adding the birth legend to the salutation— even if merely a byname or a brief allusion—to [235] honour the god is the exception rather than the rule:¹⁵ “To the Maruts . . . recite, O Nodhas, a well-fashioned song! Out of heaven they are born . . .”, (RV 1.64.1–2), “Drive wealth hither to us, daughter of heaven . . . , with your young bulls drive [it] to us . . . .” (RV 6.64.4–5)

¹⁰ The song itself may also be the offering, which is why it is ‘offered as libation’ (see p. 30): ‘To the most powerful among you good ones I offer praise as a libation into the kindled fire’ (RV 2.16.1); ‘In these formulations take delight, Sarasvatī, . . . which the G:rtsamadas . . . offer to you as a sacrifice’ (RV 2.41.18). ¹¹ Indra’s horses are referred to several times as vacoyúj, ‘harnessed by the word (= song) [to the chariot]’ (see pp. 30 and 69). ¹² The formulaic hávam (ā)́ √gam, ‘come at the call’, used here is also seen on the Avestan side (ā . . . zauuә¯ n: g jasatā, ‘Come in answer to my calls’, (Y 28.3) and thus derives from the Indo-Iranian (cultic) language (see pp. 30–2). That is also where yә¯ vā ̊ as: ̌ā ufiiāni . . . apouruuīm belongs, which immediately precedes the passage quoted from the Gāθā: ‘I who will praise you, O Truth, as [this] has never [been done] before’, which corresponds to the conception of the ‘new song’ in the Rgveda (see pp. 31–2), as : does nәmaŋhā ustānazastō, ‘With hands turned in worship [to heaven] . . .’ in the first stanza of Y 28 (see p. 71) [436]. ¹³ This type of invocation, together with the idea of the divine chariot ride, probably continues IndoEuropean tradition, as it is also found in Sappho and elsewhere (see p. 29). ¹⁴ Such epicleses include proclamations of the god’s ‘achievements’ and in this respect are also a medium that holds out the promise of success to those who perform the ritual correctly. ¹⁵ This is in marked contrast to Greek and Latin ‘prayer hymns’: cf. Homeric Hymns 3.1, Catullus, Carmina 34.5, or Horace, Carmina I 10 (see E. N, Agnostos Theos, Leipzig 1923, 147–9).

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    . 

To ensure that the god, wherever he may be, actually feels ‘called’, the invocation must be as precise as possible. That is why all his various names¹⁶ and epithets are named on the one hand and on the other, all the places he could be:¹⁷ “When you, Indra, on New Year’s day, tarry whether at a distance or in your own residence, or where[ever] you are, [come] thence to our sacrifice” (RV 6.40.5); “Should you, O Indra, be called by men before, behind, above, or below, so draw speedily [near] with [your] swift [steeds]” (RV 8.65.1); “Whether you, O Śakra, are at a distance, whether near, O V:rtra-slayer, from there you, Indra, are lured with . . . songs by the man who has pressed the Soma, [that you] drive with your maned [horses to his sacrifice]. Or whether you are in the luminous realm of the sky [or] on the surface of the sea, whether on the earthly seat . . . whether in the space between [heaven and earth]—come hither!” (RV 8.97.4–5); “Whether you are at a distance today, whether near, you Aśvins, or whether you are in the space between [heaven and earth] . . . , come hither.” (RV 5.73.1, cf. 8.10.1)

́ It was particularly efficacious to know the “secret name” (gúhyam of a : nāma)¹⁸ god.¹⁹ And apparently the summoned god was just as happy to appear when the ¹⁶ The later ritual knows and uses the ‘names of the wind’ (Taittirīya-Samhitā II 4,9.1) and the : ‘names of the steed’ (Āpastamba-Śrautasūtra XX 5,9, 11,1). The Vedic ritual apparently does not leave it up to the deity invoked to choose his names from those given, as in the usage described by Plato (ὥσπερ ἐν ταῖς εὐχαῖς νόμος ἐστὶν ἡμῖν εὔχεσθαι, οἵ τινές τε καὶ ὁπόθεν χαίρουσιν όνομαζόμενοι, “as is the custom in prayers, that how and whence [the gods] themselves desire to be called”, Cratylus 400e). By contrast, many examples show this to have been the ‘custom’, for example, in Greece and Rome: rite maturos aperire partus, lenis, Ilithyia, tuere matres, sive tu Lucina probas vocari seu Genitalis, ‘That their confinement truly flourish, look mildly, Eileithyia, upon the mothers, be it “Lucina” you prefer to be called, be it “Generating One” ’, Horace, Carmina saeculare 13–16; regina caeli, sive tu Ceres . . . seu tu caelestis Venus . . . seu Phoebi soror . . . seu Proserpina . . . quoquo nomine, quoquo ritu, quaqua facie te fas est invocare: tu meis aerumnis subsiste, “Queen of heaven, whether you [are] Ceres . . . , whether you [are] the heavenly Venus . . . , whether you [are] the sister of Phoebe . . . , whether you [are] Prosperpina . . . , under whichever name, whichever customs, whichever form of the invocation is most pleasing to you! Help me in my most extreme need!” (Apuleius, Metamorphoses XI 2) See N, Agnostos Theos, Leipzig 1923, 144–6. ¹⁷ Zarathustra, too, asks that the Ahuras, ‘those who make their way here from near, and those from far’, come to hear him (Y 45.1), much as the poet of RV 4.20.1 addresses Indra: ‘May Indra draw near to us for help, [whether] from afar, [whether] from nearby, . . .’. The Rašn-Yašt names the possible locations of the summoned god in far greater detail: ‘Whether you, O truthful Rašnu, are on the continent of Arәzahī, we summon, we delight [437] the powerful Rašnu . . . , whether you are . . . on the Sauuahī continent, . . . [each continent is then named in turn] . . . whether you are in Vouru.kas: ̌a Lake, . . . whether you are on that tree of the falcon which is in the middle of the lake of Vouru.kas: ̌a, . . . whether you are on the border of this earth . . . whether you are in the midst of this earth, . . . whether you are anywhere on this earth . . . whether you are on the high Harā . . . whether you are on the star Tištriia . . . whether you are on the moon . . . whether you are on the sun . . .’ (Yt. 12.9–35). Greeks and Romans also called their gods in this manner (see N, Agnostos Theos, Leipzig 1923, 146). ¹⁸ These secret names in particular seem to have been ‘abbreviations’. Thus the secret name of Indra is drá and that of Varuna : vrá (Atharvaveda XI 7,3 = Paiappalada XVI 82,3). See also p. 132 fn. 295. ¹⁹ The Brāhmana : literature is replete with examples of the efficacy of knowing ‘secret names’ (see, for example, Śatapatha-Brāhmana : II 1,2.11). See also p. 124 fn. 248.

    .  

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summons devised wordplay around his name: vāý av ā ́ yāhi, ‘Draw hither, o Vāyu’, (RV 1.2.1), tāv́ ā ́ yātam úpa dravát, ‘[Indra and Vāyu], as such draw hither speedily’, (ibid. 5). In hymn RV 8.8, addressed to the two Aśvins, the poet even encodes the gods’ name backwards in the first stanza, in a kind [236] of anagram:²⁰ ā ́ no víśvābhir ūtíbhir / áśvinā gácchatam : yuvám, “You Aśvins, come hither to us with all forms of [your] help”, (RV 8.8.1). Once the summoned god had appeared²¹ and had ‘unharnessed his horses’ (RV 1.171.1, 3.35.3), he was greeted (2) and offered a seat prepared from barhis, a special grass strewn (see p. 71): ‘Sit down to this sacrifice on the strew’ (RV 3.35.6). When he had seated himself, he was feasted (3)—first and foremost with Soma: “Sit down upon the strew to drink of the Soma”, (RV 5.72.1–3); “Drink your fill [of the Soma]” (RV 2.11.15, 2.36.5, 10.116.1); “Take pleasure in the pressed [Soma]!” (RV 5.51.8); “May it be pleasing to your mouth in enjoyment, the Soma characterized by sweetness shall be for the weal of your body, your heart.”²² (RV 8.17.6)

Then songs (4) were performed to delight the god as he enjoyed the sacrificial offerings: “Rejoice in these songs, you Soma-drinker” (RV 3.39.7); “Sit here on the strew of the sacrificer, and then shall the song be recited to Indra!” (RV 3.53.3); “Indra, rejoice in the poetic formulations which . . . I have carpentered²³ like a skilled master a chariot.” (RV 5.29.15)

The invocation of the god has now transitioned to praise of him. His special qualities are praised in predications; in aretalogies his heroic deeds, performed for the benefit of mankind, are enumerated²⁴ and his power celebrated:²⁵

²⁰ Anagrams are also used in Old Avestic poetry (see J, An Anagram in the Gāthās: Yasna 51.4–5, Journal of the American Oriental Society 122 [2002], 287–9). So this technique may have been an Indo-Iranian tradition. Examples from other Indo-European languages make an even greater age likely, although there may have been independent development in this wordplay. ²¹ The idea is that one is ‘turning the gods hither for sacrifice’ (RV 1.52.1). The success of the summons and the arrival of the god are announced by the priest who embodies the god (see p. 212). ²² The Vedic Indians, like the Indo-Europeans, apparently did not know of the stomach as such, nor of its function, which they attributed to the heart (see S, Kleine Schriften, Göttingen 1933, 646). ²³ On the ‘carpentering of songs’ see p. 30. ²⁴ Often preceded by a declaration of intent (‘I will now proclaim . . .’), this is usually limited to a brief mention of each feat, with no attempt at narrative coherence. Such formulaic introductions to songs are also found in Zarathustra’s Gāθās: ‘Now I will proclaim the [things], you who make your way [hither], that are noteworthy even to the knowing one’, (Y 30.1); ‘I will proclaim, you who make your way [hither] from near, you who make your way [hither] from far, . . .’, (Y 45.1) (see p. 30) [438]. ²⁵ These encomia are based not only on myth, but also on ‘theological’ speculation.

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    . 

“Your earlier deeds I will proclaim, and also your present ones, O bounteous [Indra], that you have done: That you, mighty one, separated the two halves of the world . . . winning the waters for man. That was truly your work, . . . that you slew the serpent [V:rtra], and thus measured your strength. You have also overpowered the trickery of Śus: na. : . . . You [237] brought the brimming waters to rest for Yadu and Turvaśa” (RV 5.31.6–8); “You are the great one, Indra, who are it by your ferocity. Just born, you terrify heaven and earth . . . You slay Śus: na : for the sake of the young, glorious Kutsa. . . . You smash there, club-wielding Indra, fighting, the seven ramparts for Purukutsa.” (RV 1.63.1, 3, 7)

Time and time again, the god’s oft-demonstrated magnanimity is appealed to: ‘For both of you [, Indra and Varuna,] : are known to come to assist when called by a poet, as I am’ (RV 1.17.2). This strategy prepares the (5) presentation of the request(s). For if the god is in a benevolent mood, he is more likely to grant his worshipper’s wishes—for example, for victory and glory; health and long life; numerous offspring, especially male; happiness; prosperity in the form of multitudinous livestock; protection from thieves and wild animals; even for speed of the horse ridden in battle. To ensure that these petitions are fulfilled, the god is also advised to ‘give much, not little’ (RV 4.32.20). And sometimes the god’s generosity is further encouraged with such formulations as: ‘If I were you, O Agni, or you were me, your wishes would come true here’ (RV 8.44.23). The fact that these matters are often declaimed in formulas—together with other indications mentioned in Chapter 2 (see pp. 26–32)—shows that the Vedic poets acted in a long-standing tradition to which Zarathustra, beyond the Hindu Kush, belonged as well: áti dvés: ām : si tarema “May we cross the hostilities”, (RV 3.27.3), ~ daibišuuatō duuaēšā ̊ tauruuaiāmā, (Y 28.6) (cf. Yt. 5.13, 10.34) pāhí . . . dvis: áh: , “Protect us . . . from enmity”, (RV 8.71.1) ~ nipātū t ̰baēšaŋ́hat ̰, (Y 58.2) dádhad . . . āśvásyam, “May he bestow [upon us] . . . the possession of swift horses”, (RV 5.6.10), ~ āsuuaspīm daδāiti, (Yt. 10.3) (see p. 30 fn. 32) [238] té syāma yé . . . , “May we be those who . . .” (RV 1.73.8, 94.15, 2.11.13, 4.8.5),²⁶ ~ at ̰cā tōi vaēm x́iiāmā yōi . . . , (Y 30.9) ́ rāyáh: suvīryasya ́ kāmo tám : dāt, “The desire for wealth, for heroic sons, that shall [Br: haspati] grant,” (RV 7.97.4), ~ arәθā vōizdiiāi kāmahiiā tә¯ m mōi dātā. (Y 43.13)

²⁶ Compare to this the frequently used phrase vayám : (té) syāma . . . . (See also p. 31).

    .  

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After the petitions have been brought forward, the god (6) is bid farewell: ‘Harnessed be your right [steed] and [also] the left. . . . With this drive hence to your dear wife, [O Indra], after you have become intoxicated from the [Soma] plant’ (RV 1.82.5).²⁷ A great many songs conclude with Dānastutis. As a rule these stanzas, which ‘render homage to the gift (of the Daks: in: ā)’ (see p. 213), make simple statements on what was received as a boon for participation in a sacrifice: ‘A chestnut horse, which Indra, the Maruts, Pākasthāman Kaurayāna : can give me, one that is the most glorious of all in the flesh, like the one running in the sky, [Sūrya, such a] chestnut Pākasthāman has [indeed] given me, one who is good at the shoulder of the yoke, belt-filling, wealth-awakening’ (RV 8.3.21–22); ‘Agni!²⁸ Abhyāvartin, . . . the only king (sam : rā:t́ ), the bountiful one, . . . gives me twenty bulls with cows’ (RV 6.27.8); ‘Six steeds together with mares I gain at the same time from Ātithigva, from Indrota, from Pūtakratu’ (RV 8.68.17); ‘Trasadasyu, the son of Purukutsa, has given me fifty wives’ (RV 8.19.36).²⁹ That this song-closing, too, is part of ancient tradition is seen in Zarathustra’s Gāthās: ‘How will I gain through the truth³⁰ this reward, ten mares with a stallion and a camel? . . . Whosoever shall not give this reward to the man who deserves it, who mandates it for himself by the right formulation [of his words], what punishment will befall him for this in the beginning (i.e. in his earthly existence)? I know [239] those who will meet him last (i.e. at the end of the world)’, (kaθā as: ̌ā tat ̰ mīždәm hanāni, dasā aspā ̊ +aršәuuaitīš uštrәm.cā . . . / . . . yastat ̰ mīždәm hanәn: tē nōit ̰ dāitī, yә¯ īt ̰ ahmāi әrәžuxδā nā dāitē, kā :t әm āhiiā +maēiniš aŋhat ̰ +paouruiiē, vīduuā ̊ auuąm yā īm aŋhat ̰ apә¯ mā). (Y 44.18–19)

Very rarely, this is followed by a form of giving ‘thanks’: ‘The sons of V:rs: āgir welcome the success [of their sacrifice]’³¹ (RV 1.100.17). And sometimes, the ‘signature’ of the poet is found at the very end of the songs:³² vāmám : vāmam : ... devó dadātv aryamā ́ / . . . vāmám : deváh: kárū:latī. ‘Let the god Aryaman give everything of value [to you], . . . the gap-toothed god a valuable’, (RV 4.30.24). While in this instance the poet straightforwardly states the name of his clan—Vāmadeva—as does the composer of RV 3.58.4 (víśve jánāso aśvínā ²⁷ While the vast majority of songs involve the summoning of the gods, a corresponding farewell is comparatively rare—a circumstance that requires explanation. ²⁸ The Dānastutis of Indra-songs frequently, as here, invoke Agni as a deity. This sets them apart from the rest of the song, as does their more colloquial diction and, in some cases, a different metre. ²⁹ RV 8.46.33 speaks of a ‘woman bedecked in gold jewelry’ as Daks: inā : (see p. 253 fn. 318–19). ³⁰ This means: ‘through my prayer, which achieves its effect through the truth it proclaims’. See pp. 51–3. ³¹ Specifically, this refers to the Daks: inā : (see Gonda, Prayer and Blessing, Ancient Indian Ritual Terminology, Leiden 1989, 149–76). ³² This ‘signature’ has no real equivalent in the Avesta (see SÆØ, Hymnic Composition in the Avesta, Die Sprache 36 [1994], 231).

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    . 

havante . . . / . . . mitrāś o ná . . .), Vimada, having called himself by name in the line vimadáh: . . . gíra ā ́ vaks: at (RV 10.20.10) encodes his name in his text seal: ví no made (. . . vívaks: ase) (RV 10.21.1–8, 24.1–3, 25.1–11). Thus the Sūktas of the Rgveda, the ‘beautiful recitations’ as they are called in : younger Vedic texts, may well be called prayer hymns.³³ They are often³⁴ divided into three parts: invocatio, pars epica (or argumentum),³⁵ and precatio, yet a few of them depart from this form with different weighting of the individual parts; for example, with the invocatio kept quite short or entirely absent while the pars epica fills out almost the whole song.³⁶ One aspect that must be taken into account, however, is that the summons of the gods to the ritual was sometimes recited not in the Sūktas used there, but in special songs (see pp. 227–8). Some of these prayer hymns were recited, others sung to certain melodies.³⁷ The former, predominantly using the Tris: t:ubh metre (see p. 28), were recited by the priest³⁸ called the Hot:r, while singing prayer hymns was the task of the Udgāt:r (see p. 209 fn. 59). Among these latter, a preponderance follow the typical Gāyatrī and Pragātha chanting metres [240].³⁹ In addition to the functions of the Rgvedic songs described previously, the most : important of which is undoubtedly that of ‘turning [the gods] hither’ to the sacrifice, as RV 10.61.17 calls it, there is another that makes the songs themselves a kind of offering⁴⁰ in that they strengthen and invigorate the gods; indeed causing them to ‘grow’: ‘We praise [Indra] when the Soma is pressed. [The priest] recites the solemn words so that the formulation will be strengthening for Indra’ (RV 6.23.5); ‘. . . may Indra, who may be strengthened by the sacrifice and the Soma, be [also] strengthened by the poetic formulation, the songs and the recitations’ (RV 6.38.4); ‘The poets caused Indra to grow by exalting him with songs, that he might kill the serpent’ (RV 5.31.4). This idea also goes back to at least Indo-Iranian times, as the Avesta, too, has the gods being strengthened by songs and the sacrifice: ‘Praises, hymns, glorifications we dedicate, convey, and attribute to Ahura Mazdā . . .’ (YH 41.1); ‘I, Ahura Mazdā, worship Tištriia . . . with an

³³ O, in Die Literatur des alten Indien, Stuttgart—Berlin 1903, 31, speaks of ‘praise and prayer songs’. ³⁴ This is especially true of the Sūktas, which were intended for recitation during rituals. ³⁵ In view of the function of this middle section, namely, to introduce the presentation of the petitions, the term argumentum—preferred by some in hymnology—seems more appropriate. ³⁶ Examples include RV 1.32 and 2.12. ³⁷ RV 1.164.24 and 9.103.3 speak of the ‘seven voices’. Apparently ‘seven’ in this instance actually refers to the seven notes of the scale used in the hymns, and not an indeterminate multitude as is often denoted by the number seven in the Rgveda (see p. 2 fn. 3). : ³⁸ The term priest should not call to mind any kind of professional cult specialist (see p. 8 fn. 27). ³⁹ The main locations of these Udgāt:r songs are the Kanva on the one : portions of the first Man: dala, : hand, and the eighth and especially ninth Man: dalas on the other (see O, Kleine Schriften, : Wiesbaden 1967, 538). See also pp. 23–4 [439]. ⁴⁰ That is why it can also be termed ‘pouring [i.e. sacrificing] of songs’ (see p. 30).

    .  

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offering, [with which] I transfer to him the power of ten horses, the power of ten camels . . .’ (Yt. 8.25).

7.2.1 Excursus: Poetic license and constraints The relationship between gods and mortals is fraught with a broad range of uncertainties. And it is said: ‘None shall win friendship with the gods without exertion’ (RV 4.33.11). So, in order to attract the attention of the god addressed and ensure that he indeed feels called and comes hither, it was important to fashion the prayer hymns as artfully as possible. In this pursuit the poets of the Rgveda employed a number of textual and content-related means. The spectrum : of figures used ranges from simple alliteration, internal and end rhymes, and homoioteleuton to [241] responsio, chiasmus, anaphora, epiphora, redditio, complexio, polyptoton, paronomasia, refrain, and concatenatio. And not infrequently, names of god are incorporated as well: índram : íd gāthíno b:rhád / índram : arkébhir arkínah: / índram : vān:́ īr anūs: ata ́ ́ ́ (RV 1.7.1); trātāram índram avitāram índram / háve-have suhávam śūram índram / hváyāmi śakrá puruhūtám índram / svastí no maghávā dhātv índram ́ pūs: n: é (RV 4.3.7); ād́ asya vāto ́ ánu (RV 6.47.11); kathā ́ mahé pus: :t imbharāya vāti śocīh: (RV 7.3.2); bhága evá bhágavām̐ astu (RV 7.41.5); savitā ́ . . . ā ́ sāvis: at ́ us: ā ́ vásūni (RV 7.45.3); vy ùs: ā ́ āvah: (RV 7.79.1); jāyéya pátya uśatī ́ suvāsā (RV 1.124.7); víśvā veda jánimā jātávedāh: (RV 6.15.13); urór várīyo várun: as ́ . . . sá no devés: v ā ́ yamat dīrghám āyuh ́ : prá jīváse te k:rn: otu, (RV 6.75.18); yamāya (RV 10.14.14); . . . yamásya . . . . (i)yám asya (RV 10.135.7); mitrān:́ ām mitrapate. (RV 1.170.5)⁴¹

Widely varying tropes, such as oxymoron, zeugma, climax, and śles: a—each illustrated by a following example—were also employed by poets to please their divine audiences: ‘Out shall come the cows that through the power of truth cozen [the deception]’ (RV 10.108.11);⁴² ‘this drop (of Soma) stole the weapons of his own father, [negated] the magic arts of the hostile’ (RV 6.44.22);⁴³ ‘praised by all, [even] praised by the stranger’ (RV 8.1.22); ‘[the Maruts] dragging streaks like banner-bearing warriors’ (RV 1.64.2).⁴⁴ Such ‘ornamental devices’, to use an

⁴¹ In constructions such as these, which are examples of paronomasias—playful juxtapositions of similar-sounding, often related words—ancient formulaic material lives on, as a comparison with the Avesta (miθrәm vīspanąm dax́iiunąm daŋ́hupaitīm yazamaide, Yt. 10.45 = 19.35) shows. ⁴² On this oxymoron, see T, Kleine Schriften, Wiesbaden 1984, 17. ⁴³ Another pleasing example of a zeugma is RV 8.52.10: ‘Indra shook together high riches (like fruits from a tree), together [he joined] the sky, together also the sun’. ⁴⁴ See Oldenberg, Noten, ad loc. (with further examples).

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    . 

expression from later times, are shown to best advantage in cunningly crafted hymns. A recurring principle of composition is the orientation of a hymn towards its middle stanza, which not only contains the core message but also serves as a mirror axis for other stanzas in the hymn. In the fifteen-stanza song [242] RV 1.32 (see pp. 167–8), for example, the seven stanzas that precede the eighth—which proclaims Indra’s release of the waters enclosed by V:rtra—have elements that are mirrored in the seven stanzas that follow it. The maghavā ́ of verse 3d returns in 13d, the índraśatruh: of verse 6d in 10d, and the information conveyed in verse 7b is exactly the same as that in verse 9b. Rhythmic speech was another embellishment meant to win the favour of the gods. For the most part, a single verse metre is used throughout a song. Often, however, the last stanza—sometimes also the penultimate,⁴⁵ even more rarely the antepenultimate—is in a different (usually longer) metre. To give just one example: the first five stanzas of RV 1.82 are Paṅktis formed of eight-syllable verses, while the sixth consists of twelve-syllable Jagatī lines. Far more seldom, the beginning of a song is distinguished by a metre that differs from the rest. A song composed of T:rcas may have a number of metres mixed in it, corresponding to these triplet stanzas. And even when the arrangement of a song is only according to its content, two or more metres may be used side by side within it. See for example RV 1.101, a panegyric on Indra, in which stanzas 1 to 7 are composed in the Jagatī metre while stanzas 7 to 11, the summon to sacrifice, are in Tris: t:ubhs. Sometimes the combination of different meters has a ‘cultic’ relationship. Thus in the song RV 3.52,⁴⁶ stanzas 1 to 4 are Gāyatrīs; stanzas 5, 7, and 8 are Tris: t:ubhs; and 6 is a Jagatī. The Gāyatrī stanzas are about the morning pressing of Soma; the fifth stanza, composed in Tris: t:ubh, is about the midday pressing; and the sixth, the Jagatī, is about the evening pressing. This would seem to indicate that the instructions of the Brāhmanas : (see Aitareya-Brāhmana : III 27,1; Gopatha-Brāhmana II 4,16/18; Pañcavi mśa-Brāhma na VII 4,6 and VIII 4,2; : : : Śatapatha-Brāhmana VI 1,6.2) that : IV 2,5.20 and 3,2.8; and Taittirīya-Samhitā : prescribe eight-syllable verses for the morning, eleven-syllable verses for the midday, and twelve-syllable verses for the evening pressing were already established in Rgvedic times (see p. 237).⁴⁷ : [243] Sometimes the poets form their lines in a metrically quite unusual manner or violate the applicable rules. This is almost never by chance or out of sheer necessity. Such irregularities are almost always ‘iconic’ in nature. In the halfstanza káp:rn narah: kap:rthám úd dadhātana / codáyata khudáta vāj́ asātaye (RV 10.101.12), for example, the highly unusual sequence of six short syllables in the second verse (
⏑⏑⏑⏑⏑⏑
⏑
⏑
) evinces rapid movement. ‘You men, raise ⁴⁵ For example, RV 1.51, 141, and 157; 5.44; 8.17; and 10.9. ⁴⁶ The same applies to RV 3.28 (see p. 237). ⁴⁷ See H, Vedische Mythologie, Vol. I, Breslau 1927, 468.

    .  

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up the penis, the phallus. Propel it, push it . . .’. The poet makes the ‘narrowness’ spoken of in RV 3.59.2 almost palpable by placing seven syllables before the caesura in this line instead of the usual five: náinam ám : ho aśnoty, ántito ná durāt,́ ‘Narrowness does not reach him, neither from near nor from far’. And in RV 4.26.4, prá sú :sá víbhyo maruto vír astu / prá śyenáh: śyenébhyah: āśupátvā (‘Ahead stands, you Maruts, the bird of birds, ahead the falcon of falcons, the swiftly plummeting one’), the unmetrical form of the second line results from the poet’s tracing the image of the Soma-stealing falcon—darting ahead of the other falcons— by placing the word that denotes its precedent position in the precedent position. The comparative rigidity of form inherent in every song forces the poets, who frequently venture off the track into audacious poetical invention and fantastical imagery, to restrict their virtuosity to a fixed path at least over long stretches. For example, certain words and phrases can be used only in certain parts of the verse. Thus to speak, for example, of the ‘rising sun’, the poets use sūŕ yam uccárantam at the end of a Tris: t:ubh line (RV 4.25.4, 6.52.5, 7.104.24, 10.59.6), because the metre requires
⏑

in that position, whereas āróhantam (RV 10.37.8) or udyántam (RV 10.37.7) may be placed at beginning of such a line (or that of a Jagatī), since that position calls for a long second syllable. For sāń o ávye, “on the sheep’s back” (
⏑

) in the Tris: t:ubh line (vŕ̥:sā pavítre ádhi sāń o ávye, RV 9.97.40), the poet must use the equivalent (sāń o) avyáye in a Jagatī verse (vŕ̥:sā pavítre ádhi sāń o avyáye, RV 9.86.3). And yet among all the different elements, those of epiclesis and [244] precation can instead be shifted about like bits of scenery on a stage. The formula barhír āsáde, ‘to sit on the sacrificial grass strew’ (
⏑
⏑
), for example, is found at the end of the verse in all seven instances it is used. And ā ́ gahi, ‘Come hither!’ (
⏑x), which occurs almost eighty times, is used sixty times in the cadence of an octosyllable and eleven times in that of Tris: t:ubh and Jagatī. In three of the ́ latter eleven instances, tūyam, ‘fast’, immediately precedes ā ́ gahi, thus combining ́ to form a typical Jagatī cadence (tūyam ā ́ gahi,
⏑
⏑
). When this tūý am is used in a Tris: t:ubh cadence, on the other hand, it is joined with yāhi, ‘Draw [near]’, and ́ placed at the end of the verse (yāhi tūý am
⏑

). The formulaic śrudhī/śrudhī hávam, ‘Hear [our] call!’ (⏑
⏑
), is in the cadence of octosyllables (RV 1.2.1, 10.9, 45.3, 142.13, 5.24.3, 6.45.11, 8.6.18, 74.11), but at the beginning of Tris: t:ubh and Jagatī (RV 2.11.1, 6.21.10, 7.22.4, 8.95.4, 10.148.5). And an internal bodhi, ‘Be . . . !’, ́ is contrasted with bhavā̆ at the beginning or end of a verse: asmākam bodhy avitā ́ tanūń ām, RV 5.4.9; bhávā maghavan magavádbhyah: śárma (RV 1.58.9; asmāḱ am avitā ́ bhava, RV 1.187.2). Due to both the constraints imposed on the poet by the formulaic nature of the Rgvedic songs and to the narrow scope of the sacrifices for which they are each : composed, different gods are spoken of using identical phrases. This can make it difficult to determine exactly which beliefs the Rgvedic worshipper associated with : a specific god, and for which areas of life and experience he believed this god to be responsible within the Vedic pantheon (see also pp. 73–4).

208

    . 

7.3 The ‘priests’ of the (Rg)Vedic cult : The place, time, ‘personnel’, and nature of the rituals ensure the identity of the cult in the Rgvedic religion. It is amply evident from the songs that [245] this religion as : a whole is devoid of temples and icons, and that the central elements of every ritual are prayer (song) and sacrifice. All of the elements that make up these complex rituals are combined in a veritable composition. According to younger texts, the sequence of actions, in general quite precisely defined, begins with a ‘consecration’ of the participants⁴⁸—a defined procedure to qualify those who have active parts in the ritual—and ends with its repeal, clearly demarcating the beginning and end of this departure from everyday life. Apart from a few dubious passages (RV 1.164.36–37, 4.17.15, 7.33.13, 9.83.1), however, the Rgveda does not : seem to mention⁴⁹ the ‘sacralization’ itself, while its revocation, the sacrificial bath called Avabhr: ta, is touched upon in RV 8.93.22–23. As a rule, the sequence of rites thus opened and concluded has its climax in the sacrifice. The act of sacrificing involves the ritualistic relinquishment of a material object. In the vast majority of cases—with the exception of the Soma sacrifice—this is done by giving over the sacrificial substance to the sacrificial fire, the ceremonial lighting of which is an essential element in almost every ritual (see pp. 218–9). This relinquishment, the ritual transfer of material, occurs mainly in the form of giving a gift. Depending on the underlying intentions—expectations that are expressed in the ‘sacrificial formula’ (see pp. 223–4)—the sacrifice of a gift may take the form of a petitioning, expiating, cleansing, or ‘requiting’⁵⁰ sacrifice.⁵¹ Thank-offerings, on the other hand, seem to be mostly, or even entirely, alien to the Vedic cult.⁵² Temples and cultic images in which gods reside and are accessible to man are completely absent from the Rgvedic religion.⁵³ And so the gods must be sum: moned time and again, in a manner that ensures they will appear. This is why the language has immense cultic significance (see p. 154), as do the composers of the hymns, who are moreover the ones who, as its ‘priests’, orchestrate the activities of

⁴⁸ Originally, only the patron of the sacrifice and his wife were ‘consecrated’ in the Śrauta ritual, but later the priests were included in this procedure (see O, Religion, 371–2). ⁴⁹ On these passages, see O, Religion, 399 fn. 3, and Noten on RV 1.164.36–37 and 7.33.13, and ibid. I, 279–280 fn. 2. These passages speak of embryonic states (RV 1.164.36), of being born (RV 7.33.13), of Vis: nu : (RV 1.164.36), of seclusion and concentration (1.164.37b), of heating the body through (RV 9.83.1), and of black hides (RV 4.17.15), all of them ideas and objects that characterize the Dīks: ā of later times. ⁵⁰ It is primarily Rudra who is ‘requited’ with sacrifices (see p. 197). ⁵¹ Textual evidence for these types of sacrifice from post-Rgvedic times was furnished by : O, Religion, 309–13. ⁵² Note, however, RV 10.27.2: ‘If I . . . provoke a battle with those [enemies] who do not worship the gods, then I will roast you a strong bull at home and pour pungent Soma for fifteen days’. ⁵³ Frequent claims to the contrary notwithstanding, RV 4.24.10 does not refer to a cultic image of Indra, but rather of a song addressed to the god (see O, review of E. Sieg, Kleine Schriften, Kratylos 38 [1993], 189).

    .  

209

the cult.⁵⁴ That an actual religious specialisation emerged quite early is a sign [246] of the complexity of the Rgvedic cult. At the same time, the ritual was oriented : around one person, the one ‘sacrificer’ (yajamāna),⁵⁵ the patron of the sacrifice, of whom it says in Śatapatha-Brāhmana : I 3,1.26: ‘Any blessing called hither by the priests at the sacrifice belongs to the sacrificer alone’. A list of the names of the priestly functions, handed down in various passages of the Rgveda,⁵⁶ enumerates in order ‘the office of the Hotr: , the Potr: , the Nes: t::r, the : Agnidh, the Praśāst:r, the Adhvaryu, and the Brahman’. In RV 9.114.3 these ‘sacrificial priests’ (:rtvíjah: ) are referred to as ‘seven Hot:r’ (saptá hótārah: ), in keeping with the regular naming of the Hot:r at their head.⁵⁷ These seven, whose number calls to mind the divine ancestors of the priestly clans (see p. 189 with fn. 151), are joined by an eighth: the ‘master of the house’, the primus inter pares. Other rankings, which individually lack one or more of those named here but in the aggregate include them all, confirm this enumeration—originating in IndoIranian times—of those involved in performing the ritual.⁵⁸ Thus it appears there were initially no ‘singers’ among them.⁵⁹ The main duty of the Hot:r was to recite the hymns during the ritual,⁶⁰ supported by assistants, the Hotrakas, while the Adhvaryu was first and foremost responsible⁶¹ for the manual tasks, in particular pressing and sharing out⁶² the Soma (see RV 5.31.12). The Hot:r is referred to in the text as being ‘of good tongue’ (RV 1.13.8) and the Adhvaryu, ‘of good hands’ (RV 9.97.37, 10.30.2). The

⁵⁴ See O, Religion, 388 [440]. ⁵⁵ Only men were permitted to perform sacrifices, although their wives had to accompany them (see RV 1.72.5, 8.31.5–9). The Soma ritual performed by Apālā in RV 8.91 is clearly labelled by the text as an ‘imagined’ one, and also deviates in detail from the established norm. For example, she ‘presses’ the Soma ‘with her jaws’ (RV 8.91.2). The Soma pressing described in RV 1.28, too, which is also carried out by a woman, is clearly not performed according to the norm (see p. 231 fn. 192). ⁵⁶ RV 2.1.2 (= 10.91.10) and 2.5.1–6 in particular, but also 1.94.6, 162.5, and 4.9.3–5 contain these names. ⁵⁷ RV 3.4.5 and 10.17.11 also speak of the ‘seven Hot:r-offices’. This, too, refers to the functions of the Hotr: and the other priests. ⁵⁸ See O, Religion, 383–6. ⁵⁹ There are three in the later period, namely the Udgāt:r, the Prastot:r and the Pratihart:r. While RV 2.43.2 names the Udgāt:r directly, the Prastot:r is alluded to in RV 8.81.5, as is possibly—compare úpa gāsis: at in this verse—the (or an) Upagāt:r, who merely accompanies the other singers by singing ho in the lowest register. That the Pratihart:r is definitely not mentioned in the Rgveda may be attributable to : happenstance (see O, Religion, 392 fn. 5). ⁶⁰ In smaller offerings, however, the Hot:r also performs manual activities, primarily the offering of what is sacrificed (see O, Religion, 386–7). And this seems to have been his main task in Indo-Iranian times. After all, his name characterises him, as the Avestan shows, not as the ‘summoner’ but as the ‘one who performs the libation’. ⁶¹ The Adhvaryu sometimes accompanies his actions by speaking a few words. These formulas, called Yajus, were already known in the Rgvedic period, as evidenced by RV 10.90.9 (among other : sources): ‘From the [sacrificed Purus: a] arose the sacrificial formula’. ⁶² To do so he ‘steps forward’ (RV 6.41.2, 7.92.2), for which action in the later ritual the Brahman gives him permission.

210

    . 

Praśāst:r, chief assistant to the Hot:r, not only issued the numerous commands (prais: a) to the other priests;⁶³ it was also his role to perform a number of recitations, mainly in the animal sacrifice.⁶⁴ The Brahman, corresponding largely to the later Brāhmanāccha msin,⁶⁵ was responsible for recitations to Indra at the : : Soma sacrifice, much in the manner of the Hot:r, whom he assisted. Assistant to the Adhvaryu was the Agnidh, who was charged with—as his name indicates— preparing the sacrificial fire.⁶⁶ The task of the Potr: , the ‘Purifier’, was to purify the Soma, and possibly also to sing the songs that accompany this purification,⁶⁷ [247] while the Nes: t::r, the ‘guide’, had the task of guiding the wife of the ‘houselord’ (see previous example) through the ritual. The priests (or priestly functions) previously named are each in a defined relationship with the major deities of the pantheon: the Hot:r with Indra, the Pot:r with the Maruts, the Nes: t::r with Tvas: t::r and the gods’ wives, the Agnīdh with Agni, the Praśāst:r with Mitra and Varuna, : the Adhvaryu with the Aśvins,⁶⁸ and the Brahman with, again, Indra. This arrangement, in which once again no ‘singers’ are included, is made not only in younger ritual texts—as, for example, in the priestly summoning by the Adhvaryu at the morning pressing of the Soma sacrifice (:rtvigvaran: a),⁶⁹ or in

⁶³ In the classic ritual he is then called Maitrāvaruna, : in keeping with his connection to these two gods. Although in Kaus: ītaki-Brāhmana times this : XXVIII he is identified with the Upavakt:r, in Rgvedic : seems to have been an additional priest—[441] mentioned in RV 9.95.5—who in the classic ritual had no counterpart, but instead had been merged with the Brahman. ⁶⁴ When the ‘two divine Hot:rs’ are invoked in the seventh and eighth stanzas of the Āprī-Sūktas, respectively, this refers to the divine counterparts of the Hotr: and the Praśāstr: . ⁶⁵ See O, Religion, 395–6. The later Brahman, who oversees the entire ritual and can act as a ‘physician’ to heal any violation of the instructions for the ritual, is perceived in the Rgveda only in a : few faint traces (cf. for instance RV 10.52.2 and 141.3, and see Noten on RV 7.33.14 and 10.88.17). His ‘office’ seems to have developed only in late-Rgvedic times, from that of the Upavaktr: among other : things (see previous fn. 63). ⁶⁶ The ‘two Adhvaryus’ (RV 2.16.5, cf. 10.52.2) probably refers to the Adhvaryu per se together with the Agnidh, an assumption supported by RV 10.41.3 (see O, Religion, 384 fn. 4, 389 fn. 6; and cf. Noten on RV 7.42.1). The ‘five Adhvaryus’ mentioned in RV 3.7.7 are apparently another grouping of priests, in addition to that of the seven (see Noten II, 135 fn. 1). ⁶⁷ This is deduced, however, solely from his name; the few relevant passages in the text provide no information about his function. On the assumptions noted here, see O, Religion, 391, 394. ⁶⁸ Compare RV 10.52.2: ‘Day after day yours is the Adhvaryu service, you Aśvins’. ⁶⁹ See, for example, Āpastamba-Śrautasūtra XI 19,5–9 (cf. X 1,13–14) or Kātyāyana-Śrautasūtra IX 8,8–15 (other passages are noted in C/H, LʼAgnis: :t oma, Vol. I, Paris 1906, 186). The former passage says: He chooses . . . the sacrificial priests appearing at the Soma sacrifice, namely the Hot:r with the formula »Indra, by virtue of his Hot:r function«, the Āgnīdhra with the formula »Agni, by virtue of his Āgnīdhra function«, the two Adhvaryus (i.e. the Adhvaryu and the Pratiprasthāt:r) with the formula »The two Aśvins, by virtue of their Adhvaryu function« . . . and finally also the patron of the sacrifice with the formula »Agni [be] the leader of the divine tribes; this sacrificer, that of the human ones«.

    .  

211

the Prasthitahomas⁷⁰—but also in a rite that traces back to Rgvedic times and is part of : the morning pressing for the Soma ritual (see p. 235). This rite effects—entirely consistent with RV 3.53.10⁷¹—the correlation of god and priestly office: “Indra, drink the Soma through the apportioning (:rtúnā) [by virtue of your office as Hot:r]. . . . You Maruts, drink the Soma through the apportioning by virtue of [your] office as Pot:r . . . [Tvas: t:r: , ] Lord of the gods’ wives, drink, o Nes: t::r, through the apportioning. Agni . . . discharge your duty [as Agnidh and] drink through the apportioning. By virtue of [your] office as Brahman . . . drink Indra.” (RV 1.15.1–5, cf. 2.36–37)⁷²

This identity of god with priest⁷³ seeks to solve the fundamental problem that all aniconic cults had: keeping the reference point at once plausible and binding. In Rgvedic ritual, the gods were apparently summoned in the central rituals and : represented in ritual epiphanies by humans—namely, the ‘priests’.⁷⁴ This is even more clearly evident from Vādhūla-Anvākhyāna IV 68 than from the many other related passages: “Having become which deity at the beginning of the sacrifice do the sacrificial priests convey the sacrificer [to heaven]? The Hot:r, who has become Agni, conveys the sacrifice⁷⁵ [to heaven], the two Adhvaryus, become the Aśvins, convey [248] the sacrifice [to heaven], the Maitrāvaruna, : become Mitra and Varuna, conveys the sacrifice [to heaven], the Brāhma nāccha msin, become : : : Indra, conveys the sacrifice [to heaven], the Pot:r, become the Maruts, conveys the sacrifice [to heaven], the Nes: t::r, become the wives of the gods, conveys the sacrifice [to heaven], the Āgnīdhra, become Agni, conveys the sacrifice [to heaven] . . .”.⁷⁶

And so almost every Vedic ritual shows typical characteristics of an epiphany ritual. This applies most particularly, however, to the Soma ritual, in which Indra ⁷⁰ See C/H, LʼAgnis: :t oma, Vol. I, Paris 1906, 211–12. ⁷¹ That passage says: ‘You wise R: s: is, together with the gods drink . . . all the Soma mead’ [442]. ⁷² This rite, later called :rtuyāja, allocates eight functions—seven priestly plus that of the Yajamāna— in twelve stanzas, making the four stanzas to Dravinodas (RV 1.15.7–10, cf. 2.37.2–4) in a sense : superfluous, for which reason RV-Khila V 7,5 has twelve Rtuprai s: as, four of which are for : Dravinodas. : ⁷³ Passages in the Brāhmanas : in which the Yajamāna is identified with a god, such as Indra, are legion (cf. és: a vā ́ átréndro bhavati yád yájamānah: , Śatapatha-Brāhmana : III 3,3.10, V 1,3.4, 2,5.3; cf. II 3,1.38). ⁷⁴ Recall also that the Brāhmanas : always have the manual activities of the Adhvaryu carried out ‘with the arms of the Aśvins, with Pūs: anʼs hands’. ⁷⁵ One would actually expect ‘the sacrificial lord’ in the accusative here, i.e. . . . yajamānan: vahati. ⁷⁶ Text also at C, Kleine Schriften, Wiesbaden 1990, 499.

212

    . 

is cultically worshipped: its objective, in the phenomenological sense, is to cause Indra to manifest. Thus the first steps are to assure his coming and his participation in the sacrificial meal: the god is invited to the sacrifice and then is requested to drink of the Soma. The invitation uses the formula prá (/) ā ́ yāhi, ‘draw hither’, or ā ́ gahi ‘come hither’ (each with the vocative),⁷⁷ and the request to drink uses matsi, ‘intoxicate yourself ’, pibatu, ‘let him drink’, and similar formulaic phrases, usually called Nivid, ‘taking note of ’ (RV 1.89.3, 96.2).⁷⁸ The actual epiphany of the god occurs at the moment when the Soma is pressed for him: “Indra, when he had slain V:rtra, but thinking that he had not struck him down, went to the most distant place. . . . Then all the beings sought him, dividing themselves up. Then the fathers found him the day before, and the gods the following [day]. . . . They spoke: ‘Let us press [the Soma for him]. So he will come hither with all speed’ ( . . . ). Then they pressed [the Soma for him]. With [the verse] “[We drive] you hither like a chariot to help” (RV 8.68.1) they turned him hither.⁷⁹ When they praised the pressed [Soma in the verse] ‘This pressed out herb, O good one’ (RV 8.2.1) he was revealed to them. [With the verse] ‘Indra, come closer . . . ‘(RV 8.53.5) they made him step into their midst’. (Aitareya-Brāhmana : III 15)

[249] Indra’s epiphany is then proclaimed by the priest: “I hear that you are born” (RV 5.32.11), “This is the bowl from which Indra drinks. The immortality potion that is Indra’s preferred (/own) was drunk” (RV 6.44.16), “Now while you drink the Soma we will proclaim your deeds, O Indra.” (RV 5.30.3)

Indra’s appearance, meanwhile, had been heralded by the rising of the sun: ‘The dun bull (= Indra), being born, illuminates the entire realm of light’

⁷⁷ In order to have this invitation accepted by the god, it is crucial to know his name, as the uttering of the name signifies the presence of the god. The god usually responds to this summons immediately. To ensure that he feels he is being addressed, however, he must be called as precisely as can be; i.e. with all of his names, if possible, as well as the appropriate epicleses (see p. 191). Even so, the advent of the god—of Indra in particular—remains uncertain, especially if two parties are calling him at the same time (on the Samsava, which is forbidden in the classic ritual). : ⁷⁸ See also p. 228 on the Nivids, which were apparently written in prose from the outset, judging by the fact that RV 1.96.2 juxtaposes them with kavyátā, ‘poetry’. For more on these, see S, Die Nivids und Prais: ās, die ältesten vedischen Prosatexte, Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 73 (1919) 30–42, and O, Kleine Schriften, Stuttgart 1993, 1757–8. H, Kleine Schriften, Stuttgart 1987, 57–9, sought to show that the Nivid in Rgvedic times (also) bore the : name máda, while according to S, Die Nivids und Prais: ās 41, ‘mada means nothing other than yājyā’. ⁷⁹ On the notions of the ‘turning hither’ of the gods and the divine chariot ride, see p. 29 fn. 28 and p. 201 fn. 21.

    .  

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(RV 3.44.4).⁸⁰ The point in time at which Indra appears is likely related to the ‘offering’ of the Daks: inā, : the importance of which for Vedic sacrifice is emphasized time and time again in the ritual texts. The Kāt:haka states that the ‘offering’ is the ‘life force of the sacrifice’ (XI 7, 153.13). Now, it is often said of the Daks: inā : in the Rgveda that it is given early in the morning (cf. RV 5.1.3, 6.64.1, 8.46.21, : 10.107.1). Because the morning pressing⁸¹ and the Vala myth are linked in various Rgvedic hymns, and because the Vala myth is closely joined to the distribution of : the Daks: inā,⁸² and because the dawns liberated by the smashing of the Vala are : those of the first day of the new year,⁸³ the ‘gifts’ to the priests were not given on the occasion of the midday pressing, as in the later ritual, but as part of the morning pressing.

7.4 Distribution of the sacrificial offering An essential element of the Rgvedic cult, like so many others, is the commensality : of all participants. In the ritual practices, both gods and mortals—primarily the ‘priests’ who perform the rituals⁸⁴—partake of sacrificial foods, establishing commensality not only between the gods amongst themselves and between the humans amongst themselves, but also, and doubtless most importantly, between gods and humans. And as the mortals are consuming what has been ‘left over by the gods’, they are [250] granted the blessing signified by eating sacrificial foods ‘sanctified’ by the gods: ‘They savour it: thus do they set splendour within themselves’ (Taittirīya-Āranyaka V 8,12).⁸⁵ At the same time, however, the : order of the distribution replicates the social order—both among the mortals and among the gods (see pp. 214–16). In the form handed down to us, the formula that accompanies the distribution of the sacrificial food is of a later date, yet its content traces back to the earliest

⁸⁰ A comparison with RV 1.49.4 and 1.50.4, where something similar is said of Us: as and Sūrya, respectively, is instructive. The morning and the rising of the sun are ‘signs’ of Indra’s advent to power, and the midday, with the sun at its zenith, of the peak of his power [443]. ⁸¹ The V:rtra myth is already associated with the midday pressing in the Rgveda. And in the later : Agnis: t:oma ritual, too, the V:rtra myth has its place in the midday pressing, for Indra’s slaying of V:rtra entitles him to the Māhendragraha (cf. Śatapatha-Brāhmana : IV 3,3.17). ⁸² See S, B:rhaspati und Indra, Wiesbaden 1968, 181–4. ⁸³ The great Soma ritual took place as one year ended and the next began, in the night of the ekās: :t akā, the longest night of the year, in which the hero of these myths, the god Indra, was born (see pp. 14–15). As part of this ceremony, which also marked the climax and conclusion of the annual feast of the dead (see p. 264), contests were held on the occasion of selecting the leader, i.e. the human Indra, who would thus win the Soma, i.e. ascendancy (see pp. 15–17). ‘Indra’ revealed himself to mortals at the rising of the sun the next morning; the first sunrise of the new year. It must be noted that in the Rgvedic calendar, the night preceded the day. Thus the new year began in the ekās: :t akā night. : ⁸⁴ The sacrificial animal (for example) is also divided among the priests; this is described in detail in Aitareya-Brāhmana : VII 1. ⁸⁵ O, Religion, 331–7, notes additional passages from Vedic literature.

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times. The ‘Summoning of Idā’ : (id: āhvāna), the deified essentiality of the cow and the abundance of food that comes from her (see pp. 149–50), includes the lines: “Summoned is Idā : . . . , may Idā : summon us. Summoned⁸⁶ are the cows with the milk with which the Soma is mixed, may the cows with the milk with which the Soma is mixed summon me. Summoned is the milk cow together with the bull, may the milk cow together with the bull summon me. Summoned is the cow in whose footprint is clarified butter, may I be summoned by the cow in whose footprint is clarified butter . . . .” (Āśvalāyana-Śrautasūtra I 7,8)

Following the recitation of this litany, the priests and the sacrificer take their share of the sacrificial food.⁸⁷

7.4.1 The ‘first drink’ of the Hot:r This profanare, as this act is called in Roman religion, also took place in the Soma sacrifice. For Soma was not only an offering, but the remainder (úcchis: :t a) of it— that is, the portion remaining after the libations—was drunk by the priests and the sacrificer.⁸⁸ The younger Vedic texts make it amply clear that the order in which they drank was of great importance, particularly the question of who was allowed to drink of the Soma first:⁸⁹ “In truth, the gods did not agree on who is entitled to the first drink [251] of King Soma. ‘I want to drink first, I want to drink first’, so did they covet it. Then they spoke, agreeing: ‘Very well, let us have a race. The one of us who wins will be the

⁸⁶ The names of the cows play an important role in the younger ritual (cf. H, Das altindische Neu- und Vollmondopfer in seiner einfachsten Form, Jena 1879, 11–12). RV 10.169.2 indicates that this may have already been the case in Rgvedic times: ‘The same-colored, different: colored, single-colored [cows] whose names Agni knows through the sacrifice’. See also p. 200 fn. 16. ⁸⁷ A particular danger here is eating the portion called Prāśitra, which is to be swallowed unchewed and which—according to one saying—should not mix with the other food eaten, but rather should settle above the navel. This danger is likely due to the fact that the Prāśitra is the very first portion of the consecrated sacrificial food that is eaten. It is decreed in the ritual texts that it be ‘of the size of a barley grain or a pippala berry’ and that it is the Brahman who must take this portion; in other words, the priest who is specifically charged with the protection of the ritual. ⁸⁸ See O, Religion, 330. ⁸⁹ The importance of the first drink is also evident, however, in the Rgveda itself, [444] where : designations for it include: ágran: īti (RV 2.11.14); pūrvápīti (RV 1.19.9, 134.1, 135.1, 10.112.1); pūrvapāý ya (RV 8.34.5); and pūrvapéya (RV 1.135.4, 7.92.1). RV 8.103.6 is another example: ‘Like the bowls of sweet drink, to him first go the songs of praise, to Agni’. And the one who takes the first drink is called agrepā ́ (RV 4.34.7, 10), pūrvapā ́ (RV 4.46.1, 8.1.26), pūrvabhāj́ (RV 4.50.7, 5.77.1, 7.93.4) or even prathamabhāj́ (RV 6.49.9). With the latter term, compare prathamabhaks: á, ŚatapathaBrāhmana : III 9,4.15, where it says: ‘Then they asked: ‘What would then be bestowed upon us?’— ́ : ). See also below, fn. 91. ‘The first indulgence of King Soma!’ (prathamabhaks: á evá sómasya rājñah

    .  

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first to drink of the Soma’. All agreed. And so they held a race. Of those running (= driving chariots) in this race, Vāyu was the first to reach the front after the start, then [followed] Indra, then Mitra and Varuna, : then the Aśvins. Then Indra perceived that Vāyu would win. Then he quickly pulled away [from the others] and after him, saying: ‘[The first drink] would come to us together, then we will win!’—‘No’, replied [Vāyu], ‘I alone will win’. [Indra said:] ‘The quarter [part] would belong to me. Then we will win!”—“So be it!” [, replied Vāyu]. Then he permitted him to have the quarter [part]. That is why Indra became the one who enjoys one fourth, Vāyu the one who enjoys three fourths. So Indra and Vāyu won together, then [came] Mitra and Varuna, : then the two Aśvins. The sharing out [of the Soma] is in accordance with their placement [in the race]: first for Vāyu and Indra, then for Mitra and Varuna, : then for the Aśvins. The IndraVāyu-Graha is drawn, with a quarter [share] for Indra.” (Aitareya-Brāhmana : II 25,1–4)⁹⁰

This tale is meant to explain why, of all the gods, Vāyu has the right to drink of the Soma first, a belief well attested in the Rgveda (see also pp. 136–7): ‘To you, : O Vāyu, behind no other, is due the first drink of this our Somas, the drink of these pressed ones’ (RV 1.134.6); ‘Drink, O Vāyu, at the sacrifices, the first of the sweet potions, the pressed one!⁹¹ For you are the first drinker’ (RV 4.46.1).⁹² However, it can also be inferred from this narrative that it is the victory in a contest that ensures the receipt of the ‘first drink’⁹³ and confers the right to distribute Soma to others. A fundamental attribute of Rgvedic ritual is discernible in the way Soma is : apportioned to each of the participants in the sacrifice [252]. For while this ‘second’ distribution⁹⁴ creates social bonds, it also establishes a hierarchy within the group that possesses the Soma, since the order of apportionment evinces the hierarchical order, which remains fixed until such time as a change is deemed

⁹⁰ It also says in Śatapatha Brāhmana : XI 1,1.8: ‘It is bad enough when someone wants to eat, while other men do not eat. But how much worse when someone eats first, while the gods do not eat’. This seems to speak of more than just ‘a duty of social politeness, as it were, towards the gods’ (O, Religion, 415). ⁹¹ G translates the ágram . . . mádhūnām in this stanza and mádhvo ágra (RV 4.27.5, 47.1, 7.91.5, 10.83.7), as well as agriyám mádāya (RV 4.37.4) and mádhvo agriyám (RV 7.92.2), throughout as the ‘flower of the mead’ (RV 10.83.7, with reference to Pindar’s ἄκρον ἄωτον). However, this completely obscures the real meaning of these terms (see above, fn. 89). In aγriiō.maδu.mastәma, J and H, Pursišnihā: A Zoroastrian Catechism, Part I: Text, Translation, Notes, Wiesbaden 1971, 49 fn. b, establish an interesting Avestan parallel to mádhvo agriyám. ⁹² When RV 2.11.14 says ‘As Vāyus, [the Maruts] shall drink the first offering [of the Soma]’, the rule dictating that Vāyu gets the first share of the Soma has been transferred to the Maruts. ⁹³ The position of the princeps, the ‘first to take’, is explicitly documented. Śatapatha-Brāhmana : III 4,1.11 (= III 9,4.9 = XIV 2,2.8) also says that ‘the better one gets a special share’. According to AitareyaBrāhmana : III 21, as the one who has slain Vr: tra, Indra receives the Mahendragraha as a special portion (see p. 10 fn. 33 and p. 213 fn. 81). ⁹⁴ In the scope of the first distribution, the deity is honoured, pleased, and—concretely—fed.

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    . 

necessary.⁹⁵ What is characteristic of the Greek symposium is equally true of the Rgvedic sacrifice: ‘The common meal is the basic situation which defines and : constitutes a closed group in human society with a clear structure of rank and honour, expressed through the sequence and quality of the portions of meat assigned to each participant’.⁹⁶ Among the priests of the Rgvedic Soma ritual⁹⁷ it is the Hotr: to whom the first : portion of Soma was due: ‘You Adhvaryus who have prepared the sweet drinks, bring to Vāyu the clear (i.e. unmixed) [Soma] dear to [him]. Like the Hot:r among us, you drink first from it. We have given of the sweet drink to intoxicate you, O god’ (RV 5.43.3); ‘That we may be first attended, as the Hot:r at the sacrifice’ (RV 8.12.33); ‘Since the stones were engaged [in Soma pressing] . . . , they enjoyed the offering (i.e. Soma) earlier even than the Hot:r’ (RV 10.94.2).⁹⁸ For the Rgveda this : rule can be proved only for the morning pressing with any certainty—‘Indra intoxicates himself in the morning with the pressed [Soma] . . . like the Hotr: ’ (RV 8.94.6)—just as in the ‘classic’ ritual (cf. Āpastamba-Śrautasūtra XII 25,19–23 and Mānava-Śrautasūtra II 5,2.17). But the Hot:r might have taken the first drink from the other pressings as well, as did Indra, the god ‘assigned’ to him; again, this would be according to the younger ritual. That the office of the Hot:r was coupled with that of the Viśpati (see pp. 8–9) explains the fact that the Hot:r, too, was elected. According to what we know about such ‘elections’ (see pp. 9–11), he too might have been [253] determined⁹⁹ through a contest.¹⁰⁰ These competitions were not without danger; this is likely the reason that even Agni, the fire god, refuses to act as Hot:r (see pp. 99–100).

7.5 The sacrificial site The place of the holy acts—a place that shares in the properties of both this world and the world beyond, and moreover is connected with the dwelling place of the gods in heaven via the ‘Path of the Celestials’—is the sacrificial site, called the ‘seat

⁹⁵ There is as much differentiation within the group created by the sacrifice as [445] there is demarcation between the group and those outside it: not all compagnons, ‘with whom one eats bread’, are ‘equal’. ⁹⁶ Walter Burkert, Offerings in Perspective: Surrender, Distribution, Exchange, in: Tullia Linders & Gullog Nordquist (ed.), Gifts to the Gods, Proceedings of the Uppsala Symposium 1985, Boreas 15, Uppsala 1987, 46. ⁹⁷ Which type of Soma ritual this is cannot be determined. ⁹⁸ Compare also RV 1.25.17 and 3.21.1. ⁹⁹ To understand whether the ‘election’ of the Viśpati and of the Hot:r was one and the same; that is to say, whether the person thus ‘elected’ became the Hot:r by virtue of his position as Viśpati, detailed investigations of the post-Rgvedic texts would be required. : ¹⁰⁰ RV 10.98.7—‘When Devāpi, placed at the top for Śamtanu, elected to the Hotr: office, lament: ingly searched about him, B:rhaspati granted him speech . . .’—indicates that this election took place in a verbal contest.

    .  

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of the Vivasvant’¹⁰¹ in poetic diction (see p. 188). In accordance with the great mobility of the Vedic tribes, this was evidently not a fixed place, but was erected as needed. This involved first ‘measuring out’ (RV 1.67.10, 2.15.3); that is, driving stakes to mark out the site¹⁰² and then setting up one or more fires within this space (see the following). Behind this fireplace¹⁰³—or, if there were three, between them but closest to the easternmost fire¹⁰⁴—the sacrificial grass strew, called barhís¹⁰⁵ (see p. 71), was spread out towards the ʻaltarʼ, or Vedi.¹⁰⁶ The grass strew was contained in a ‘bowl’ obtained through excavation¹⁰⁷ or—at least according to RV 10.61.2—made of mud. Yet the barhís grass, occasionally referred to poetically as the ‘lap of Aditi’, in whose four ‘points’ the poet of RV 10.114.3 saw the ‘four braids of a young woman’ (RV 1.140.1, 4.40.5, 6.1.10), was also strewn around the fires¹⁰⁸ so that Agni literally ‘sat’ on it. Because apparently two different types of Vedi are spoken of here, it seems the Rgvedic ritual probably already had a fire altar corresponding to the later : Uttaravedi,¹⁰⁹ located on a sacrificial site that is ‘shifted’ to the east,¹¹⁰ in addition to the actual Vedi, which ‘merely’ served to keep the offerings and utensils at hand. This notion is very much supported not only by the fact that the ‘riddle song’ calls ‘the Vedi the outermost [254] boundary of the earth’ (RV 1.164.34–5), but also that the song RV 3.8, about the animal sacrifice, points to such a place of sacrifice. From this, it appears that the sacrificial posts were sunk into the earth in front of this place, which was elevated in the manner of an altar. The sacrificial animal was slaughtered near this place of sacrifice, but outside of the sacrificial site. The Soma,

¹⁰¹ RV 1.53.1, 3.34.7, 51.3, 10.12.7, and 75.1. ¹⁰² The question of whether the ‘heavenly gates’ mentioned—as a rule—in stanza 5 of the Āprī songs indicate an enclosure of the sacrificial site must remain unanswered, since it is not clear which gates are meant. It is possible that this refers to the doors of the sádas. Yet it is questionable whether this sacrificial tent was used in the Rgvedic ritual. The name occurs in RV 1.181.8 and may indeed denote : such a construction: ‘And that song of Ruśant Vapsas swells for you two on the seat of men, thrice [covered] with sacrificial grass strew’. ¹⁰³ This is indicated by RV 1.170.4, among other texts: ‘They shall prepare the Vedi; before it (i.e. in the east) they shall kindle the fire’ (see K, Das Ritual der Feuergründung, Vienna 1982, 111 fn. 278). ¹⁰⁴ In accord with later circumstances, this fire will have been the Āhavanīya (see K, Das Ritual der Feuergründung, Vienna 1982, 111). Compare also O, Religion, 457–8. ¹⁰⁵ The call to the sacrificial grass strew is an integral part of the Āprī songs (see p. 241). ¹⁰⁶ See RV 1.13.5, 7.2.4, and 8.45.1 (cf. also O, Religion, 344 fn. 3). It is apparent from RV 7.2.4 that the Barhis was strewn from a squatting position, if this is indeed the position denoted by abhijñú, [446] which RV 3.39.5 suggests. It is less likely that this means ‘reaching to the knee’ (i.e. kneedeep), although that could be compared with Yasna 57.6: ‘Whosoever Sraoša honours is the first to spread the barәsman . . . reaching to the knee and to the middle of the leg’ ( . . . yō paoiriiō barәsma fra. stәrәnata . . . āxšnūšca maiδiiōi.paitištānąsca). ¹⁰⁷ See O, Religion, 458. ¹⁰⁸ RV 1.83.6, 3.9.9 = 10.52.6, 6.11.5, and 7.2.4. Many passages that refer to the sacrificer as v:rktábarhis, ‘he who placed the sacrificial grass around [the fire(s)]’, belong here as well. ¹⁰⁹ This was already conjectured by L, Der Rigveda . . . Dritter Band, Die Mantraliteratur und das alte Indien, Prague 1878, 364–5. ¹¹⁰ Through this shift, which is described in the post-Rgvedic ritual texts with an image of land : seizure, the Gārhapatya fire is abandoned, and its place taken by what was the Āhavanīya fire, which was in turn replaced by the fire on the Uttaravedi.

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    . 

too, was pressed nearby (see p. 233). The text’s references to these two Vedis and the ritual acts associated with them, such as the ‘bringing forward’ of the fire (see p. 220), are so vague that no attempt is made in the following to denote which acts are associated with which altar. Once the Barhis grass was cut,¹¹¹ it was laid out with the tips facing east¹¹²—the direction from which the gods were expected to arrive—and sprinkled with ghee.¹¹³ All of this was done early in the morning (RV 10.110.4). Once the gods had appeared, which was apparently acted out by the priests (see pp. 210–11), they were asked to sit down on this part of the sacrificial site, strewn with ‘wool-soft’ (RV 5.5.4) grass, and enjoy the offering placed on the barhís for them (RV 7.13.1, 10.15.11). Thus the equipment for pressing the Soma (see pp. 231–2) was also located on the Vedi: ‘The speaking pressing-stone shall be brought down upon the Vedi, the swift [moving] of which the Adhvaryus enact’ (RV 5.31.12), ‘[The pressing stones] come to the sacrifice. They cause the grass strew to tremble; intoxicating themselves with the Soma at the distribution, they are of fierce speech. . . .’ (RV 7.21.2), ‘Sitting on the grass strew, [the Soma drops] have made the [milk of the] ruddy [cows] [to their] festive garment’ (RV 9.68.1).

7.6 The sacrificial fires The fire used to prepare the offering was ignited using two pieces of wood (RV 3.29.1–2, 10.184.3).¹¹⁴ The Uttarārani, : the ‘upper churning wood’, was first used to make the ‘churning stick’, i.e. fire drill, by means of which two persons (RV 3.23.2) kindled the fire in the ‘lower churning wood’, the Adharārani, : which in turn rested on a ‘base [for churning the fire]’, the adhimánthana.¹¹⁵ Once the fire was ‘born of the wood’ (RV 10.79.7), it was ‘placed in the footprint of Idā’ : (RV 3.23.4, 29.4). ¹¹¹ The ‘cutting down’ of the sacrificial grass is indicated by the epithet ásam : dina, ‘uncut’, which marks a particular type in RV 8.102.14 (see O, Noten ad loc.). ¹¹² RV 1.188.4, 7.7.3, 9.5.4, and 10.110.4. Compare Maitrāyanī III 8,6 (: 102.6–7): ‘He : Samhitā : spreads an abundance of strew. . . . Towards the east, he spreads the strew. For the sacrifice faces ́ : barhíh: st:rn: āti, prāṅ́ hi yajñáh: ). RV 10.70.4 describes the East’ (bahulám : barhíh: st:rn: āti . . . prācīnam the manner in which it is spread. RV 1.181.8 and 8.102.14 may indicate that it was strewn in three layers, and probably so, as was the case later, that the tips of one layer covered the ends of the layer below it. ¹¹³ RV 1.13.5, 142.5, 2.3.4, 5.43.7, 7.2.4, and 10.114.3. If prasvàh: in RV 3.5.8, ‘the sprouting ones’, refers to the sacrificial grass strew, as RV 7.35.7 probably also does, then that passage belongs in this list as well. A sprinkling of water, as occurs in the later new-moon and full-moon sacrifices and in the Agnihotra, may be alluded to in RV 8.39.10 and 102.14. ¹¹⁴ They are the two mothers of Agni (RV 1.31.2, 3.55.6–7). ¹¹⁵ The fire drill is called the ‘siring member’ (prajánana) in RV 3.29.1–2, the lower piece of wood ‘lady of the clan’ (viśpátnī), and both together ‘the two Aranis’. : Clearly separate from both is the ‘[base] on which [the fire] is kindled’, the Adhimanthana. These three components of the fire-churn are also mentioned in, among other sources, Śatapatha-Brāhmana : [447] III 4,1.20, Āpastamba-Śrautasūtra VII 12,12–14, Bhāradvāja-Śrautasūtra VII 9,12–13, and Mānava-Śrautasūtra I 7,1.39–40. G (ad loc.) conjectures that ‘mother of Āyu’, i.e. Urvaśī, in RV 5.43.14 refers to the lower piece of wood and ‘Āyu’ the fire thus generated, just as in the later ritual.

    .  

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This fireplace, around which ‘the men who have laid the Barhis around it sit in worship’ (RV 3.2.6), is also called the ‘knoll of the earth’ (RV 3.8.3, 10.70.1), which indicates it may have been a formed mound similar to the later Khara, which— nonetheless—is also called the ‘navel of the earth’ (RV 1.143.4, 10.1.6):¹¹⁶ ‘We place you in the footprint of I:lā, in the navel of the earth, Agni Jātavedas, so that you may drive the offerings [in the chariot to the gods]. Churn, men, [the fire forth as] the poet-seer who does not double-cross, the foresighted, immortal, the beautiful of face! Create the first sign of light in the east, men, the benevolent Agni!’ (RV 3.29.4–5).¹¹⁷ The fire was lit in the early twilight of the morning (RV 1.71.1, 113.9, 5.1.4, 7.77.1) with the help of kindling (samídh),¹¹⁸ which was added to the fire while stanzas addressed to Agni—later there were seventeen of these, called Sāmidhenī¹¹⁹—were recited; a form of fire worship (RV 6.5.5). Then larger pieces of wood (parídhi) were placed around it (RV 10.90.15, 130.3), and the fire was fed three times a day (RV 4.12.1): he (the fire) ‘who devours the sacrificial food’ (RV 7.34.14) with ‘strong teeth’ (RV 3.29.13) is given (among other things) portions of the sacrificial cake to ‘eat’ (see p. 237)—apparently as part of a Soma sacrifice. If the fire went out for any reason, it had to be rekindled, [256] taking certain precautions. This is the situation reflected in RV 5.2.¹²⁰ In addition to rituals that required only one sacrificial fire,¹²¹ the Rgvedic period : already had rituals performed with three fires:¹²² ‘Agni, convey the gods here! Have them sit down in your three laps’ (RV 1.15.4, cf. 2.36.4, 5.4.8, 11.2).¹²³ The use of three sacrificial fires probably reflects the degree of complexity already attained in the Soma rituals even in early Vedic times, as these are the rituals most frequently requiring three fires. Of the names they bear later—Gārhapatya, Daks: ināgni, and Āhavanīya—none is yet attested in the Rgveda.¹²⁴ Pronounced : : similarities between Gārhapatya and Agni Jātavedas (see p. 95) on the one hand and between Āhavanīya and Agni Vaiśvānara (see p. 95) on the other, as well as between Daks: ināgni and Narāśamsa/Tanūnapāt, suggest that the three fires of the : : ¹¹⁶ The ‘navel of the sacrifice’ mentioned in RV 8.12.32 and 8.13.29 also likely refers to this fireplace ́ (see also E, on the uses of nābhiin the Rgveda, Orientalia Suecana 51/52 [2002/03] 122). : ¹¹⁷ Even though RV 1.164.34–35 answers the question about the ‘navel of the earth’ with: ‘The navel of the earth is this sacrifice’, this probably refers, pars pro toto, to the fire alter. ¹¹⁸ According to Maitrāyanī I 6,10 (: 102.1), the ‘fire should not be kindled before the rising : Samhitā : of the sun’. ¹¹⁹ Such passages are collected in the songs RV 3.27.1–6 and 5.28. Note that in RV 3.27, after stanza 6 the Agnipranayana is spoken of, and in stanzas 10 to 12 the Agnipratis: t:hāpana, so that the ritual acts : are given here in the same order that the later ritual follows. ¹²⁰ See O, Noten on the song. ¹²¹ O’s distinction between magical and sacrificial fire (Religion, 338–47) is quite arbitrary and, like so much in his Religion des Veda, is based on a reconstruction of the precursor to the Rgvedic : religion and ‘assumptions about the antecedents of the actual conditions and customs pertaining to the Vedic sacrificial fire’ (Religion, 347), as he says himself. ¹²² And various rituals could be performed with either one or three fires. ¹²³ RV 2.18.3 also seems to speak of three fires. ¹²⁴ Nor that of the Gārhapatya (pace L, Der Rigveda . . . Vol. 3, Prague 1878, 355, and H, Vedische Mythologie, Vol. 1, Breslau 1927, 75).

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    . 

‘classic’ ritual—or fires at least closely related to them—bear the names Jātavedas, Vaiśvānara und Narāśamsa/Tanūnapāt in the Rgveda: like the ‘fire of the house: : lord’, the Gārhapatya fire, Jātavedas—the ‘knower of beings’—is also located in the domestic sphere, has close bonds with the earth, and is used primarily for the preparation of sacrificial foods; both are kindled with the fire-churn and— sometimes with the help of ghee (RV 5.5.1, 10.70.1)—are ignited first, serving as the source for the other fires (RV 1.12.6).¹²⁵ By contrast, Vaiśvānara and Āhavanīya, the ‘fire of the offerings’, show clear solar references, which is also expressed in the fact that both are positioned on the eastern side of the sacrificial site, directly opposite the Gārhapatya/Jātavedas on the western side. Moreover, both serve primarily to convey sacrificial foods to the gods. When three fires were used, only the Gārhapatya fire—in the Rgveda this is : presumably the one called Agni Jātavedas (see previous)—was produced with the fire-churn; the other two [257] were then lit from that one: ‘Agni is ignited by Agni’ (RV 1.12.6, cf. 6.16.42). Next, in an act of Pranayana, the fire was ‘conveyed : forward, to the east’ and set down in, or as, Āhavanīya:¹²⁶ “The immortal god goes forward as Hotr: , [dividing himself] by means of his magic, propelling the distributions. . . . In the sacrifices he is led forward, the wise one who brings about the sacrifice (8). . . . I have set you down . . . , you made by means of strength! . . . Agni is ignited by the poets during the harnessing of the truth (= the sacrifice) . . . [him] who shines to heaven at the sacrifice. I refresh Agni . . .” (RV 3.27.7–8, 10–12);¹²⁷ “Bring forward the god to feast the gods.¹²⁸ He shall sit down on his own lap” (RV 6.16.41); “Bring forward the god with divine thought (= song), the Jātavedas. He shall convey our oblations in steady order [to the gods].” (RV 10.176.2)¹²⁹

If an animal was to be sacrificed, a mound of earth was apparently heaped to the east of the eastern fire: ‘Arise, O Lord of the Forest, above the height of the earth’ (RV 3.8.3). In front of this mound, on which a fire was probably burning as in the later ritual, wooden sacrificial posts were placed (RV 3.8.9, 4.51.2). One of the posts, called ‘Lord of the Forest’ (RV 3.8.1/3), was positioned directly in front of the fire, while others, called “stakes” (sváru) in RV 3.8 to make the distinction ¹²⁵ Another aspect they have in common is that in Rgvedic times, the Jātavedas fire was used for : burning corpses (see p. 260). Later, a deceased person who had built the three Śrauta fires is cremated in them; but if only the Aupāsana fire had been built, that fire alone serves this purpose. And that fire is very closely related to the Gārhapatya (see K, Das Ritual der Feuergründung, Vienna 1982, 4). ¹²⁶ The classic ritual has two Agnipranayanas: that from the Gārhapatya to the Āhavanīya, then the : one from this [448] to the Uttaravedi. Since it seems that the Rgvedic ritual already had the Uttaravedi : (see p. 217), the previously mentioned passages of the Rgveda may speak of the latter. : ¹²⁷ See O, Noten on RV 3.27. ¹²⁸ This takes place at, or from, the Āhavanīya (see above). ¹²⁹ This stanza, too, makes the conflation of Jātavedas and Gārhapatya likely (see p. 219).

    .  

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clear, were placed to either side of it. With their lower portions buried in the ground,¹³⁰ they stood vertically, together forming a V reminiscent of a flock of migrating geese.¹³¹ Below their tops these stakes had wooden collars, called cas: āĺ a (RV 1.162.6, 3.8.10). Anointed with ghee (RV 3.8.1, cf. 1.92.5, 4.6.3), they served to tether the sacrificial animals, which were tied with a rope that ‘girded’ the sacrificial post (RV 3.8.4, cf. 5.2.7).¹³² Thus sacrificial posts were used only in the animal sacrifice.¹³³ It should be noted that, because crafting these posts [258] involved the harming of trees, amends were made by pouring sacrificial butter on the tree stump and saying to it: ‘Lord of the Forest, grow with a hundred branches, . . . you whom this sharpened axe has conveyed to great happiness’ (RV 3.8.11).¹³⁴ In later times, a firebrand is passed three times around the sacrificial animal. As he circles, the bearer of the firebrand keeps the animal on his right-hand side. Only after this is the animal slaughtered. Other items are circled in this manner too,¹³⁵ such as the sacrificial post and the fire at which the slaughter takes place. Called Paryagnikarana, ritual: ‘On the : this was already practiced in the Rgvedic : sacrificial grass strew laid out in front of the flaming fire stands upright the Adhvaryu . . . Agni . . . circles [the posts (sváru, 3)] three times like a herdsman [his herd] . . . . Circling is Agni himself, the Hotr: , around . . . [the posts]’ (RV 4.6.4–5), ‘Three times Agni goes around the sacrifice, . . . bringing to the gods the sacrificial food’ (RV 4.15.2).¹³⁶

7.7 The dual sacrifice system The use of the Vedi, or the barhis grass, as the seat for the gods at the sacrifice side by side with the Āhavanīya, the fire that conveys the sacrifice to the gods, reveals a dual system of sacrifice¹³⁷ that is highly reminiscent of Greek cultic practice, in which sacrifices before the cult image take place alongside sacrifices before the temple, made on an altar in the open: on the one hand, the hymns invite the gods to a banquet where they are feasted as they sit upon the Vedi, while on the other ¹³⁰ This is likely from RV 3.8.1, which states: ‘Whether you stand there erect . . . or whether you rest in the womb of this mother [earth] . . .’. In the later ritual, too, the thick part of the sacrificial post, called (paradoxically) upara, ‘located above’, was sunk into the ground. ¹³¹ This is clear from RV 3.8.9 and especially from comparison with RV 1.163.10. ¹³² Also compare Taittirīya-Samhitā VI 6,4.3 and Āpastamba-Śrautasūtra XII 18,12. : ¹³³ See O, Religion, 87. ¹³⁴ At least according to the younger ritual that uses this stanza, which seems to have been composed for this purpose. ¹³⁵ This circling was performed in other rituals as well, such as that of the sacrificial cake in the new moon and full moon sacrifices. ¹³⁶ Among the other passages that refer to this rite (including RV 1.95.2, 3.2.7, 12, 5.15.4, 7.18.22, 8.72.9, 10.6.1, 20.5, 122.6), RV 8.72.9 is particularly relevant, as it speaks of an ‘anointing with sweetness’, evidently referring to ghee. ¹³⁷ ‘Stationary’ deities such as the domain gods were probably outside both of these systems; since they are immediately accessible in rites, the worshipper could go to them and sacrifice ‘on site’.

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    . 

hand the oblation is conveyed to the gods in the sky by the fire god Agni. In the Rgvedic cult, these two systems seem to have partially overlapped, as in various : passages we find: ‘Agni! Convey the gods hither, that they enjoy the sacrificial food. May they, with Indra as their Mightiest, take delight here. Take [259] this sacrifice to heaven, to the gods’ (RV 7.11.5). Since the smoke and the oily vapour of the burnt offering were commonly understood to be the media through which the gods received their share—by ‘smelling’ it¹³⁸—it seems the point of origin for the conceptualization of the ‘sacrificial feast’ was the Soma sacrifice.¹³⁹ The Soma was not—or at least, not primarily¹⁴⁰—consigned to the sacrificial fire¹⁴¹ and thus cannot be conveyed by it to the gods in their heavenly abode. It can only be consumed at the sacrificial site. With regard to the question of who receives the sacrifice—a specific god, a group of gods, or even an open circle of recipients—it can be said that none of the regular Vedic sacrifices are celebrated to only one god.¹⁴² This is especially true of the Soma sacrifice, in which all the gods—with the exception of Rudra—were worshipped, with the major gods being called by name and the minor ones addressed together with a collective formula.¹⁴³

7.8 Offerings The Rgvedic rituals, like those of later times, can be distinguished not only by : whether one or three fires are used, but also by the manner in which the sacrificial material was offered. The individual types that emerge—libations, burnt offerings, animal sacrifices, deposited offerings, sacrifice by immersion—can in turn be subdivided by type of sacrificial material. Not all offerings were used in all types of sacrifices. Among all types of offering, the libation is by far the most important, and of the substances offered, Soma and ghee appear to have been used much ¹³⁸ With regard to this form of ingesting, the Kāt:haka says distinctly: ‘[The teachers] ponder the question of whether or not to eat [of the sacrificial remains]. If one were to eat [of them], one would be wasteful. If one did not eat [of them], one would be without sacrificial food. One should [consequently] smell them. One does both [in this way, eating and not eating]’ (XXIX 2: 169.8–9 [= Kat:ha-Āranyaka II 143]). : ¹³⁹ O, Religion, 344–7, sees the laying down of the offering at the seat of the gods who have come to the sacrifice as the older practice, in part because he surmises, and wishes to prove the existence of, a ‘type of [449] sacrifice without sacrificial fire’ (Religion, 345 fn. 1). ¹⁴⁰ When the Soma was poured into the sacrificial fire, this ‘second apportionment’, i.e. to the priests, effected the harmonization of the two systems of sacrifice. ¹⁴¹ For this very reason, Agni is not a god who drinks Soma (see also pp. 96 and 235 and below fn. 143). ¹⁴² This still applies in the stage of development that is represented by the ritual texts. ¹⁴³ Apparently the domain gods are always excluded, since of course they cannot come to the sacrifice (see p. 221 fn. 137). Thus they—for instance Us: as, Sūrya, Vāta, and Dyaus—are largely or even completely excluded from partaking of Soma, which is not conveyed to the gods by Agni. But also Agni himself had ‘next to no share in the Soma, and originally certainly none at all’ (O, Religion, 105; see also 456). See also above, fn. 41.

    .  

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more frequently than, for example, milk, honey, plants, grains, baked goods, meat, or Surā (see p. 245).¹⁴⁴ As in the Greek religion, a central idea in ancient Indian religion is that the gods are in need of sustenance, [260] and humans provide it for them.¹⁴⁵ But unlike the Greek customs, Vedic sacrifice was influenced by the notion of a special food for the gods. Soma was the most frequent offering and the basis of their eternality: ‘You are what the gods drank for immortality’ (RV 9.106.8).¹⁴⁶ The gods are ‘fed’ within the context of certain rituals—‘The sacrifice is the food of the gods’ (Śatapatha-Brāhmana : XI 1,8.2)—which are devised as feasts (see pp. 198–205). And the previous list of offerings shows that, apart from Soma, the foods offered to the gods also serve as sustenance for men, although a certain distinction is maintained between the two.¹⁴⁷ The idea of human sacrifice does not remotely fit this paradigm, and indeed it is not clear that it can be listed among these rituals at all. The slaughter and dismemberment of the primordial man, of which the Rgveda speaks (see p. 195), later called Purus: amedha, on which this idea is : apparently modelled, is the only ‘example’ in the Rgveda of such a ritual. Indeed : the Śunahśepa narrative, which is often invoked as supporting this idea and is : already known in the Rgveda (see RV 1.24.12–13, 5.2.7), tells of a substitute for : man as ‘sacrificial animal’, just as in the later instances of the Purus: amedha. There is a prevailing tendency to offer the individual god a sacrifice appropriate to his particular nature, such as ghee for Agni, Soma for Indra, or groats for Pūs: an, or, in animal sacrifice, a bull for Indra, a dwarf animal for Vis: nu, : and for Mitra and Varuna, a two-coloured heifer. In many cases, the number of offerings or the : utensils used for them are directly related to the god for whom the sacrifice is performed. For example, the sacrificial cake for Agni is prepared in eight clay bowls, that for Indra in eleven clay bowls, and so on, in accordance with the number of syllables of the metres assigned to the gods (see p. 23 fn. 8). The offering up of the oblations is accompanied by the recitation of certain formulas, skilful phrases, and individual words, and the singing of songs and melodies.¹⁴⁸ In addition to [261] the Rc—the verses of the Rgveda—the sacrificial : : formulas called Yajus and Nivid were also employed, as well as the type of chanting called Sāman, like the Rathantara and Br: hat mentioned in RV 10.181 ¹⁴⁴ Among the implements used to consign offerings to the fire, the Rgveda mentions the Srúc, a : large spoon with a beak-shaped spout for pouring ghee into the sacrificial fire (RV 5.14.3, 6.11.5), and the Dárvi, a smaller version of such a spoon, of which—according to RV 5.6.9—two at a time were used. ¹⁴⁵ The notion that gods suffer hunger and thirst is to a great extent the very basis of sacrifice and temple culture. The Vedic religion in particular presents evocative textual evidence of this: Indra meets Suśravas and says to him: ‘Sacrifice to me, I am hungry’. Suśravas performs the sacrifice, and Indra now goes about with the sacrificial cake in his hand (Pañcavimśa-Brāhma na : : XIV 6,8). ¹⁴⁶ According to RV 4.54.2, it is Savit:r who bestows immortality upon the gods. ¹⁴⁷ The ‘food of mortals’ is repeatedly mentioned (cf. RV 1.81.6, 114.6, 7.81.5) as distinct from that of the immortal gods. ¹⁴⁸ āvŕ̥t, in RV 10.130.7, seems to have already had the later technical meaning of action only, without spoken or sung elements.

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    . 

(see p. 230). The sacrifice was concluded with the Svāhā call, the sacrificial call to the gods: ‘Perform the sacrifice with the Svāhā call . . .’ (RV 1.13.12, cf. 5.5.11). In ancestral sacrifices, the svadhā call was used instead: ‘Some delight in the Svāhā call, others in the Svadhā call’ (RV 10.14.3).¹⁴⁹ Rituals serve specific purposes and are performed for the sake of specific goals.¹⁵⁰ To attain and implement these goals,¹⁵¹ worshippers adhere to specific rules in combining certain actions, which predominantly involve using ritual paraphernalia and very often include verbal acts and musical interludes (see previous examples), into sequences—the rites; and rites in turn are combined to form rituals. The resulting compositions are determined to a great extent by the participants in the ritual,¹⁵² in particular by the sacrificer and the priests, as well as their garments, jewellery and hairstyles. Each of the action elements in a ritual— every ‘riteme’, as it were—from paraphernalia and personnel to location of, and equipment at, the sacrificial site; and even the time and duration of the performance of the ritual, contributes a specific ‘meaning’. And yet, similar to the way a sentence is formed from individual words, the overall meaning of the rites and rituals is clearly greater than the mere sum of the meanings of the individual elements. Of particular importance in all this is the connection between the sacrificial substance and the ritual’s objective; that is to say, the question of the relationship between the information borne by the substance and the goal of the ritual. Is there a direct ‘material’ connection between the sacrificial substance and the sacrificial goal, or not? Is water sacrificed to obtain water, or might red karīra fruits be offered for the same purpose? There is also such a ‘material’ connection with Soma, the most important offering. The Soma is also [262] sacrificed to fill the heavenly Soma spring, from which the Soma then comes back to earth. Above all other offerings, however, Soma is distinguished by the fact that it is consumed—as is a meat offering—during the ritual, in a ‘second’ apportioning. This establishes commensality between man and god, and between the men (see p. 213), and delineates a community of sacrifice and feast, even as the latter is hierarchically subdivided through the distribution of the offering. The quality and precedence of each portion simultaneously reflects and consolidates the social order: when one person receives his share before another, that person is ‘higher’ than the other— especially if it is a larger and ‘better’ share (see pp. 215–16). Soma, which plays a special role here, is involved in an extremely complex system of ‘meanings’ that ¹⁴⁹ Significantly, both sacrificial calls are used for Yama (see p. 186 fn. 126). ¹⁵⁰ According to a definition from the field of ethology, stereotypy, normative course of action, and formalized behaviour are the essential [450] characteristics of ritual, although it should not be overlooked that this formalized behaviour is learned within the context of a cultural tradition. ¹⁵¹ Flawless execution of the entire ritual, down to the smallest detail, was crucial to the ritual’s success. If any mistakes were made, a restitutio in integrum became necessary and either the ritual had to be performed again or the mistake had to be ‘made good’. ¹⁵² Absence of participants is significant as well; for example when a ritual is held in private.

    .  

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ultimately unites all sacrificial substances, but which extends beyond them generally to fluids, especially ‘fertile’ ones.¹⁵³ This system not only specifies the substances with which Soma can be mixed once it has been pressed and filtered (see ), but also regulates which ‘plants’ may be used instead when Soma is unavailable—a problem that apparently occurred in early times: ‘All [other] thickets and trees (scil. than Soma) have not yet deceived (= could not deceive) Indra as equals’ (RV 10.89.5).¹⁵⁴






7.9 The ‘ritual calendar’ Although relevant references in the Rgveda are sparse, it does seem that the : Rgvedic cult, like others, was temporally structured as well, to the extent that : the various rituals and festivals took place at fixed times.¹⁵⁵ The ‘ritual calendar’ was essentially oriented to the course of the day, the month, and the year, and thus generally to the rhythm of life in Rgvedic tribal society. The beginning and the end : of the day marked the times for [263] tending the fire (see pp. 265–6); new and full moon for performing the associated sacrifices (see p. 265); the change of seasons for the Cāturmāsya rituals;¹⁵⁶ and the summer solstice for the Pravargya (see p. 247). Furthermore, rituals were held at prominent points of social disruption and of transition in the human lifespan: beginning a ‘war’ and ending it,¹⁵⁷ birth, initiation, marriage, and death were all celebrated with rituals (see pp. 246–64). And some of these rituals were firmly embedded in the year’s routine: war campaigns were most often undertaken in early summer and late fall—i.e. once crops had ripened, as the booty consisted primarily of cattle and grain (see pp. 3–4); and the initiation ceremony (probably for all the youths born in a given year) was celebrated immediately before the beginning of the rainy season (see p. 247). ¹⁵³ Time and again the Rgvedic songs emphasize and play with the relationship of Soma and semen; : not least in the ninth Man: dala (for details see Oberlies, Die Religion des Rgveda, Vol. 2, Vienna 1999, : : 31–55). This relationship is also behind the use of Soma as a means of atonement in the case of an illicit or unwanted ejaculation, as seen in RV 1.179.5 (see T, Kleine Schriften, Wiesbaden 1984, 210). ¹⁵⁴ On this translation, compare the Noten ad loc. As Soma substitutes the Vedic texts mention, for example, Pūtīka, Ārjuna (which is also called Phālguna), and Ādāra plants (see e.g. ŚatapathaBrāhmana na : IV 5,10.1–6, Kāt:haka XXXIV 3: 37.14 and Pañcavimśa-Brāhma : : IX 5). ¹⁵⁵ On the other hand, this imposed a sacral rhythm on the calendar in that, for example, the year was structured around the intervals between the various rituals and festivals. ¹⁵⁶ That these rituals, originally three in number (see p. 131 fn. 284), extend into Rgvedic times : seems likely given the fact that ‘in each of the festivals the Maruts in particular are in the foreground, whom the post-Rgvedic period would hardly have emphasized in this way’ (O, Religion, 440). : The stanza RV 7.59.12, moreover, used throughout the Sākamedha ritual and addressed to Rudra Tryambaka (tryàmbakam yajāmahe sugándhim : pus: :t ivárdhanam . . . ; see p. 76 fn. 14), is found in a Marut song, apparently because Rudra is considered the father of the Maruts (see p. 127). However, as far as we can see, there is no further evidence that the Cāturmāsya rituals were performed already in Rgvedic times. : ¹⁵⁷ On such sacrifices in post-Rgvedic times, see R, Staat und Gesellschaft im alten Indien, : Wiesbaden 1957, 102–3 [451].

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    . 

It is striking that the various Soma rituals lack, at least for the most part, the calendrical orientation seen with the rituals mentioned previously. Neither the Brāhmana : texts nor the Baudhāyana-Śrautasūtra, which is known to be ancient, specify any particular time for performing the Agnis: t:oma, the most important Soma ritual. And when the younger Śrautasūtras say that this ritual should be celebrated in the spring, they are merely recommending this as a favourable season. This indicates that since ancient times, the occasions for a Soma ritual were not dictated by the calendar. As the hymns of the Rgveda also elucidate, : Soma was sacrificed to the gods whenever it was necessary to summon them. Nevertheless, many indications in the Rgveda and the post-Rgvedic ritual texts : : suggest that a great Soma ritual was celebrated at the turn of the year as part of the New Year festival, which was particularly dedicated to the worship of ‘Indra’ (see pp. 15–17 and 146).

7.10 The individual rituals The Soma sacrifice, during the course of which the intoxicating drink is pressed, purified, mixed and offered, is by far the most important of all the rituals in the Rgveda. Indeed the composition of the ancient hymns is largely based on it. : Whether the extensive concentration of the text on this sacrifice reflects the actual conditions in the religious life of the tribes must remain an open question, although it can be discerned that the Soma rituals in their various forms were not limited to specific days, but rather were celebrated at quite different times. From the many references in the Rgveda to all kinds of other rituals it does seem : likely that they, too, had their fixed place in the cult of the Vedic tribes.

7.10.1 The Soma ritual After the prescribed three pressings of the plant (see p. 227)—which, in the scope of celebrating the Atirātra, could be followed by rites that lasted the entire night through¹⁵⁸—the Soma was sacrificed to the deities of the pantheon.¹⁵⁹ In the course of the Soma ritual¹⁶⁰ the more important gods were explicitly named as they received their portions, while the lesser deities received an offering addressed ¹⁵⁸ The extension of the three-part daytime ceremony into the night by appending a night service was also familiar in Rgvedic times (see p. 238), as was, at least in its beginnings, the conjoining of : several Soma-sacrifice days into a larger feast complex. ¹⁵⁹ The succession of deities permitted occasional additions, but for the most part it was fixed. And aside from certain exceptions—such as the domain gods (see p. 222 fn. 143), Agni, Rudra, Savit:r, and Prajāpati, as well as Amśa, and Bhaga—it encompassed the entire pantheon. : ¹⁶⁰ The outline that follows is merely an aggregation of what is said in the Rgveda concerning the : Soma ritual. There is a considerable risk that this will paint a picture that is not entirely true: there were

    .  

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to ‘All Gods’. As the ritual developed, basically all gods came to be given individual consideration in the Soma ritual, as is discernible in the litanies as they are known and used in the later ritual. The god to whom the Soma sacrifice has been directed primarily since ancient times, however, is the one celebrated already in the Rgveda : as the greatest drinker of Soma: Indra, the warrior god of the Vedic tribes. He alone receives portions of Soma from all three pressings (see pp. 234–6). Already in Rgvedic times, as later, the Soma ritual was celebrated [265] : throughout an entire day.¹⁶¹ It began with the Prātaranuvāka, the ‘early morning recitation’,¹⁶² wherein the three sections¹⁶³ of this litany,¹⁶⁴ recited by the Hot:r,¹⁶⁵ were addressed to Agni, brightener of the night, and to Us: as and the Aśvins, the gods of the early morning.¹⁶⁶ The final stanza of this recitation, later called Paridhānīyā—stanza RV 5.75.9 in this case—is also addressed to these gods. The day of the sacrifice was divided, as has been the rule also in more recent times, into morning, noon, and evening services, in accordance with the three pressings¹⁶⁷ in which the intoxicating drink was extracted from the Soma ‘plant’ with the aid of pressing stones (see pp. 231–3). The evening pressing was characterized by the fact that it involved pressing the Soma marc (:rjīs: á) which had accumulated in the morning and noon pressings. The litanies recited by the Hotr: , called Śastras, inviting the gods to partake of the Soma, are divided among the day’s three pressings—of which the middle one is clearly the climax of the entire ritual.¹⁶⁸ (Their number may have been fewer in the Rgvedic Soma ritual than in :

significant differences between the rituals as performed by each family, and the rites may well belong to different times and, more importantly, to different Soma rituals. The descriptions here point out such differences where they are evident from the text. ¹⁶¹ On (possible) introductory and concluding rites, see above, fn. 158. ¹⁶² In the classic ritual (at least in some traditions), it is followed by the recitation of the Subrahmanyā formula, by means of which Indra is summoned to the Soma (cf. for example : Āpastamba-Śrautasūtra XII 3,15 and Baudhāyana-Śrautasūtra XXV 13: 242.8–10 [subraman: yā . . . prātaranuvāke t:rtīyā]). This may have already been part of the Rgvedic ritual (see p. 91). : ¹⁶³ These three parts are later called Āgneya-, Aus: asa-, and Āśvina-Kratu. ¹⁶⁴ The Prātaranuvāka, too, is considered a kind of Śastra in the later ritual, and since each Śastra must be preceded by a Graha (see p. 230) and a Stotra (see p. 229), in this case the drawing of the waters the day before the morning pressing (vasatīvárī, ‘[water] drawn from a stream on the eve of the Soma sacrifice’) is considered a Graha and the Viśvarūpa verses to be sung by the singers are considered Stotra (see C on Āpastamba-Śrautasūtra XII 3,17). times between the two (Havirdhāna-) chariots, ¹⁶⁵ This also seems to have taken place in Rgvedic : between which the Hot:r had sat down (see O, Noten on RV 8.72.2). ¹⁶⁶ Possible Rgvedic versions of the Prātaranuvāka, or the Kratus mentioned in endnote 163, are RV : 1.44, 1.45, 1.92, and 1.113 (see O, Metrische und textgeschichtliche Prolegomena zu einer kritischen Rigveda-Ausgabe, Berlin 1888, 226–7). Also compare RV 3.20.1, 5 [452]. ¹⁶⁷ That the Rgveda knows of the three pressings taking place on one day is shown solely by the : evidence of their names in its text: prātah: sāvá-, ‘early pressing’, RV 3.28.1, 52.4, 10.112.1; mād́ hyam : dinam : sávanam, ‘midday pressing’, RV 3.32.1, 4.35.7; and t:rtī́yam : sávanam, ‘third (= evening) pressing’, RV 4.34.4, 8.57.1 (see pp. 234–7). ¹⁶⁸ These litanies correspond in a sense to the Puroʼnuvākyā of the younger ritual. These invite the god to the sacrifice, whereupon he is requested, by means of a Yājyā, to enjoy what has been sacrificed for him (compare Śāṅkhāyana-Śrautasūtra 1.17: . . . āgahi . . . iti puronuvākyālaks: an: āni; . . . piba . . . iti yājyālaks: an: āni). See p. 229.

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the classic Agnis: t:oma, which prescribes a total of twelve:¹⁶⁹ five each with the morning and noon pressings and two with the evening pressing.) Here the litanies comprise four Ājyaśastras and the Praügaśastra at the morning pressing (see p. 235), four Nis: kevalyaśastras and the Marutvatīyaśastra at the noon pressing (see p. 235), and the Vaiśvadevaśastra and the Āgnimārutaśastra at the evening pressing (see p. 236). Of these, the Hot:r recites two of the Śastras at the morning pressing (namely the first Ājyaśastra and the Praügaśastra), two at the noon pressing (the Marutvatīyaśastra and the first Nis: kevalyaśastra), and the two that accompany the evening pressing, while the rest fall to the Hotrakas, his assistants (see p. 209). These litanies, the Śastras—and individual segments of them—are introduced in the later ritual by the Āhāva formula with which the Hot:r invites the Adhvaryu to “recite together with him” (śo₃ṁ sāvo₃ṁ ). The Adhvaryu responds [266] with a Pratigara, something like o₃thā modaiva, “Let us now rejoice!”¹⁷⁰ The archetype of these formulas is found in RV 3.53.3: ‘Let us both recite, Adhvaryu! Respond to me! . . . . [Then] be the song recited to Indra!’ These ‘songs’ are referred to in the quoted passage as an ukthá that is ‘recited’ (śam : s).¹⁷¹ In the younger Vedic ritual texts, this is the established expression for recitations by the Hotr: that combine several songs of the Rgveda.¹⁷² For this, the technical term śastra, ‘litany’, is : applied in the Śrautasūtras. Consequently, it may be assumed that these formulas already opened the recitation of the litanies in Rgvedic times. At the morning : pressing, these formulas are followed by the phrases called Nivid,¹⁷³ in which the gods are asked to drink the Soma offered to them and to bestow blessings on the patron of the sacrifice (see p. 212);¹⁷⁴ these are then followed by the litany. This was probably already the case in Rgvedic times, as RV 6.67.10 states: ‘When the : singers declaim their “speech” [and] some devoutly recite the Nivids, let us speak the appropriate litanies. . . .’. At the midday pressing the Nivids are inserted into

¹⁶⁹ Other forms of Soma ritual use even more Śastras and Stotras. Among these, the Aptoryāma seems to have been known already in Rgvedic times (see p. 238). The So for which a chanting : :  daśin, performance during sunset is characteristic, may also have been known in the Rgvedic ritual (see : O, Noten on 1.6 and 8.69). The names Kun: dapāyya and Trikadruka mentioned in the text of : the Rgveda (RV 8.17.13 [cf. O, Noten ad loc.], 2.11.17, 22.1) may indicate that Sattra-like : sacrifices had been performed back then, unless they simply denote specific vessels from which the Soma was drunk. ¹⁷⁰ See for example Āpastamba-Śrautasūtra XII 27,12 (cf. C’s notes on his translation). ¹⁷¹ By contrast, RV 8.13.19 and 93.27 have ukthā(́ ny) . . . √dhā, to ‘lay [out] recitations’. ¹⁷² That the designations uktha and śastra are fully equivalent is shown by passages such as Kāt:haka XXVIII 3: 155.10, where the Marutvatīyaśastra is called marutvatīyam uktham. ¹⁷³ See p. 212 fn. 78. ¹⁷⁴ The Nivids—eleven in number (see Śāṅkhāyana-Śrautasūtra VIII 7,16–25), each a series of short sentences that are usually not connected to one another—are moreover veritable aretalogies in that they praise qualities and deeds of the deities invoked (see also O, Religion, 387 with fn. 2).

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the litanies, and in the evening pressing they form—at least in the case of the Vaiśvadevaśastra—the conclusion.¹⁷⁵ Each of the three pressings has not only Nivids, but also series of stanzas assigned to them, accompanying specific offerings. Their subsequent use in pairs, however—one inviting the god to come (puroʼnuvākyā), the other asking him to partake of the libation (yājyā)—is still incipient in the Rgveda (see p. 227 : fn. 168). While the use of individual stanzas seems to have been foreign to the Rgvedic ritual—at least in their entirety—the second of these stanzas, the Yājyā,¹⁷⁶ : is used there in sacrificial offerings without the associated first stanza. The Puroʼnuvākyā type seems to emerge only gradually in the Rgveda and is present : merely in a few beginnings,¹⁷⁷ for example in the song RV 10.179 concerned with the Dadhigharma sacrifice (see p. 236) [267]. At the end of the Yājyā, in the classic ritual, the Hot:r loudly utters the vas: at: -call, ‘May [Agni] convey [the libation to the gods]’,¹⁷⁸ whereupon the Adharyu consigns the sacrifice to the fire. The repeated mention of this call¹⁷⁹ in the Rgveda : (see 1.14.8, 31.5, 7.14.3, 15.6, and 99.7), especially in the context of the Soma sacrifice (RV 2.36.1, 10.17.12; cf. 1.162.15), makes it likely that this was already the case in the Rgvedic ritual. : In the later ritual the litanies include chants, called Stotra, that are performed in chorus by the singers¹⁸⁰ participating in the ritual. These chants always precede ́ in RV 6.67.10 the recitation of a litany. And if, as claimed,¹⁸¹ ‘speech’ (vāc) (see p. 228) means stotra while at the same time—as later—ukthá denotes a Śastra, as it does, for instance, in RV 3.52.1 and 53.3 as well, then this would have been the case already in Rgvedic times. Although it may be a younger : systematization that requires that chants and litanies be present in the same number with each chant belonging to a specific litany, so that the number of Stotras in the Agnis: t:oma also amounts to twelve, the alternation of chant and litany is already found in the Rgveda: ‘The . . . Sāman [the Udgātr: ] is singing. : We [, the Hot:r,] want to recite’ (RV 1.173.1).

¹⁷⁵ This systematization may belong to post-Rgvedic times. Yet the final stanzas of RV 1.175 and : 176, [453] each of which speak of Indra being called ‘after this Nivid’—so that the Nivid seems to have been recited before the final stanza—could support the argument that already in Rgvedic times, the : insertion of the Nivids into the litanies ‘portrayed’ the pressing day, so to speak. ¹⁷⁶ It may be that in RV 1.86.4 and 4.49.1, the word máda denotes the Yājyā (see p. 212 fn. 78). ¹⁷⁷ See O, Religion, 387. ¹⁷⁸ This rendering of vas: at: , however, is anything but certain. The same applies even more strongly to G’s ‘Prosit’, see also (RV 1.14.8). ¹⁷⁹ Another such sacrificial call is śraus: at: (RV 1.139.1). ¹⁸⁰ Already in Rgvedic times there were probably three singers (see p. 209 fn. 59; regarding their : absence from the old priest lists, see p. 209). ¹⁸¹ See H, Kleine Schriften, Stuttgart 1987, 58, and S, Die Nividas und Prais: ās, die ältesten vedischen Prosatexte, Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 73 (1919), 39.

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    . 

These Stotras consist of verses sung to specific melodies, the Sāmans. They are divided into two very different groups: on the one hand are the ‘Soma songs’; on the other, the songs to the gods to be honoured with the Soma. The former, all found in the ninth book, are addressed to the Soma as it is pressed, filtered through a sieve of sheep’s wool, and mixed with various ingredients; the latter are addressed to the gods to whom the Hot:r and his assistants recited the litanies and who then receive portions of Soma, the Grahas, as sacrificial offerings following the order of the three pressings. While their main task is to call and honour the gods (see p. 218), the ‘Soma songs’ also perform the crucial [268] function of transubstantiating the ‘earthly’ juice into the ‘heavenly’ libation. Pressing, purifying and mixing the Soma, the process by which the sacrificial substance is obtained from the ‘plant’, forms a significant part of the Soma ritual. It involves a series of ritual acts, listed in RV 8.2.2–3: ‘Shaken by the men [in the water],¹⁸² pressed out by the hungry [stones], purified by means of sheep’s fleece, washed like a horse in the rivers:¹⁸³ we have made it tasty, making it perfect, like barley with cow [milk]. You, O Indra, [we invite] to this banquet’. Details of these rites are mentioned repeatedly, scattered throughout the text of the Rgveda. Taken : together they form an approximate overview as follows. ‘Soaking’ the Soma in water, called Āpyāyana, probably took place the day before the pressing (RV 4.27.5, 8.9.19, 9.67.28). Once this had been done, the Soma was conveyed to the sacrificial site on two carts—later called Havirdhāna (RV 10.13). The morning pressing begins before sunrise:¹⁸⁴ a fire is lit (see p. 219) in which the ghee will be sacrificed; the sacrificial grass is strewn, songs are sung, and hymns recited (see p. 229); sacrificial cakes made of barley flour, called (savanīya-)puro:lāś́ , are prepared just as in the later ritual (RV 3.28.1; see p. 237). Then the Adhvaryu goes from the sacrificial site to the nearest river to fetch water for pressing the Soma: “With the radiance of the sun, Agni takes up a firm position, poured upon, [so that he] carries ghee on his back, . . . He who says ‘Let us press [the Soma] for Indra’ will not have weary dawns shine upon him. He whose fire is kindled, by whom Barhis is scattered [around the fire], will be victorious; he whose pressing stones are harnessed, by whom the Soma is pressed, will praise. The Adhvaryu ¹⁸² It is not clear what is meant by the ‘shaking’ of the Soma, although it is mentioned several times. It stands to reason, however, that it refers to the ‘soaking’ of the Soma. That implies, on the other hand, that in various stanzas (for example RV 8.1.17), this act is mentioned in places that do not accord with the ‘actual’ order of processing, i.e. at the very beginning of the ritual acts performed on the Soma. But it has already been noted that ‘[t]he order of events . . . often does not correspond [to] the real sequence’ (O, Noten on RV 10.101.10/11). ¹⁸³ This must mean the admixture of water to the pressed Soma, yet it seems to precede the purification step. Again, the order in which the rites are mentioned would not accord with the ‘naturally’ given order of processing steps. ¹⁸⁴ That the Soma comes from heaven to earth at dawn is suggested by RV 9.1.6 and 113.3: the ‘sun daughter’ purifies or brings the Soma (s. p. 118).

    .  

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[of him] whose pressing stones speak briskly will go down to the stream with an offering.” (RV 5.37.1–2; cf. 8.72.7, 91.1) [269]

After throwing a blade of grass into the water (RV 10.30.5) and pouring a libation of ghee into the water¹⁸⁵ to placate Apām : Napāt, the guardian of the waters (see p. 103), the priest draws water using a pitcher.¹⁸⁶ With the rising of the sun—following the recitation of the ‘Early Litany’ (see p. 227)—the Soma is pressed;¹⁸⁷ the one pressing it must wear a golden ring on one finger (RV 8.29.1).¹⁸⁸ The pressing is done on a stone base called úpara, the ‘upper [pressing stone]’,¹⁸⁹ so-called probably because it rests upon two boards.¹⁹⁰ These boards, referred to in RV 1.28.2¹⁹¹ as adhisavanyā` , ‘[the two boards] on which [the Soma] is pressed’ (= ‘under-boards’),¹⁹² are placed under the pressing slab on the left and right sides to prevent its slipping—and thus the

¹⁸⁵ See O, Religion, 118. ¹⁸⁶ In the Śrauta ritual, fetching the ekadhanā water is accompanied by the Hot:r’s recitation of the Aponaptrīya hymns, i.e. of RV 10.30, (as well as other songs). This is then mixed with the vasatīvarī water (cf. Āpastamba-Śrautasūtra XI 20,5) that was fetched on the eve of the pressing day and that is transformed into nigrābhyā water by speaking a certain formula over it (cf. Āpastamba-Śrautasūtra XII 9,1) [454] (see pp. 102–3). O, Kleine Schriften, 611 fn. 4, is surely correct in surmising that the songs RV 7.47 and 7.49 may also have served this purpose (cf. also OLDENBERG, Religion, 117 fn. 5). The actions that accompany the drawing of these waters show clearly that one ‘saw in them . . . representatives of the heavenly waters suffused by the sun’ (Lü, Varun: a, Volume I: Varun: a und die Wasser, Göttingen 1951, 302). ¹⁸⁷ In the classic ritual, another pressing takes place before the ‘great pressing’ to obtain the— unfiltered (see Śatapatha-Brāhmana (see p. 234 fn. 208). This may have : IV 1,1.3)—Upāmśugraha : sám am:rtatvám ānat: ) indeed already been part of the Rgvedic Soma ritual, if RV 4.58.1 (úpāmśúnā : : ‘alludes to the conceptions surrounding the Upāmśugraha’ (Noten ad loc.). : ¹⁸⁸ The Āpastamba-Śrautasūtra decrees that ‘it is a perpetual precept for all pressings that [t]he [Adhvaryu] presses, draws, and offers the Soma with gold’ (XII 7,12). In this regard, L¨, Varun: a, Volume II, Varun: a und das Rta, : Göttingen 1959, 379–80, refers to RV 9.86.43, where those who purify the Soma are called ‘those purifying with gold’. ¹⁸⁹ On the vernacular úpala see p. 26 fn. 17. ¹⁹⁰ Somewhat surprisingly, the lower unhewn part of the sacrificial post, which is in the ground (see p. 221 fn. 130), is called upara. ¹⁹¹ On this song, see following fn. ¹⁹² The name is determined by the metre. In post-Rgvedic ritual literature, they are called : adhis: ávan: a. In Maitrāyanī IV 5,9 (: 77.13) they are compared to two ‘jaws’ on which the : Samhitā : pressing stones rest as ‘teeth’ and between which the cowhide is the tongue. It has been suggested that RV 1.28, which according to the Aitareya-Brāhmana : VII 17 accompanies the ‘quick pressing’ (añjah: sava) of the Soma, speaks of a pressing device that is (entirely) different from the one consistently hypothesized for the Rgvedic ritual. This song, and only this one, is about pressing the Soma by : means of a mortar and pestle, the former being called ulūḱ hala, the latter grāv́ an. In this pressing, however, the description of which in RV 1.28 has a distinctly erotic tinge, the usual pressing apparatus—perhaps somewhat modified—can be discerned, [455] and is distinguished by the fact that it is carried out by a woman (stanza (st.) 3)—clearly in the home (st. 5)—and that both the pressing ́ slab, here called ulūkhala(ka), and its ‘pressing stone’, designated grāv́ an as elsewhere (st. 1), are made of wood (st. 8), but not, at least in this author’s understanding of st. 4 (see also RV 10.101.10), that a rope was wound around the ‘pestle’ to drive it. Reference to the use of a mortar has also occasionally been conjectured with regard to the pressing described in RV 10.101. This was correctly refuted by O in his Noten on that song.

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    . 

dreaded spilling of Soma—during pressing¹⁹³ (see p. 26 fn. 17). Because of their important function, these boards (presumably together with the skin spread over them [see following]) are called Dhis: án: ā ‘[goddess] “Establisher” ’ in RV 1.109.3 and 10.17.12 (see pp. 151–2).¹⁹⁴ Between these ‘under-boards’ and the pressing slab, which rests on them as on a ‘lap’ (RV 1.109.3, 10.17.12), a cowhide is placed, later called adhis: ávan: am : cárman ‘[animal] skin on which [the Soma] is pressed’, but in the Rgveda it is usually called tvác, “skin” and in RV 10.94.9 simply : gó, “cow”. A multitude of texts in the classic ritual describe this form of pressing apparatus and calls the pressing board upara/upala.¹⁹⁵ Particularly clear in this regard is the Bhāradvāja-Śrautasūtra:¹⁹⁶ “The two under-boards have a ‘mouth’ like the side parts of a wheel, are set against each other at the front [and] trimmed evenly, at the back [they are] two finger widths [apart] or [however] four finger widths. They are narrower at the front and wider at the back.¹⁹⁷ With the southern one [the Adhvaryu] covers two [‘sound-holes’], [the other] two with the northern one . . . [Then] he heaps [the under-boards [270] with the earth from the ‘sound-holes’] . . . The [cow]hide on which [the Soma] is pressed he sprinkles [with water] . . . [Then] he spreads it, which has a place for pouring [the pressed Soma], on the two under-boards [in such a way] that its hairs point upwards.¹⁹⁸ . . . On this [cowhide] he lays four pressing stones, suitable for striking, so that their ‘backs’ face upwards, and the widest, the Upara, as the fifth in the middle [XII 13,1–9]. . . . . Then he presses the [Soma] with one [of the] pressing stone[s] on the Upara [XIII 6,13]. . . . Whenever he has to press [the Soma], he presses it with one [of the] pressing stone[s] on the Upara” [XIII 7,2] (pradhimukhe purastāt sam : hite samāvak:rtte paścād dvyaṅgula uttarā . . . adhis: avan: aphalake bhavati caturaṅgulam : vā, ¹⁹³ In RV 10.94.12, the pressing stones are addressed as sons of the mountains: ‘Standing firm are your fathers, generation after generation. Loving their abode, they do not harness [chariots] [to get] away from their place’. The pressing stones should stand immovably firm, like the mountains. ¹⁹⁴ With respect to content, the stanza RV 1.109.3 belongs with the Yajus dhís: an: e vīd: ū . . . , Taittirīya-Samhitā I 4,1.2, which is used in Āpastamba-Śrautasūtra XII 10,1 and other texts. It addresses : the two ‘under-boards’ which together are called ‘lap of the [goddess] Dhis: anā’ : in RV 1.109.3, in which Indra and Agni rest as two pressing stones (see Noten ad loc., and O, Kleine Schriften, Stuttgart 1993, 2092). ¹⁹⁵ See Āpastamba-Śrautasūtra XII 2,15–16, 10.2, Bhāradvāja-Śrautasūtra XII 13,9, XIII 7,2, Mānava-Śrautasūtra II 3,1.21, 3,3.4, Vādhūla-Śrautasūtra VI 18,12/15, VII 2,27, VaikhānasaVII 6 (also cf. [e.g.] Śatapatha-Brāhmana Śrautasūtra XIV 9 and Hiranyakeśi-Śrautasūtra : : III 5,4.24 and Kātyāyana-Śrautasūtra VIII 5,25). Baudhāyana-Śrautasūtra VI 28–29 (: 192.15–193.1) might belong here as well. ¹⁹⁶ Since the text is doubtless corrupt in places, only what is relevant to the present context is given here. ¹⁹⁷ What exactly the ‘under-boards’ looked like and why there was so little space between them is— undeniably—a problem yet to be solved. ¹⁹⁸ Apparently, the hairs were meant to catch the larger pieces of the crushed Soma, before the juice was then more finely ‘filtered’.

    .  

233

purastād aṁ hīyasī bhavatah: paścāt prathīyasī, dvau daks: in: enāpidadhāti dvāv uttaren: a . . . paryūhati . . . , adhis: avan: acarma proks: ati . . . adhis: avan: aphalakayor adhis: avan: acarmāst:rn: āty uttaralomāsecanavat . . . tasmim : ś caturo grāvn: ah: sādayaty ūrdhvasānūn āhananaprakārān uparam : prathis: :t ham : madhye pañcamam, XII 13,1–9, athainam upare grāvn: ābhis: un: oti, XIII 6,13, yatra kva cābhis: un: uyād upara eva grāvn: ābhis: un: uyāt, XIII 7,2).

The four ‘sound holes’ over which the ‘base boards’ are placed—to amplify the sound produced when the pressing stone hits the Soma—do not seem to have been known in the Rgvedic ritual.¹⁹⁹ Yet obtaining the Soma drink by the noisiest : means possible characterized the Rgvedic pressing as well. For the ‘pressing stone, : when it speaks, drives away the demons’ (RV 10.36.4) and attracts Indra by ‘its noise’ (RV 8.34.2).²⁰⁰ The Soma on the pressing slab (úpara) is then struck with the pressing stones: ‘Facing downward, [the stones] go down to meet the pressing slab. Gleaming in the sun, they have produced for themselves abundant semen’ (RV 10.94.5). The ́ pressing stones are called grāvan or ádri:²⁰¹ ‘The pressing stones (grāv́ an), unanimous, think themselves great on the lower [pressing slabs], because they [271] create the strength of bulls for the bull [Indra]’ (RV 10.175.3); ‘Purify the Soma that the stones (ádri), moved by the hands, have pressed out’ (RV 9.11.5). With few exceptions, multiple pressing stones are used. Thus the task of beating the juice from the Soma is distributed among several persons—this seems important also with regard to the question of the ‘guilt’ in the Soma-killing (see following examples)—as is also seen in the later ritual, in which four Adhvaryus (Adhvaryu, Pratiprasthāt:r, Nes: t::r, and Unnet:r) press the Soma using a total of four stones (cf. Kaus: ītaki-Brāhmana : XXIX 1). Remarkably little is said in the Rgveda about the pressing as such and the : preparation for it. In particular, the text is silent regarding where this takes place. The fact that Soma was ‘slain’ during the pressing, as it is said in a younger myth, apparently made it seem advisable to keep silent about the site and perpetration of this act. All that can be gleaned from the text is that the pressing took place ‘apart’ (RV 9.64.30), in a place ‘set up in concealment by the Adhvaryus’ (RV 9.10.9), and that in that place, ‘Soma unites [with the fingers pressing it] for its well-being’ With a similar euphemism based on an expression familiar from animal sacrifice (see p. 241), ‘the ten fingers and both arms’ of the priests are called ‘those that

¹⁹⁹ It has been conjectured that āḱ hara, ‘cave’, in RV 10.94.5 refers to these holes (‘The black [stones], the vigorous ones, have danced in their cave’; see Oberlies, Die Religion des Rgveda, Part 2, : Vienna 1999, 142 fn. 80), but it most likely refers to the ‘hand’ that clasps the pressing stone [456]. ²⁰⁰ On making noise to chase away ‘evil’, see p. 270. ²⁰¹ In the ninth Man: dala, the most prevalent designation by far is ádri, ‘stone, rock’, which is much : better suited to allusion and interpretation than the ‘unambiguous’ grāv́ an.

234

    . 

bring [the Soma] to rest’ (samitŕ̥) (RV 5.43.4).²⁰² Only rarely is it implied that it is this action which ‘puts Soma to death’.²⁰³ RV 9.68.4, for example, speaks of ‘Soma protecting his head’ quite obviously from the injuries caused by the pressing stones, which RV 10.101.10 also calls ‘stone knives’.²⁰⁴ The pressed juice was poured from the pressing slab—which probably had a drainage groove—onto the cowhide placed beneath it: ‘The . . . dun one . . . purifies itself . . . driven onto the skin of the cow’ (RV 9.65.25, cf. 1.28.9). This was then pooled, and from it the Soma was trickled either directly onto the strainer, which was made of sheep’s wool, or into water-filled collecting vessels—such as the Kośa—and from these onto the strainer.²⁰⁵ Once purified, it flowed [272] into the vessels called Camū: ‘Preening his body like a beautiful youth, like a horse leaping to win the prizes of victory, flowing through the Kośa like a bull through the herds, he has entered the two Camū roaring loudly’ (RV 9.96.20, cf. 103.3–4). In the Camū—a vessel name unknown in the later ritual—it either remained unmixed,²⁰⁶ or was mixed with milk, sour milk (dádhi), ghee (gh:rtá), or just water.²⁰⁷ The Soma thus prepared was then passed on to the gods and also drunk by the priests. Those who were to receive a share of the Soma had been named in one of the litanies or sacrificial formulas recited during the pressing. Accordingly, on the occasion of the morning pressing²⁰⁸ Soma was sacrificed to Vāyu,²⁰⁹ Vāyu and

²⁰² The assertion by T, Die Nomina agentis auf -tar- im Vedischen, Heidelberg 1995, 38 fn. 39, that ‘the attested usage . . . militates against an interpretation of śamitár- . . . as slaughterer ʻTo-RestBringerʼ’ is certainly not correct. The very passage of the Āpastamba-Śrautasūtra that she cites (VII 17,2–4) shows, as do many others, that it is (contrary to T) the Śamit:r with his assistants who kills the animal. ²⁰³ Few passages in the Vedic texts express so clearly that harm is done to the Soma in the act of pressing as does Atharvaveda Paippalāda II 39 (cf. Vaitanasutra XXIV I). There is talk of ‘cutting up the limbs’, ‘splitting the skin and abdomen’, and ‘rending’ Soma, and precisely how these injuries are to be healed: ‘Ghee flows from the sacrificial spoons over your limbs and joints, making them grow [again]’ (ibid. stanza 6). ²⁰⁴ Note that the passage translated previously from the Bhāradvāja-Śrautasūtra (and also Āpastamba-Śrautasūtra XII 2,15) requires of the pressing stones that they be ‘suitable for striking’, using a word for ‘striking’ that in Atharvaveda XII 5,39, 47 means ‘slaughtering an animal’. And if the explanation given by P, About the Slaying of Soma: Uncovering the Rigvedic Witness, T. Ya, ́: RV Elizarenkova Memorial Volume, Book 1, Moscow 2008, 353–88, for māmścatvá / māmścatve, : 9.97.52, 54, is correct, the passage speaks openly of the ‘slaughtering’ of Soma. ²⁰⁵ According to Āpastamba-Śrautasūtra XII 2,14, the hide must therefore have ‘a place for pouring out [the Soma juice]’ (cf. Bhāradvāja-Śrautasūtra XII 13,8 and Hiranyakeśi-Śrautasūtra VII 6). : ²⁰⁶ This Soma, which is sacrificed to Vāyu in particular, is called śúci or also śukrá, ‘the shining, the luminous’. ²⁰⁷ Grains of barley were also mixed into the Soma (see RV 3.43.4, 8.91.2, 10.28.1). An apparently general designation of ingredients added to Soma is sūd́ a (see RV 8.69.3 and 9.97.44 and cf. Noten on RV 10.61.2). ²⁰⁸ The morning pressing in particular, with its numerous portions of Soma—the Grahas—shows the lively activity of the ritualists in post-Rgvedic times. In addition to the Upāmśu : (see [457] p. 231 fn. 187), the Antaryāma, the Aindravāyava, the Maitrāvaruna, : the Āśvina, the Vaiśvadeva, the Māhendra, the Vaiśvānara, and the Rtugrahas (among others) are served. : ²⁰⁹ The fact that it is Vāyu who receives the first drink—and thus the very first share of the entire Soma offering—indicates the significance and greatness this god once had (see p. 137). RV 10.112.1, however, says that ‘the morning pressing, the first drink belongs to Indra’.

    .  

235

Indra, Mitra and Varuna, : and then to the Aśvins; once again to Indra, then to the Viśve Devāh, and finally to Sarasvatī.²¹⁰ This sequence of deities is specified in the : Praügaśastra, which at RV 10.130.3 is prominently called the ‘Chariot-Shaft Litany’ and is the second²¹¹ litany to be recited by the Hot:r at the morning pressing. There are several versions of this in the Rgveda that differ in details.²¹² : In the ritual of the younger texts, Agni is added to the circle of the deities named, in that litanies are additionally recited to Mitra-Varuna, : Indra, and the pairing of Indra-Agni by the Hot:r’s three assistants at the morning pressing. Thus he who otherwise receives no Soma is accorded a share here, in the company of Indra. Moreover, there are in fact several Rgvedic hymns (including 1.21, 108–109, 3.25, : 6.59–60) indicating that this pairing of deities receiving Soma goes back well into the past.²¹³ In the classic ritual, the morning pressing includes a series of twelve Soma portions, by means of which various gods and certain priestly functions are related to each other (see pp. 210–11).²¹⁴ This traces back to the Rgvedic period (RV 1.15, : 2.36–37), and there is no reason to believe that it was not part of the morning service even then [273]. According to the Nis: kevalyaśastra (the Hotr: ’s second Śastra at the midday pressing, of which RV 8.37 is presumably an example)²¹⁵ the midday pressing— the high point of the ritual—is dedicated exclusively to Indra, while the Marutvatīyaśastra, the first Śastra of the Hot:r at this pressing, of which RV 8.36 is apparently an example, dedicates it both to him and to the Maruts as his companions.²¹⁶ Both applied in the Rgvedic ritual: ‘The midday pressing is : yours [, O Indra,] alone’ (RV 4.35.7, cf. 5.40.4, 8.37.1), ‘Indra, Lord of Soma, drink this midday pressing so dear to you. . . . O you who hold the club, drink at the midday pressing together with the Rudras (, the Maruts), as your retinue’ ²¹⁰ Us: as, the goddess of dawn, received praises in the morning litany. But she received no Soma (see O, Religion, 242 fn. [3]). ²¹¹ The first of the two great Śastras of the Hot:r, the Ājyaśastra, of which there may be two specimens in the Rgveda—RV 4.58 and 8.17 (see Noten on those songs)—is addressed to Agni, who, : however, is not invited to drink Soma, as is usually the purpose of these litanies, but is merely invoked as the god performing the ritual. ²¹² The clearest example is RV 1.2–3. RV 1.23 and 2.41 are also Praügas—the latter being that of the G:rtsamada family—but they differ from RV 1.2–3 in several details. And the series of gods in RV 1.135–136 and 139 clearly show the influence of the Praügaśastra, if they are not indeed one themselves. ²¹³ See O, Religion, 100, 452 fn. 3, and 456. O, Religion, 453 fn. 2, points out that ‘the sequence of deities given here, which is yielded by the litanies of the Hotar priests, agrees in the main with that which results from the formulas (Vājasaneyi-Samhitā VII,1 ff. and so on) to be recited : by the Adhvaryu while drawing the Soma portions’. ²¹⁴ These Soma portions, called :rtugraha, are intended for the deities corresponding to the six priestly functions (see pp. 210–11), for Dravinodas (four times), and finally for the Aśvins and Agni : (see O, Religion, 453 fn. 2). ²¹⁵ The ‘classic’ Nis: kevalyaśastra consists mainly of stanzas of the songs RV 8.3 and 1.32, the latter forming its conclusion, while the Marutvatīyaśastra is made up of stanzas from several Rgvedic songs. : ²¹⁶ On RV 5.40.1–4, see O, Noten ad loc. The first ten stanzas of the appended song RV 6.47 also seem to be a ‘śastra [458] for [the] midday pressing’, although the marútvān in stanza 5 ‘points to [the] Marutvatīyaśastra’ (Noten ad loc.).

236

    . 

(RV 3.32.1, 3). The midday pressing is similar to the morning pressing, but without (among other things) the Rtugrahas (see previous). In addition, however, : a hot drink made with sour milk is prepared and offered to Indra: ‘The offering is cooked, come hither, O Indra! The sun has reached the middle of its path. The companions sit [worshipful] around you with their servings . . . The [sacrifice] has . . . been cooked in the udder, it has been cooked in the fire. . . . Drink, O Indra, of the sour milk of the midday pressing . . .’ (RV 10.179.2–3). These two stanzas, like later ones (see Āśvalāyana-Śrautasūtra V 13,5–6), make up the Puroʼnuvākyā and Yājyā (see p. 229) of the Dadhigharma,²¹⁷ which is distinctly affiliated with the Gharma (see p. 229). According to information in the Rgveda, it was Indra and the Rbhus who had : : the main share of the evening Soma: ‘In the morning you drank the pressed [juice of Soma], you whose steeds are dun. The midday pressing is yours alone. Drink now [in the evening] together with the treasure-creating Rbhus, whom you have : made your friends, O Indra, because of their craftsmanship’ (RV 4.35.7, cf. 1.161.8, 3.52.6, 4.33.11, 34.4). According to the ritual of the younger Vedas, however, the evening pressing included Soma portions for the Ādityas, Savit:r, the Viśve Devāh, : and Agni [274] as the one accompanied by the gods’ wives; after that, for Indra as the ‘Lord of the Dun Horses’,²¹⁸ a sequence vaguely mentioned already in RV 4.34.7–8.²¹⁹ The series of gods enumerated in the two litanies of this pressing, the Vaiśvadeva- and the Āgnimārutaśastra, marks a significant departure from this sequence. One names the Viśve Devāh—with main sections on Savit:r, : Heaven and Earth, the Rbhus and All Gods—the other, Agni together with the : Maruts, although here the gods’ wives are also mentioned, among others.²²⁰ Thus we see in the later sequences that the Rbhus have lost their prominent position.²²¹ : Receiving portions of the Soma drink is indeed attested in the Rgveda for the : Ādityas, the gods’ wives, Savitr: ,²²² heaven and earth, and the pairing of Agni with the Maruts (see RV 7.51, 4.34.8, 1.22.9, 12, 4.34.7–8; 4.34.8, 9.81.4; 9.97.42, 109.5;

²¹⁷ See O, Kleine Schriften, Wiesbaden 1967, 613. ²¹⁸ Indra’s horses, too, sometimes mentioned as a pair but most frequently as more, receive Soma when he does—according to the Rgveda—to drink or to eat (see RV 1.28.7, 3.35.3–4, 43.6). It cannot be : inferred from the passages that mention this, however, whether it took place at the evening pressing, as was the case with the Hāriyojanagraha of later time, ‘the Soma portion for the harnessing of the duns’. ²¹⁹ In the ‘classic’ Agnis: t:oma, Prasthitahomas are inserted between the drawing and offering of Soma portion for Āditya, and of that for Sāvitr. The Prasthitahoma, likewise offered at the morning and noon pressings, is a Soma offering that entails combining gods and priests, as they take turns imbibing the offering, in a manner very similar to that of the Rtugrahas (see above, fn. 214). : ²²⁰ See C/H, LʼAgnis: :t oma, Vol. 2, Paris 1907, 355, 372; and S, Die Nivids und Prais: ās, die ältesten vedischen Prosatexte, Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 73 (1919), 32. ²²¹ A trace of their former significance has been preserved, however, in the name of the song recital that accompanies the purification of Soma at the evening pressing: ‘Rbhu purification song’ : (Ārbhavapavamānastotra). ²²² According to O, Religion, 455 with fn. 1, ‘the Soma offering to Savitar does not trace back to ancient times’. Whether this is so, however, cannot be determined.

    .  

237

and 5.60 respectively). It is not clear from the text, however, at which pressing it was sacrificed to them. And Soma portions for these gods are so seldom mentioned, it appears likely that this is a special feature of individual family rituals which in ancient times had not yet attained general standing.²²³ The Soma sacrifice from all three pressings could be accompanied²²⁴ by offeŕ some of which were sacrificed to Agni,²²⁵ and ings of sacrificial cakes (purod: āś), some to Indra (see following):²²⁶ ‘Agni! Enjoy our sacrificial food, the sacrificial cake, at the morning pressing’ (RV 3.28.1). ‘[Enjoy, O Indra, ] our sacrificial cake [while you drink] the Soma herb’ (RV 8.78.1; cf. 4.24.7, 25.6, 6.23.7, 29.4, 8.31.2, 78.1, 91.2). The songs RV 3.28 and 3.52, which are primarily under consideration here, apparently belong together in that RV 3.52 contains stanzas for the offering of the sacrificial cakes to Indra at each of the three Soma pressings, while RV 3.28 offers those for Agni’s share. As in the later ritual,²²⁷ some of the Purodāśas were : sacrificed to Agni Svis: t:ak:rt (his younger name) at all three pressings, as evidenced by stanzas 1, 4, and 5 composed in the meters ‘belonging’ to the Savanas, Gāyatrī, [275] Tris: :t ubh and Jagatī (see p. 206)—just as in RV 3.52.²²⁸ This cake sacrifice was made at the repeated request of the Adhvaryu (RV 8.72.1).²²⁹ What was offered depended on who had been summoned with Indra to the pressing:²³⁰ the sacrificial cakes were offered together with roasted grains (dhānā)́ ²³¹ when his horses come with him (RV 3.52.7), with groats (karambhá) when he is

²²³ The Āgnimārutaśastra was probably not composed until post-Rgvedic times. Because its : sequence of gods corresponds (to some extent) with that of RV 3.26, it is conceivable that this Śastra is ‘based on precisely this Sūkta’ (Noten ad loc.). ²²⁴ There are not enough data available to determine whether this was the rule. ²²⁵ RV 10.45.9 speaks of a ‘cake soaked with ghee’ for Agni. ²²⁶ In the later ritual these are prepared in bowls, the number of which differs according to pressing: eight for the morning, eleven for the noon, and twelve for the evening pressing (see above). [459] ²²⁷ From RV 3.28 it is clear that Purodāśas were sacrificed at all three pressings, as mentioned in : stanzas 1, 4, and 5. In stanzas 3 and 6 the cake is called tiróahnya, ‘one day old’, and is offered to Agni. See p. 106 fn. 155 and p. 238. ²²⁸ See O, Kleine Schriften, Wiesbaden 1967, 613, and H, Vedische Mythologie, Vol. I, Breslau 1927, 469. ²²⁹ In the later ritual, the two grinding stones are struck while the Adhvaryu invokes the Havis: k:rt, the ‘Preparer of the Sacrificial Food’ (see Śatapatha-Brāhmana : I 1,4.13). This or something similar seems to have been the case in Rgvedic times as well: ‘[Agni] has climbed the wood. With his tongue : [the Adhvaryu] has struck the millstone’ (RV 8.72.4). Compare Noten and G ad loc. The havís: k:rn: udhvam ā ́ gamat in stanza 1 of this song is highly reminiscent of the (so-called) ‘Havis: k:rt call’, havisk:rd ehi, of the Adhvaryu, which the latter addresses to the Havis: kr: t priest: ‘come hither’. ²³⁰ Which pressing this pertains to remains unclear. RV 3.52.7 indicates the evening pressing, while stanza 1, which, however, names Indra himself as the recipient of ‘roasted barley grains, groats, and patties’ (cf. 8.91.2)—if this is not just a form of abbreviated expression (see following endnote)—points to the morning pressing. The latter would be consistent with post-Rgvedic ritual practice (see : Śatapatha-Brāhmana : IV 2,5.22, Aitareya-Brāhmana : II 23–24, and Āpastamba-Śrautasūtra XII 4,6; cf. C/H, LʼAgnis: :t oma, Vol. I, Paris 1906, 134–5). ²³¹ That Indra himself has a share in the roasted grains is often said (see RV 1.16.2, 3.35.3, 43.4, 52.6, 8). Yet this, too, may be a form of abbreviated expression (see previous endnote), as the grains are specifically ‘prepared for the two duns to eat’ (RV 3.35.7) and the horses usually receive them at the evening pressing (see above).

238

    . 

accompanied by Pūs: an (RV 3.52.7, 6.57.2), and with patties (apūpá) when he has the Maruts in his retinue (RV 3.52.7).²³² Besides the ceremonies of the three pressings, the ‘classic’ ritual also includes the Atirātra, which is characterised by three nightly rounds of Soma portions for Indra alone. Early the next morning a sacrificial cake is offered to the Aśvins, and finally a libation of tiróahnya-Soma, the ‘previous day’s’ Soma (i.e. pressed the day before) is sacrificed to them.²³³ The fact that this ritual was already performed in Rgvedic times²³⁴ was mentioned at the beginning of this section (see p. 226). If RV : 8.92 and 93 are indeed litanies for this ritual, as has been claimed,²³⁵ it is carried out in much the same form as in the classic Vedic period. After all, according to the Rgveda, the tiróahnya-Soma is for the Aśvins.²³⁶ According to RV 8.35.19–21, : however, the latter was also sacrificed to Us: as and Sūrya, a feature not known in the classic Atirātra, which gives dawn as the time of the Rgvedic ceremony as well. : And just as the Soma of the Aśvins was the ‘previous day’s’ (see pp. 105–6 fn. 153), they likewise received a sacrificial cake that was one day old (puro:lā:ś am : tiróahnyam). Agni received a share of this as well (RV 3.28.3, 6)—as was later the case, too (cf. Śatapatha-Brāhmana : I 7,3.7).²³⁷ The Aptoryāma was also part of the Rgvedic cult. Unlike its matrix the : Atirātra, it is characterized by an additional morning service—during which, however, no Soma is pressed. Looking at the way the four stanzas of song RV 8.57 are used in the younger ritual (see Āśvalāyana-Śrautasūtra IX 11,14 ff.), they may have been [276] composed as Yājyās for the four additional Śastras.²³⁸ Accordingly, in this Rgvedic Aptoryāma, for which RV 8.58.3 was probably also : intended, all four ‘surplus’ Soma portions would have been meant for the Aśvins.²³⁹

²³² In the classic ritual, the sacrifice is to Sarasvatī and Bhāratī rather than the Maruts; they are presented with a Parivāpa: barley grains roasted but not hulled (cf., for example, Kāt:haka XXIX 1: 168.6–11, Maitrāyanī III 10,6: 137.14–138.2, and Śatapatha-Brāhmana : Samhitā : : IV 2,5.22). ²³³ When in RV 7.103.7 the Brahmans at the Atirātra sitting around the Soma are compared to frogs sitting around a full pond, [460] this twofold irony may be referring to the small amount of Soma pressed in this ritual. ²³⁴ See RV 7.11.3, 103.7, and 8.92–93 (cf. O, Noten on the first passage and on RV 8.92). See also fn. 237. ²³⁵ See A. B, Recherches sur lʼhistoire de la liturgie védique, Journal Asiatique 1889, 132–7 (which designates the two hymns in the eighth book as ‘RV 8.81 and 82’). ²³⁶ See H, Vedische Mythologie, Vol. I, Breslau 1927, 475–6 (cf. M, Some lost verses for the Aptoryāma, Berliner Indologische Studien 8 [1995], 141, 146–7). ²³⁷ See B, Recherches sur lʼhistoire de la liturgie védique, Journal Asiatique 1889, 21, who points to the use of stanza 6 in the classic Atirātra ritual (see Āśvalāyana-Śrautasūtra VI 5,25; cf. also Āpastamba-Śrautasūtra XIV 4,1, 10). Despite the problems arising within RV 3.28 from the position of stanza 3, which likewise speaks of the ‘previous day’s sacrificial cake’ for Agni, this is probably a Rgvedic : testament to the sacrifice of part of the cake to Agni Svis: t:ak:rt on the occasion of the Atirātra (contrary to Noten on RV 3.28). ²³⁸ See O, Noten on RV 8.57 and 58.3. ²³⁹ See C on his translation of Āpastamba-Śrautasūtra XIV 4,15.

    .  

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7.10.2 The animal sacrifice The post-Rgvedic one-day Soma ritual in its various forms is firmly linked to three : animal sacrifices:²⁴⁰ the Agnīs: omīya (paśubandha),²⁴¹ a goat sacrifice that takes place before the pressing day and is dedicated to Agni and Soma (see p. 240); the Savanīyapaśubandha, a sacrifice of an unspecified animal (see following examples) that extends over the entire pressing day and is dedicated to Agni or Indra or both,²⁴² depending on the type of Soma ritual being carried out; and the sacrifice of a heifer, a sexually mature cow that has not yet given birth (vaśā, anūbandhyā), for Mitra-Varuna, : performed after the concluding bath. This connection between animal and Soma sacrifice is ancient, surely inherited from IndoIranian times (see p. 69), as the Rgveda often mentions roasting the meat of a : bull—explicitly a water buffalo—in connection with the pressing of the Soma:²⁴³ ‘As a friend for a friend, Agni quickly roasted . . . 300 buffaloes. Three lakes of Manu’s Indra [then always] drinks at the same time, the pressed Soma, [to have the strength] to slay V:rtra. When you . . . devoured the flesh of the 300 buffaloes [and] drank the three Soma lakes . . .’ (RV 5.29.7–8, cf. 10.28.2). Since it may be assumed that the animal sacrifices connected to the Soma ritual are a continuation of older cultic practices, it is reasonable to surmise that it is the Savanīyapaśubandha in which the animal sacrifice lives on, referred to in the cited passage of the Rgveda and in many other passages. For among the three : animal sacrifices of the Soma ritual, this one alone [277] is intimately connected with all three pressings—hence its name—and thus with the consumption of Soma, such that the sacrifice of the omentum is held at the morning service, that of the Paśupurodāśas at the noon service, and that of the animal itself at the : evening service: “All pressings are to be performed as those characterized by an animal [sacrifice] . . . When they proceed with the omentum at the morning pressing, this [pressing] is characterized by an animal [sacrifice] . . . When they proceed

²⁴⁰ More animals are sacrificed in other Soma rituals, such as the Dvādaśāha in which eleven animals are offered up to various deities (see Taittirīya-Samhitā VI 6,5, Kāt:haka XXIX 9, Maitrāyanī IV : : Samhitā : 7,8, and Śatapatha-Brāhmana : III 9,1.5–25). ²⁴¹ Apart from this animal sacrifice, which all Brāhmanas : record as an integral part of the Soma sacrifice and which represents the norm for animal sacrifice, the younger Vedic ritual has an animal sacrifice that is independent (i.e. celebrated without Soma), called Nirūdhapaśubandha, dedicated to : Indra-Agni, Sūrya or Prajāpati, for which, as a rule, a billy goat is sacrificed. Yet here too the ancient texts speak only of the ‘sacrificial animal’ (paśu), without naming its species. The animal sacrifice in the Śrauta ritual is distinguished from other rituals not only by the special sacrificial substance but also by, for example, the presence of the Maitrāvaruna, : a priest engaged primarily in Soma rituals; the use of a sacrificial pole; and by the special location of the Vedi—to the east of the Āhavanīya fire [461]. ²⁴² That the Atirātra is dedicated to Sarasvatī is shown in endnote 247 below. ²⁴³ The fact that animal slaughter is not mentioned at all in the ninth book says little, considering its hymns concentrate exclusively on the processes of pressing and purifying the Soma.

240

    . 

with the Paśupurodāśa²⁴⁴ at the midday pressing, this [pressing] is character: ized by an animal [sacrifice] . . . [And] when [they proceed] with the rest of the animal at the third pressing, this [pressing] is characterized by an animal [sacrifice].” (Kāt:haka XXVI 7, 130.2)

Moreover, Indra and Agni are virtually the only deities mentioned as recipients of meat in the Rgveda (cf. RV 5.29.8, 8.12.8, 10.86.14; 2.7.5, 3.21, 8.43.11); the same : pair is also identified in several Rgvedic hymns as having received Soma since : ancient times (see p. 235). And these are also the two gods to whom the Savanīyapaśubandha is sacrificed (see previous). That the older ritual texts consistently speak only of the (savanīya)paśu, without naming the species of this animal (Taittirīya-Samhitā VI 3,6.3–4, 7.3, Maitrāyanī III 9.5: 122.5, : : Samhitā : Kāt:haka XXVI 7: 130.2, Śatapatha-Brāhmana : IV 2,5.12–14)—to wit: buffalo and/or bull—might be explained, and also support what is presented here, by the fact that these two kinds of animals became obsolete as sacrificial animals in post-Rgvedic times²⁴⁵ while the savanīya sacrifice only gradually came to be : (primarily) dedicated to Agni—‘The animal sacrificed on the occasion of the pressings belongs to Agni’ (Vādhūla-Śrautasūtra VII 8,22)—which is why the sacrificial animal that is associated with him, a billy goat, was ultimately prescribed.²⁴⁶ Until then, and this concerns the time of the Brāhmanas : and older Śrautasūtras,²⁴⁷ it seems in fact there was no rule regarding what kind of animal was sacrificed. For the most important Rgvedic animal sacrifice associated with : the Soma ritual we may, however, assume buffalo and bull as sacrificial animals. [278] Another²⁴⁸ of the animal sacrifices mentioned at the beginning of this section, the Agnīs: omīyapaśubandha, also seems to have been performed as early as the Rgvedic period. RV 1.93, the only song dedicated to the Agni-Soma : pairing—which was only nascent, so to speak, in the Rgveda²⁴⁹—seems to have : been used at (or composed for) the goat sacrifice remarked on previously.²⁵⁰ ²⁴⁴ Rather than daks: in: ābhir as in the text edition, read, with Kapis: t:hala-Samhitā XLI 5: 279.16, : purod: āśena. ²⁴⁵ Later, primarily cattle, goats, and sheep are sacrificed (see O, Religion, 354). ²⁴⁶ Passages in O, Religion, 78 fn. 3. ²⁴⁷ Not until the younger Śrautasūtras (including Āpastamba-Śrautasūtra XII 18,12–13 and Mānava-Śrautasūtra II 3,6.15), is it decreed that the savanīya animal in the Agnis: t:oma should/must be a billy goat for Agni; in the Ukthya, a billy goat too but for Agni and Indra; in the So a ram for :  daśin, Indra; and in the Atirātra, a ewe for Sarasvatī. In a sense, an intermediate stage is formed by the Āśvālayana-Śrautasūtra (V 3,3) and the Bhāradvāja-Śrautasūtra (XIII 19,8), which in the case of the and the Atirātra they Agnis: t:oma and Ukthya speak only of the savanīyapaśu, while for the So :  daśin prescribe ram and sheep. ²⁴⁸ Whether the sacrifice to Mitra and Varuna times is not discernable. That : traces back to Rgvedic : the connection of this animal sacrifice with the Soma sacrifice is ancient is surely evidenced by the Maitrāvaruna : priest, who acts only in animal sacrifices and Soma rituals. ²⁴⁹ Specifically, its stanzas 1–3 and 5–7. The only other passages mentioning this pairing in the Rgveda are 10.19.1 and 66.7. : ²⁵⁰ See B, Recherches sur lʼhistoire de la liturgie védique, Journal Asiatique 1889, 25–7, and Lö, Über das Verhältnis von Brāhman: as und Śrautasūtren, Leipzig 1908, 45.

    .  

241

Like various other offerings, animal sacrifices in the classic ritual are accompanied by pre- and post-offerings (pra- and anuyājá), ushering the main offerings in and then out again. This is seen already in the Rgvedic ritual too : (RV 10.51.8–9, 182.2). Later, two stanzas are recited for each of these offerings by the Hot:r: the Puroʼnuvākyā and the Yājyā (see p. 229). In some cases, however, the former may be omitted, as is the case with the animal sacrifice. Here, there are eleven pre-sacrifices and eleven post-sacrifices (cf. Kāt:haka XXVI 9: 133.20 and Maitrāyanī III 10,4: 135.12),²⁵¹ so that eleven Yājyā are recited before and : Samhitā : eleven after the main sacrifice. As Yājyā, stanzas of the so-called Āprī songs of the Rgveda—ancient litanies belonging to the animal sacrifice²⁵²—are used, recited by : the Hotr: upon prompting from the Maitrāvaruna : priest. In fact the stanzas of these ten Rgvedic songs seem to have been composed for the opening of the : offerings in the animal sacrifice,²⁵³ indeed by different families for their respective rituals. In the Śrauta ritual, however, the individual stanzas of the Āprīsūktas (RV 10.110) alone generally serve as Yājyā for the pre-sacrifices, while the postsacrifices also use various stanzas of the other Āprī songs.²⁵⁴ This apparently ancient use of the Āprī-Sūktas suggests a ritual—later fallen out of use—that culminated in the sacrifice of an animal to Tvas: t:r: and the goddesses Sarasvatī, Idā, : and Bhāratī (see pp. 148–50), intended to ensure the prosperous continuation of the family’s wealth in the form of children and livestock.²⁵⁵ Further details of the Rgvedic animal sacrifice can be gleaned from the songs of : the horse sacrifice (RV 1.162–164):²⁵⁶ [279] The animal was tied to the sacrificial post (see p. 221), killed by the Śamitr: , the ‘bringing to rest’ priest (see p. 234 fn. 202), with an axe (RV 1.162.9),²⁵⁷ and then cut up limb from limb with a butcher knife (RV 1.162.18).²⁵⁸ Euphemisms obscured the act of killing and served to relieve those involved of the guilt connected with the bloody deed and the revenge to be feared: “You do not die by this, you do not suffer harm. To the gods you go on easily trod paths. . . . . Aditi obtain for us guiltlessness!”

²⁵¹ These passages also list eleven additional sacrifices (upayáj) that are associated with the postsacrifices in the ritual. It seems these were not known in the Rgvedic ritual, but it is not possible to be : certain about this. ²⁵² See O, Religion, 248, 260. ²⁵³ See O, Kleine Schriften, Wiesbaden 1967, 612–13. ²⁵⁴ See S, Das altindische Thieropfer, Erlangen 1886, 90–1 fn. *. ²⁵⁵ See   B, The Āprī Hymns of the Rgveda and their Interpretation, Indo-Iranian : Journal 28 (1985), 184–5. ²⁵⁶ This applies, of course, only when the ‘ordinary’ animal sacrifice was performed in the same manner as the horse sacrifice. [462] ²⁵⁷ In the classic animal sacrifice, the sacrificial animal is suffocated. Yet the ancient form of slaughter has been preserved in the domestic ritual. ²⁵⁸ The instruction to cut up the sacrificial animal is spoken using the Adhrigu formula (see S, Das altindische Thieropfer, Erlangen 1886, 102–6). The name of this formula may be related to the epithet ádhrigu, which is applied to Indra (RV 1.61.1) and Agni (RV 3.21.4) in the Rgveda. :

242

    . 

(RV 1.162.21–22). The slaughtered animal was roasted on a spit until the meat was done, while other parts were cooked through by boiling them in a pot. After checking, with the aid of sticks, to make sure it was done,²⁵⁹ the meat was served on plates (sūnā).́ And the broth was drained from the cooking pot into bowls and served up as well (RV 1.162.11–13). The manner in which it is subdivided, more than anything else, yields insights into the actual purpose of the later animal sacrifice. For this clearly consists of two sets of actions.²⁶⁰ First the animal is killed and the omentum, which consists almost entirely of fat, is removed, boiled, and offered up to the fire as the main sacrifice. After a significant break, marked by gifts to the priests and acts of cleansing, the body of the animal is dismembered and some parts of it are sacrificed, others consumed. Apparently, there was a distinct caesura between the offering of the inedible part of the animal as a sacrifice to the gods and the consumption of the meat by those performing the sacrifice.²⁶¹ The Vedic animal sacrifice thus shows striking similarities to the Olympian food sacrifice, in which the offerings are notoriously limited to the inedible parts of the animal—bones, subcutis and gall bladder.²⁶² Apparently, in both cases, animal slaughter for the purpose of eating the animals was permissible only as part of a ritual, in which the gods received the inedible parts of the animal as their sacrificial portion. [280] In addition to the Soma rituals, occasions for performing an animal sacrifice apparently included—probably already in Rgvedic times—the arrival of : a guest, which included every wedding (see pp. 251–6) and honouring the deceased ancestors in the As: t:akā ceremonies (see p. 263).²⁶³

7.10.3 The horse sacrifice One animal sacrifice that designates a specific animal²⁶⁴ is the horse sacrifice, or Aśvamedha, which was probably inherited from primitive Indo-European times (see p. 45). This was a festival of the ruler cult, reserved for one who has attained ²⁵⁹ In the classic animal sacrifice, the Adhvaryu asks the Śamitr: three times whether the meat is done. And only when this solemn query has been answered in the affirmative do the ritual procedures continue (see S, Das altindische Thieropfer, Erlangen 1886, 135). ²⁶⁰ Unlike, for example, the Śūlagava ritual, in which a cow is slaughtered and offered up in its entirety to Rudra and other gods. ²⁶¹ See O, Religion, 358–60. ²⁶² M, Griechische Opferbräuche, Gesammelte Schriften, Vol. 2, Basel—Stuttgart 1975, 935–1010, explains this strange distribution of the sacrifice as resulting from the adaptation of a hunting ritual, which consisted in returning the essential components—especially bones and fur—to the animal for its regeneration. ²⁶³ Animal sacrifices marking the change of seasons, or the solstices may also date back to Rgvedic : times (see H, Ritual-Litteratur, Vedische Opfer und Zauber, Strasbourg 1897, 121, and K, Das Ritual der Feuergründung, Vienna 1982, 534–5 fn. 1456). ²⁶⁴ Before the horse was sacrificed, a billy goat and—not attested for the Rgvedic ritual—a ‘four: eyed’ dog (a dog with two spots above its eyes) were sacrificed, or simply killed. The goat is meant to

    .  

243

the highest status possible.²⁶⁵ The horse, slaughtered for the good of the community (see p. 241), is said to bring victory and life to the king: ‘Wealth of good cattle, of good horses shall the racer make for us, sons who are men, and wealth that makes all prosper! . . . May the horse, that is accompanied by offerings, procure for us kingly power!’ (RV 1.162.22).²⁶⁶ An important part of this ritual²⁶⁷—attested for the Rgvedic period by RV 1.162.15, 3.53.11, and 4.38.8–10 : (see p. 90)—is that the horse runs free for one year prior to the sacrifice, on land already conquered or yet to be conquered, accompanied by the king’s retainers, who engage in combat with any tribes that seek to hinder the horse in its movements. While there are verses about horse sacrifices of ancient kings, such as those collected in Śatapatha-Brāhmana : XIII 5,4, that repeatedly mention the sacrifice being offered up to Indra the V:rtra-slayer, this is notably not the case in the ‘Horse Songs’, RV 1.162 and 1.163. And apparently, ‘an ancient fixed reference to a deity . . . was not developed with any consistency’.²⁶⁸ Yet the horse sacrifice was, as shown by the enumeration of the priests in RV 1.162.5, already connected with the Soma ritual at the time of the Rgveda,²⁶⁹ such that other animal sacrifices : were committed together with it. Like these, the actual Aśvamedha also served to establish both commensality and—complementarily [281]—hierarchy: ‘Those who sit waiting for a share of the horse’s flesh, . . .’ (RV 1.162.12). Aside from the fatty pieces, it seems only small pieces of the flesh were sacrificed into the fire, and only one from each limb (RV 1.162.19). Regarding details of the ritual, we learn from RV 1.162 that at the beginning of the sacrifice the horse was led around the sacrificial site three times, preceded by the goat (4)—a form of Paryagnikarana :

show the horse the way to heaven, while the dog, representing the divine female dog Saramā, is to lead it over the underworld river Rasā to new life (see K, Der vieräugige Hund im Aśvamedha, Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde Südasiens 16 [1972], 27–39). ²⁶⁵ While the later Aśvamedha had a clear connection to notions about fertility, it seems the Rgveda : provides no indication as to whether this link had characterized the Rgvedic horse sacrifice as well. : ²⁶⁶ As it says in Śatapatha Brāhmana : XIII 2,2.15: ‘The horse is princely power’. ²⁶⁷ RV 10.56 seems to speak of a horse sacrifice performed as part of a funeral, [463] in that the horse (possibly that of the deceased) is given to the deceased as a sacrificial offering to accompany him to the afterworld (see Noten on the song and cf. O, Religion, 474 fn. 3). ²⁶⁸ O, Religion, 473, quoted here, strongly emphasizes the ‘magical character’ of the horse sacrifice: Are we not dealing with a magical offering, far more than an offering directed as a gift to the god . . . ? The horse embodies royal power and majesty. Consecrations increase this inherent potency to the highest degree. His wandering freely for a year . . . brings the whole country in contact with him. Finally, the animal is sacrificed: through this, that magical power is poured into the sacrificer in the strongest concentration on the one hand, while on the other, its effects are spread throughout the world. (Religion, 473–4) ²⁶⁹ General considerations have led to the conclusion that this was the ‘great’ Soma sacrifice celebrating the New Year. What might follow from that—namely, that the sacrificed horse had been the victor’s mount in a contest for tribal leadership—would have to be shown through detailed studies of the Vedic texts. If this conjecture is proved correct, a comparison of the Aśvamedha horse with the equus October of the Roman cult could provide further insights regarding the Indo-European horse sacrifice (see p. 45).

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    . 

(see p. 221)²⁷⁰—and that a ‘priest’ dismembered the horse, with two others assisting him (RV 1.162.19).

7.10.4 The Sautrāmanī : The Aśvins are the focus of two rituals: the Sautrāmanī : and the Pravargya (see p. 247). The Sautrāmanī,²⁷¹ in which the offering of a bloodless sacrifice : (havis) is combined with an animal sacrifice, is characterised by Surā²⁷² and usually milk²⁷³ being offered to the Aśvins, Sarasvatī, and to Indra Sutrāman, who ‘gives good protection’. In addition, a billy goat is offered to the two Aśvins, a ram to Sarasvatī and a bull to Indra. The purpose of this ritual is to ‘restore power’ to one who had ‘lost it’—for example, by ‘vomiting’²⁷⁴ the Soma or by being anointed a ‘prince’ (Kāt:haka XII 10: 172.18–22, Maitrāyanī II 4,1: : Samhitā : 38.14–39.3; cf. Āpastamba-Śrautasūtra XIX 4,11).²⁷⁵ This is done by pouring the remains of an offering from the animal sacrifice over the one who is to be restored to strength, while speaking the words: ‘With the remedy of the Aśvins I pour over you splendour and prestige, with the remedy of Sarasvatī I pour over you strength and abundance of food, with the power of Indra I pour over you strength, glory and fame’ (Vājasaneyi-Samhitā XX 3; cf. Āpastamba-Śrautasūtra XIX 9,13). This : method of invigoration is ‘modelled’²⁷⁶ on the healing Indra received at the hands of the Aśvins and Sarasvatī when he was ill from drinking—apparently as a result of too much Soma [282].²⁷⁷ With regard to the ritual, the Rgveda, which primarily presents the myth : ́ a, a mixture of Surā and Soma (RV (see p. 181),²⁷⁸ at most tells us that surām 10.131.4), was sacrificed to the Aśvins.²⁷⁹ This is confirmed by the younger ritual,

²⁷⁰ Compare RV 4.15.1: ‘Agni . . . , a war horse, is led in a circle [around the sacrificial site]’. ²⁷¹ The classic ritual has two types of Sautrāmanī: : the Caraka Sautrāmanī : (which is part of other rituals such as the Rājasūya) and the Kaukilī Sautrāmanī, : the latter an independent ritual. ²⁷² Various texts in the Āyurveda tradition speak of the ‘healing’ effect of Surā. ²⁷³ The complex circumstances—primarily concerning the two types of Sautrāmanī : (see above, fn. 271)—can be passed over at this point. ²⁷⁴ ‘Vomiting’ is not really an accurate description of what happens. In fact the Soma, which makes the drinker nauseous, gushes from his nose, eyes, and ears. ²⁷⁵ The addition of wolf, tiger and lion hair to the oblation also has this effect (see O, Religion, 367). These animals had come into being when Indra was made ill by the Soma and it gushed from his nose, eyes and ears (see, among others, Kāt:haka XII 10: 172.16–17). ²⁷⁶ See O, Kleine Schriften, Wiesbaden 1967, 636 [464]. ²⁷⁷ See O, Religion, 157. ²⁷⁸ The preponderance of myth over ritual in this case led O, Religion, 505, to surmise that, in the Sautrāmanī, : ‘in the farthest distance, beginnings of religious-dramatic representations are presaged’, since ‘to all appearances the Prius is rather the story than the rite’ (Religion, 52 fn.). ²⁷⁹ O, Noten on RV 10.131.4, tells of a proposed explanation of this word submitted to him by J. B that seems to hit the mark: ‘Appended to the element common to the naming of súrā and sóma, su- (so-), is the -rā from sú]rā, [and] the -ma from só]ma’. In RV 7.96.2, such a mixture is apparently called ándhasī ‘the two drinks’ (see Noten ad loc.).

    .  

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which very clearly correlates with the Rgvedic myth in that the Aśvins receive : Surā,²⁸⁰ or Surā mixed with milk (see previous), where milk replaces the Soma in accordance with a familiar paradigm (see p. 225).²⁸¹ When one unites the verses and phrases used in both types of Sautrāmanī : with the interpretation that this ritual underwent in the Brāhmanas—where the ritual is frequently associated with : the myths of the Soma theft from Tvas: t::r’s house and the slaying of Viśvarūpa (Kāt:haka XII 10, Maitrāyanī II 4,1, Śatapatha-Brāhmana : Samhitā : : V 5,4) or of Namuci by Indra (Śatapatha-Brāhmana : XII 7,3.1–4)—the aspect of fighting appears alongside that of regeneration.²⁸² The two can be connected if one assumes that in the Sautrāmanī period, which is : to be postulated for the Rgvedic : perceptible in RV 10.131, sacrifices were made to the Aśvins and Sarasvatī because they assisted Indra in overpowering Namuci and then ‘regenerated’ him after he had been weakened by the fight. Battle, regeneration, gods who are responsible for transition (see pp. 104–5), and a river goddess ‘from whom one would not want to go away to foreign lands’ (RV 6.61.14)—does this suggest a ritual in which the leader and his warriors were ‘regenerated’ upon returning from battle? The ‘drinking’ so characteristic of the Sautrāma : ni, : by which Surā and Soma are ‘separated from each other’, seems to indicate that the ‘regenerating’ very specifically consists in purification from what had been consumed ‘out there’. In other words: with the Sautrāmanī, : those who had been ‘outside’ were literally ‘detoxified’ and reintegrated into society.²⁸³ The sacrifice to deceased ancestors (see p. 262 fn. 392), later performed as a part of this ritual, may be a tribute to warriors who had fallen in battle, and the barley, which played a significant role [283] in it, could point to spring or autumn—times of harvest and hence of the yearly raids (cf. RV 7.30.3)—as the usual time of this ritual. If the previous idea is ²⁸⁰ RV 1.116.7 states that ‘the Aśvins poured a hundred jars of Surā from the hoof of the steed as a strainer’. Note that in the classic Sautrāmanī : ritual, both the hoof of the animal sacrificed to the Aśvins (cf. Śatapatha-Brāhmana : XII 8,3.13 and Āpastamba-Śrautasūtra XIX 9,3–4) and a ‘strainer’ (ŚatapathaBrāhmana : XII 9,1.2 and Āpastamba-Śrautasūtra XIX 6,1–5) are used. ²⁸¹ Thus the substance sacrificed to the Aśvins is half Surā—a drink for mortals—and half Soma— the drink of the gods—which corresponds exactly to their position in the pantheon (see p. 104). Compare Jaiminīya-Brāhmana : III 229, where it is said of Soma and Surā: ‘. . . the two drinks . . . the divine and the mortal’ ( . . . ubhe andhasī . . . yac ca daivyam : yac ca mānus: am). On use of the term ándhas for Soma and Surā, see above, fn. 279. ²⁸² Verses 6 and 7 of the ‘Sautrāmani : song’ RV 10.131 are identical to verses 12 and 13 of the ‘battle song’ RV 6.47. And the vīryèn: a ví-√:rdh, so characteristic of the Brāhmana : interpretation of the Sautrāmanī, : appears in a significant context in Kāt:haka IX 17,120.20: ‘He who wins a battle loses his strength’ (es: a vīryen: a vy:rdhyate, yas sam : grāmam : jayati). Kāt:haka XII 10,172.21–22 moreover draws a link between the loss of power through the ‘vomiting’ of the Soma and the loss of power ultimately in battle: ‘He who ‘vomits’ the Soma truly loses his strength’. . . . He who is anointed with the Rājasūya truly loses his strength. For he slays the Vr: tra’ (vīryen: a vā es: a vy:rdhyate yam : somo ʼtipavate . . . vīryen: a vā es: a vy:rdhyate yo rājasūyenābhis: icyate, v:rtram : hi hanti). [465] ²⁸³ One of the ways this reintegration was achieved in later times was through the Vrātyastomas: ‘After they have performed the Vrātyastoma, . . . , it will [once again] be acceptable to associate with them’ (Kātyāyana-Śrautasūtra XXII 5,27–28; see H, Vrātya and Sacrifice, Indo-Iranian Journal 6 (1962–63), 4–7). It may be recalled that, according to Attic legend, before assuming rule in Athens, Theseus underwent purification rites after having rid Attica of robbers and monsters.

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    . 

correct, then the post-Rgvedic period must have seen a re-evaluation of the myth : which in turn led to a transformation of the ritual: the killing of Namuci/ Viśvarūpa is now considered a Brahman murder, and the ritual is performed to release the perpetrator from its negative consequences.

7.10.5 The Pravargya According to the Śrautasūtra—the texts of the classic ritual—the Pravargya, ‘the ritual characterised by seclusion’,²⁸⁴ comprises five complexes of rites: preparing and offering up a hot milk mixture for the Aśvins; making the clay Mahāvīra pot²⁸⁵ for heating the milk; arranging the instruments used in this ritual into the shape of a man; subsequently disposing of the instruments (by depositing them on an island); and the Avāntaradīks: ā, the ‘intermediate consecration’, a number of regulations for the one who must learn Pravargya texts. Since the drink called Gharma in the Rgvedic ritual,²⁸⁶ however, was prepared in a metal pot : (RV 5.30.15),²⁸⁷ the rites relating to this pot, which is sometimes also called Gharma (RV 1.164.26, 5.30.15, 43.7, 10.106.8), might have become components of the ritual only later. In the Rgvedic Gharma ritual,²⁸⁸ which was apparently far less elaborate than : the later Pravargya, the Gharma was probably prepared by coating the metal pot with honey (RV 5.43.7) and then smoking it over a fire of horse dung²⁸⁹

²⁸⁴ On the name of the ritual, first attested in Kāt:haka (XXXVII 7: 88.2–3) and in the Maitrāyanī : Samhitā (IV 9,2: 122.15), see H, Pra-vargyà-, pari-vargyà-, vāsudeva-vargyà, Nyāya-Vasis: :t ha, : Felicitation Volume of Prof. V. N. Jha, Kolkata 2006, 34–44. Another, less convincing explanation sees the name as derived from the rite of ‘putting [the Gharma pot] to the fire’ (gharmáś cit taptáh: pravŕ̥je, RV 5.30.15). ²⁸⁵ The pot is made using materials of high symbolic value (such as earth from an ant hill, earth turned over by a rooting boar, hair from a goat), which gives the Mahāvīra pot certain characteristics required for the ritual. It seems particularly important that through the manner of fabrication, it takes on an Agni-like nature. This is reinforced by having the materials sniffed at by a stallion, which like the goat is an ‘Agni animal’, and by infusing the finished pot with smoke. ²⁸⁶ In the classic ritual, the Pravargya is linked to the Upasad ceremonies (with their sacrifices in the morning and in the afternoon) in that it usually precedes them and is carried out just as often as they are. Thus during a Soma sacrifice with one pressing day and three Upasad days, six Pravargya libations are offered: one in the morning of each Upasad day and one in the afternoon. The more pressing days— and thus Upasad days—there are, the greater the number of Pravargya sacrifices (up to twenty-four). In the Rgvedic ritual, however, the ‘Pravargya’ seems to have been independent, and performed early in : the morning (see O, Religion, 448–9). ²⁸⁷ It is not clear from the text, however, whether a metal pot was used exclusively. ²⁸⁸ The name, which despite claims to the contrary is not used anywhere to designate the ritual as such, would serve to distinguish it from the Pravargya of later times. ²⁸⁹ Since RV 1.164 in particular has various references to the Pravargya, [466] and since this Sūkta is positioned in the Rgveda directly after two ‘horse songs’ (RV 1.162–163), it may be assumed that a : horse already played an important role in the Rgvedic form of the ritual, just as in later times. :

    .  

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(RV 1.164.43). Then ghee was poured into it,²⁹⁰ and the pot was covered with a plate (RV 1.164.28) and heated over a fire until the ghee boiled and the pot itself glowed. At this point milk, fresh from the cow, was poured in [284] and shot out again like a ‘lightning bolt’ in a bubbling surge.²⁹¹ More milk was added, producing copious steam (RV 1.164.27–29), and the scalding hot milk drink— sometimes referred to as Soma (RV 8.9.4/7)—was offered to Indra²⁹² and the Aśvins. They received this libation as the divine guests at the sacrifice (see following examples). The ‘Gharma ritual’ was celebrated at the summer solstice. This is indicated by not only by RV 7.103.9,²⁹³ but also by RV 1.164.43:²⁹⁴ ‘I saw from afar the smoke from the [ignited horse] dung on Vis: ūvat day . . .’. On Vis: ū̆vat, the day of the summer solstice, and according to RV 7.103.9²⁹⁵ the first day of the New Year, the pot was smoked, as the previous stanza notes, and—referring again to RV 7.103.9—‘poured out hot’. The references in the Rgveda to this ritual are fully confirmed by the : younger Vedas, which repeatedly refer to the sun and the heat of the sun, both of which are intimately connected with the Gharma: ‘From the sun they brought the Gharma’ (RV 10.181.3). The offering of the Gharma is intended to strengthen the sun. The need for this is made clear by the timing of the ceremony: the rainy season is imminent and the approaching monsoon clouds will ‘trap’ the sun for weeks, so the sun needs this prior strengthening to survive the long period of obnubilation. At the same time, however, this ritual is aimed at ensuring the onset of the rainy season. And those who had to do this year after year were the ones to whom the ‘Gharma sacrifice’ was primarily directed: the initiates of the tribe. In this respect, too, scattered references in the Rgveda can be supple: mented by materials in the younger texts to form a clear picture of the initiates as the tribe’s rain sorcerers. Indeed the fact that the ‘Gharma ritual’ was intended for the initiates is evident from a one-year ‘vow’ that had preceded the Rgvedic ritual and corresponds entirely with the later Avāntaradīks: ā, of which it : is said:

²⁹⁰ It may be that the mádhu used to coat or fill the pot in RV 5.43.7, 8.87.2 and 10.106.8 refers to ghee, which—as far as can be seen—is not otherwise mentioned. In that case, the previous statement would need to be modified accordingly. ²⁹¹ The milk shooting out of the pot is reminiscent—surely not by chance—of ejaculation, as suggested by the Prāyaścittas taught in Ӓ¯pastamba-Śrautasūtra XV 17,1, which are intended to ‘compensate for’ this splashing of the Gharma: ‘The sky has sprayed the earth, the young bull has sprayed the cows; sprayed are all these worlds, the sacrifice shall, sprayed, beget us descendants. . . . We would like to procreate from this spray’. ²⁹² Indra no longer receives a Gharma offering in the classic Pravargya. ²⁹³ The stanza is part of the so-called frog song, a very important hymn for the Rgvedic Gharma : ritual, which says that the frogs begin to speak at the onset of the rainy season. ²⁹⁴ RV 5.30.13 and 15 also give details regarding the time of the Gharma ritual. ²⁹⁵ See J, Kleine Schriften, Wiesbaden 1970, 258.

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    . 

“As poets who have lain there for a year, keeping their [285] vows,²⁹⁶ the frogs have now raised their voice, which was driven by Parjanya. . . . . The poets, who are characterized by a Soma peculiar to them (= the Gharma), made sounds articulating their annual song (= which they had rehearsed for a year). The Adhvaryus, who are characterized by a heat peculiar to them (= that of the Gharma), having sweated, have [now] become visible. Not a single one is hidden [anymore]. . . . . When the rainy season has come after one year, the heated Gharma pots will be emptied”. (RV 7.103.1, 7–8)

Like the later ‘intermediate consecration’, this phase of the seclusion was thus devoted to learning ‘poetry’. And according to various stanzas of the ‘frog song’ just quoted, those who had to practice these ‘poems’ for a year—the ‘frogs’, that is—were adolescents being taught by their fathers (RV 7.103.3). In this, too, the ‘Gharma vow’ coincides with the subsequent Avāntaradīks: ā, which in the classic ritual is a year-long phase of intensive text study that the Brahmacārin—it is he, and not the Yajamāna, for whom the Avāntaradīks: ā is intended—must complete. This one-year vow comes to its end, as is clear from RV 7.103.9 (see p. 16 fn. 54), with the celebration of Pravargya just before the onset of the rainy season. The context of all this is shown by, on the one hand, those passages of the younger Vedic texts that speak of vows connected with the learning of certain sections of the Veda, the so-called Vedavratas; and on the other hand by various Aśvin myths in which the Gharma plays a role. One of the latter reports that the Aśvins rescued Atri from a fissure in the earth by giving him the Gharma to drink.²⁹⁷ The sacrifice of the Gharma drink to them was instituted—likely by Atri himself—as a way of giving thanks for this (RV 1.180.4, 5.73.6). This and similar myths²⁹⁸—most notably the ‘rescues’ of Rebha²⁹⁹ and Vandana—share the institution of initiation as a central theme. And the aforementioned Vedavratas, [286] certain vows taken during the time of initiation, point to this as well. Thus it may be permissible to supplement the clues found in the Rgveda pertaining to the Pravargya³⁰⁰ with :

²⁹⁶ Compare Āpastamba-Śrautasūtra XV 21,1: ‘For one year he practices this observance. In that one year, he learns [the Pravargya sections of the Veda]’. ²⁹⁷ That Atri, himself one of those saved by the Aśvins, rescues the sun from an unnatural darkening (see pp. 178–9) is surely related to the task assigned to the initiates—described below—of strengthening the sun for the time of its being veiled by the monsoon clouds. ²⁹⁸ They are typically characterized by the sequence separation, liminalisation, and reintegration that is so typical of rites of passage. And the locations from which some are rescued by the Aśvins, such as a pit, hole, or hollow log, are familiar from initiation rituals encountered the world over. Note that Indra, too, rescues Kutsa from a pit (RV 1.106.6). ²⁹⁹ Rebha’s plight is described with the same verb from which [467] the name Pravargya is derived: ‘[You Aśvins], you raised up Rebha, who . . . was set apart in the water (práv:rkta)’. ³⁰⁰ These are also taken from the ‘frog song’ (RV 7.103), in which the initiates, reciting the texts for the first time after a year of initiation, are compared to croaking frogs and bleating cows and goats, as well as from the ‘Riddle Hymn’ RV 1.164 and the related song 10.177, and from RV 10.181.

    .  

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information from younger Vedic texts on the Upanayana ritual. According to this, the first phase of initiation,³⁰¹ in the sixteenth year of the youth’s life, is dedicated to learning the traditional knowledge of the Vedic tribes and ends with the Pravargya: the Rgvedic initiation ceremony. This marked the youths’ reaching : the age of majority. The change of status was outwardly made manifest by a ritual cutting of their hair, including facial hair,³⁰² a rite linked with slaughtering a cow.³⁰³ After this ceremony, in which the Gharma was offered to the Aśvins for their aid to the initiates in crossing the threshold of Epheben age,³⁰⁴ it was time for the young men, of whom up to that point celibacy had been required, to have their first sexual experience. This apparently happened in the—later severely maligned—Sabhā (see p. 11).³⁰⁵ The next change of status was marked by marriage and the establishment of a hearth; thus the initiates—each of them

³⁰¹ An allusion to cincture on the occasion of initiation, attested by Atharvaveda XI 5,4 (= Paippalāda XVI 153,4) for the older Vedic period, might be contained in RV 3.8.4—where it is apparently compared to the girding of the sacrificial post—a stanza which is indeed used by some schools in the Upanayana: ‘The youth, well-dressed [and] girded, has come here. [New]born he becomes even more splendid’. Note, by the way, that the Mahāvīra pot is also girded (cf. ĀpastambaŚrautasūtra XV 3,3). ³⁰² Cutting the hair is also spoken of in RV 1.164.44: ‘After one year, one of the [long-maned] shears himself ’. The expression keśín is significant in various passages of Vedic texts dealing with ritual cutting of hair (e.g. Atharvaveda Paippalāda II 52,1, Āpastamba-Śrautasūtra XVIII 22,10 and MānavaŚrautasūtra IX 1,5.44). Thus, as in many other cultures, the sixteenth year—the end of puberty— marked a fundamental break in the life of Vedic man, accentuated by specific rites. And among them is remarkably often the cutting of the hair and the nascent facial hair. Likewise Greek boys also had their hair and beard cut when they reached the Ephebes age, in their sixteenth year, and among the Germanic tribes on the occasion of the bestowal of arms. ³⁰³ This Godāna ritual is prescribed by all Gr: hyasūtras and also by some Dharmasūtras, in striking agreement, for the pupil’s sixteenth year. But it is not clear from any of these texts on which special occasion and at what exact time this should take place. K, History of Dharmaśāstra, Vol. II, Part 1, Poona ²1974, 405, points out that this rite gradually went out of fashion, to such an extent that the medieval manuals have hardly a word to say about it. Earlier, however, it must have [468] been a very important time within the initiation, because on the occasion of this Godāna—here, too, the texts agree—a cow is given to the teacher, i.e. presumably slaughtered. ³⁰⁴ RV 10.15.9 (cf. 10.16.10) speaks of a Gharma drink for the deceased, which can be interpreted in light of the close relationship that usually exists between them and the initiates. The ‘fathers’ must then also—at least according to Taittirīya-Āranyaka V 7,8—give their consent to the performance of a : Pravargya (see O, Religion, 568). ³⁰⁵ Assuming the Pravargya marked the beginning of the ‘men’s house phase’ of the initiation, another remarkable aspect of this ritual can be explained in light of this. For Āpastamba-Śrautasūtra XV 15,1 prescribes that at the end of the Pravargya, the sacrificial implements are to be arranged in such a way as to represent the figure of a man—a procedure also followed in the rites for the dead and the Samnyāsa (see O, Religion 583, C Die altindischen Todten- und : Bestattungsgebräuche, Amsterdam 1896, 88–9, and S, Kat:haśruti und Mānavaśrautasūtra, Studien zur Indologie und Iranistik 13/14 [1987], 241). This prescription—also found in other Vedic texts—; the aforementioned ritual parallels; and the description of the Pravargya as a man by the Brāhmanas : (see H, Ritual-Litteratur, Vedische Opfer und Zauber, Strasbourg 1897, 135), all become understandable if this ritual marks the end of the first phase of the initiation: Now the young man has, so to speak, become constituted. This likely explains why various texts prescribe that the V 6,2 Pravargya sacrifice be performed only once (in a lifetime) (see, for example, Taittirīya-Āranyaka : and Bhāradvāja-Śrautasūtra XI 20,6).

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    . 

now with his own hearth and his own wife—became full members of the Vedic tribal society.³⁰⁶ The Vedavratas, on the other hand—special vows required of those who wished to learn certain texts of the Veda—reveal the connection between elements of the ‘frog song’, the initiates, and the Pravargya ritual.³⁰⁷ The ‘frog song’ clearly links the croaking of the frogs, the text recitations by the initiates, and the arrival and outbreak of the monsoon in such a way that it makes the frogs’ croaking, of which it repeatedly speaks so vividly, correspond to the downpour of rain from the monsoon clouds. In a kind of analogy magic, it is the ‘syllabic’ recitation—i.e. at first actually stuttering—by the initiates of what they had learned during their year-long training that in fact causes the downpour. This close association of ‘rain magic’ with text study on the part of the [287] initiates is also shown quite strikingly by several of the Vedavratas. The Veda student who wishes to learn the Śakvarī song, part of what must be learned in the Sāmaveda, has to observe certain practices while studying it, including the following: three times a day he has to touch water; he must wear black clothes and eat black food; when it rains he must sit down, but not under a roof; to the raining sky he must say ‘water is the Śakvarī song’. If ‘he fulfils these observances, Parjanya will rain at his will’ because ‘the Mahānāmnīs’—another name for the Śakvarī song—‘bring about water’ (Gobhila-G:rhyasūtra III 2). It is abundantly clear how the Veda disciple is made a rain-bringer through constant association with water. Comparison with the Kārīrīs: t:i, a ritual to be performed by one who ‘desires rain’ (ĀpastambaŚrautasūtra XIX 25,16), shows that by wearing black clothing he becomes, as it were, a dark rain cloud.³⁰⁸ The initiate who has taken the Vedavrata vows is intimately associated not only with rain, but also with the sun. He must keep the ‘vow of the sun’, which consists of wearing only one garment and not allowing anything but trees and houses to come between him and the sun (Gobhila-Gr: hyasūtra III 1:30–32). In this context, it is essential to note that the same applies to the Veda student studying the Pravargya texts: ‘He shall observe the following. He must not cover himself in the sunshine. . . . He must not spit in the sunshine. . . . He must not urinate in the sunshine . . . [all this,] lest he injure [the sun] by these things. At night, he should eat with a light burning. Thus he makes of himself an image of him who shines’

³⁰⁶ Various points in the G:rhyasūtras’ account of the Upanayana ritual, among other things, suggest that the Snātaka was originally the young man moving into the ‘men’s house’, and not, as is the case in the ‘classic’ ritual, the one who has finally completed his training period. Thus the Pravargya marked the time of the Samāvartana ritual (or its predecessor), which later formed the conclusion of the entire training period. It should further be noted that the observances taught by the Śatapatha-Brāhmana : XIV 1,1.28–33 to the ‘Pravargya students’ are given by the Pāraskara-G:rhyasūtra (II 8)—almost verbatim— for the Snātaka. [469] ³⁰⁷ It is also important to note that some traditions of Vedic ritual have a Pravargya observance that is counted among the Vedavratas (see Mānava-G:rhyasūtra I 23,21 and Vārāha-G:rhyasūtra VII 17–22). ³⁰⁸ On all of this, see O, Religion, 420–1.

    .  

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(Śatapatha-Brāhmana : XIV 1,1.33). At the same time, it is emphasized that he who learns the Pravargya texts must respect and protect the sun. With the Pravargya ritual he strengthens the sun and thus gets it through the rainy season without harm [288]. In doing so, he performs an act of rescue very much like that of the Aśvins who steer the sun through the perilous night. What connects these two—at first glance somewhat contradictory— observances, i.e. that concerning the rain and that concerning the sun, is made clear by the timing of the Pravargya ritual, which takes place at the intersection of the greatest heat of the sun and the outbreak of the monsoon rains. The associations formed by these observances for the initiate reflect his ‘task’ of strengthening the sun before its darkening during the rainy season and at the same time bringing about the rain. Both obligations are central themes in the (so-called) ‘Riddle Hymn’ (RV 1.164), which revolves around the Pravargya and the concomitant vow. While the sun is spoken of throughout this song, albeit often cryptically, the final part of the song is about a kind of ‘useful application’ of rain. The Maruts have long been recognized as divine images of the initiates (see p. 129). Those songs and stanzas in the Rgveda that speak of the Pravargya : unmistakeably confirm this view. After all, just as the frogs with whom the initiates are compared in the Rgveda’s ‘frog song’ (7.103) are said to ‘create poetry’ : (akrata bráhma, RV 7.103.8), the Maruts are said to be the ‘poetry-creating crowd’ (brahmakŕ̥tā māŕ utenā gan: éna, RV 3.32.2, cf. 6.52.2). Like the frogs (RV 7.103.1), the Maruts are called ‘poets’ (RV 5.29.3), and just as the frogs are said to be ‘men’ (RV 7.103.9), so are the Maruts. The Pravargya was thus part of the predecessor to the Upanayana, the classic initiation ritual ‘whose origin in the pre-Vedic past’ is attested by the correspondence of ‘the Avestan cincture with the sacred cord by which the fifteen-year-old is admitted into the community of Zoroastrians’ and the post-Rgvedic ritual.³⁰⁹ : There are various indications that the Pravargya belongs together with the [289] later Samāvartana, which concludes the initiation in the classic ritual. Yet it seems this ritual of the ‘homecoming of the Veda student’ was located at precisely the point of transition which formerly had been marked by the Pravargya.

7.10.6 The wedding ritual As was the case right up to the recent past, marriages in Rgvedic times were : performed in three stages, each consisting of a series of rites. This ensured that the separation of the young wife from her family was gradual—one of the features shared with funerary rituals, which provide for a gradual separation from the

³⁰⁹ O, Religion, 467.

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    . 

deceased. The first stage comprised courtship and ‘betrothal’; the second, the bride’s conveyance to and entering of her husband’s home; the third was the actual wedding.³¹⁰ RV 10.85, the wedding song of the Rgveda, also tells of : these three stages. The theme of stanzas 6 through 17 is the courtship and betrothal; stanzas 18 to 33, the conveyance to and the entry of the bride into her new home; and stanzas 34 to 47, the actual wedding. Collated with information in the Brāhmanas : and Gr: hyasūtras, the course of a wedding ceremony of the late Rgvedic period can be reconstructed from this song—which consistently identifies : the bride with Sūryā, the daughter of the sun; the twilight before the dawn (see pp. 38–9). In the Sūryāsūkta, as the Vedic tradition calls this song, mythemes and reflections of Vedic life are intermingled. It addresses every human bride as the wife first of Soma, then of Gandharva, and finally of Agni, from whom her future husband will take her as his own wife (RV 10.85.40–41).³¹¹ Each of these spouses is assigned to one of the three stages of marriage mentioned previously: she is with Soma during the phase of wooing and betrothal;³¹² during the subsequent conveyance to her new home, [290] the bride is in the ‘power’ of the Gandharva Viśvāvasu,³¹³ and during the wedding ceremony, which is held only after she enters her new home, Agni is her consort. Before a wedding can take place, the marriage must be arranged. This falls to the family of the bridegroom-to-be. The texts show clearly that the choice of a suitable spouse was a matter of great importance. In particular, the husband had to be shielded from the ‘danger’ inherent in taking a wife who was a stranger to him, as noted in various stanzas: ‘Be without evil eye, not killing your husband’ (RV 10.85.44). He was even mourned when he decided to marry (RV 10.40.10). The Arthaśāstra, the Dharmaśāstra literature, and a few G:rhyasūtras (Āśvalāyana-G:rhyasūtra I 6, Vaikhānasa-G:rhyasūtra III,1) distinguish eight forms of marriage, differing in how the bride is won and who declares the marriage to be permissible (or who gives away the bride).³¹⁴ It is true that some of the G:rhyasūtras (Mānava-G:rhyasūtra I 7,11, Kāt:haka-G:rhyasūtra XV–XVI, Vārāha-G:rhyasūtra X 11) speak of (or recommend) only two forms of marriage, ³¹⁰ In the Rgvedic ceremony, the wedding thus followed the transfer of the bride to her new home— : the greatest difference between this and the ‘classic’ wedding ritual (see p. 255). ³¹¹ Compare RV 10.109.2: ‘Soma, the king, was the first to return the Brahman’s wife, not angry. Reclaimer [was] Varuna, : was Mitra. Agni, as Hot:r, took [the Brahman’s] wife by the hand and led her [to him]’. ³¹² Consistent with this is the fact that Soma’s connection with Sūryā is spoken of primarily in connection with ‘winning’ her (see p. 38 and 146–7). ³¹³ And yet RV 10.85.21–22, which mention Viśvāvasu, are recited in the classic wedding ritual when the wooden staff representing this Gandharva, which lies between the married couple during the three nights of abstinence, is removed—prior to which the sexual act may not take place (see O, Religion, 88 fn. 2). The staff lying between the spouses is reminiscent, surely not coincidentally, of the sword that is intended to prevent coitus during the asidhārāvrata, the ‘swordblade vow’ mentioned in post-Vedic texts, a custom perhaps already Indo-European. ³¹⁴ In four of these—the Gāndharva, Āsura, Rāks: asa, and Paiśāca marriages—prior parental authorization is excluded. Only the acceptance of a bride-price after the fact—an integral part of the Ārs: a marriage—constitutes this permission.

    .  

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one being the Śaulka-, the other the Brāhma-marriage. Although the expressions used in the quoted passages of the G:rhyasūtras do not denote multiple forms of marriage in each case, this undoubtedly older distinction is consonant with the younger one mentioned previously: a division between marriages with (Śaulka marriage)³¹⁵ and those without (Brāhma marriage) a ‘bride-price’. By the same token, the information in the Rgveda regarding the various forms of procuring a : wife can also be divided into the following categories: —‘Śaulka marriages’: —‘Bridal purchase’: By paying a ‘purchase price’—real or imaginary—for a wife, the man also received the right of conjugal ‘governance’ (lat. manus) (cf. RV 1.109.2, 10.27.12) [291]. —Wife exchange: In a sense, a special form of bridal purchase is a wife exchange. This usually took place in the form of group A giving a woman to a group B for marriage, and in turn receiving a woman from group B (‘direct exchange’), or group A giving a woman to a group B, who in turn gave a woman to a group C, possibly continuing through further groups, with group A in the end receiving a woman from the last group in the sequence (‘indirect exchange’). —Winning a bride in a competition:³¹⁶ RV 1.119.3, 4.43.6, and 8.22.1 apparently speak of acquiring a bride in this manner, as the Aśvins win the sun’s daughter Sūryā in chariot races,³¹⁷ and, — ‘Brāhma marriages’: – Bride capture (cf. RV 4.17.16, 5.31.2, 10.107.9,10) and in some cases subsequent distribution of women in a ritual ‘distribution of loot’ (see the following).³¹⁸ – Bride as gift (RV 1.126.3, 6.27.8, 7.18.22, 8.2.42, 19.36, 46.33,³¹⁹ cf. 9.67.10–12). ³¹⁵ Specifically, the later Āsura marriage and the Ārs: a marriage. ³¹⁶ Technically, this form of bridal acquisition is referred to in later times as vīryaśulka svayam : vara. Thus the payment of a ‘bride-price’ in this form of marriage consists in the man performing a heroic deed, a custom that is the topic of numerous tales. ³¹⁷ Otherwise, however, it is always said that Sūryā chose the Aśvins as her husbands (RV 1.119.5, 7.69.4) by—quite significantly—mounting their chariots (RV 1.34.5, [470] 117.13, 118.5, 167.5, 4.43.2, 5.73.5, 6.63.5, 8.8.10), to which however, according to RV 1.116.17, all the gods had to give their consent (cf. RV 10.85.14). That this selection, according to RV 7.69.4, occurs páritakmyāyām; that is, at the crucial point of a chariot race, establishes a link to Sūryā’s being won by the Aśvins in the chariot race. The institution of svayam : vara—perhaps even inherited from Indo-European times (see p. 38 fn. 27)—is also attested for the Rgvedic period by RV 5.37.3 and 10.27.12, and probably by RV 10.17.1. : For the Indo-European antecedent of the myth of bride-stealing by the Sons of the Sky, see pp. 38–9. ³¹⁸ Women as gifts are spoken of primarily in the Dānastutis of the Rgveda (see p. 203 fn. 29). As : indicated by the few reliable mentions in the Rgveda, they were acquired through capture, a common : practice in Rgvedic times. : ³¹⁹ Since this Dānastuti speaks of the woman ‘wearing gold jewelry’ (see p. 203 fn. 29), one may see here a precursor of the later brāhma-/daiva-marriage.

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    . 

Marriage, which is intended to guarantee the continuity of a family³²⁰ and ultimately of the whole community—the reason a wedding is pleasing to the deceased ancestors (RV 10.40.10)³²¹—came about through a kind of preliminary contract, the ‘betrothal’, and through the actual marriage contract. The ‘betrothal’ was arranged between the fathers of bride and groom before the establishment of the marriage union—courting³²² and ‘betrothal’ belonging only to the ‘Śaulka marriages’—while the marriage contract was made between the bride and the groom. Since the young man intending to marry was, as a rule, under the patria potestas, he could not ask for a woman’s hand in marriage on his own behalf as a free man,³²³ but rather his father and the family arranged the marriage for him.³²⁴ For this purpose, special suitors,³²⁵ splendidly adorned (RV 5.60.4, 10.78.4), were sent to the bride’s house³²⁶ where they presented their suit by giving details regarding the bridegroom’s person (RV 10.85.15) [292].³²⁷ If all the main figures agreed to the marriage arrangement, which likely included agreeing on the form and extent of the bride-price, the betrothal followed.³²⁸ As part of that ceremony, ³²⁰ Among many other passages of the Rgveda, RV 10.183 in particular deals with the ‘fertility of the : marriage’ (O, Noten on the song). And RV 1.179 even addresses the problem of a celibate life. Various passages of the Rgveda (1.62.7, 71.1, 5.37.3, 7.18.2, 26.3, 10.101.11) indicate that a man could : have more than one wife (wives are distinguished as pariv:rktī,́ RV 10.102.11, and máhis: ī, RV 5.2.2, 37.3); others (RV 1.62.7, 2.39.2, 5.31.2) show that men also afforded themselves the luxury of concubines. On levirate (niyoga), see p. 256. ³²¹ The deceased ancestors are also the ones who grant offspring, by whom, in turn, they are honoured with oblations. ³²² There can be no doubt that the practice of courtship, which originated in Indo-European times, existed in the Rgvedic period (cf. RV 10.27.11, 78.4, 85.8–9, 14–15, Atharvaveda XIV 1.31). : ³²³ Apparently it was often her own brothers through whom a girl met her future husband (cf. RV 1.124.7, 9.96.22). A girl with no brothers was considered disreputable (cf. RV 4.5.5, Atharvaveda I 17,1), probably because she had to arrange such contacts herself [471]. ³²⁴ The same is true of the girl, and the practice of marrying off girls early further limited their opportunity to make an independent decision in choosing a husband. The request in RV 8.91.5–6 for hair growth on the ‘belly’ (which in this case presumably refers to the pubic region) with regard to getting married may be taken to mean that girls were not married before they had reached sexual maturity (on the Apālā song see p. 271 fn. 455). ³²⁵ Atharvaveda XI 8,1 speaks of a chief suitor (jyes: :t havará), presumably the father of the courting man (vadhūyú) and other suitors. ³²⁶ According to those G:rhyasūtras that mention courtship, verse 10.85.23 is spoken when the suitors leave. Judging from the position of the relevant stanza in the song, however, it is much more likely that this ‘stanza is a benediction spoken by the groom and directed at himself, the bride and the friends accompanying the couple on the bridal procession to the new home’ (A, Kleine Schriften, Stuttgart 2001, 30). ³²⁷ According to the Śāṅkhāyana-Gr: hyasūtra (I 6,3–4), this is achieved in a formal act: The suitor, holding flowers, fruits and a bowl full of water, faces the girl’s relatives to the west and loudly proclaims the Gotra name of the man who intends to marry the girl. If her father agrees to the courtship and agrees to give the daughter in marriage, both parties touch the water in the bowl that the suitor has brought. In doing so, both parties confirm absolute commitment to their given word; on the bride’s side, the promise that the girl will be given in marriage, and on the groom’s side that he will indeed marry the girl. Whether this touching of the water once the suit has succeeded may be postulated for the Rgveda as well, however, must remain an open question (see p. 112). But the existence of this legal : custom on the Roman side—aqua et igni accipere—and its great significance in post-Rgvedic times does : make it probable. ³²⁸ Since they were often complete strangers to each other, Aryaman played an essential role in the wedding ceremony (see RV 10.40.12, 68.2, 85.23, 43). See p. 107.

    .  

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which took place at the home of the bride’s father, an Argha ritual (see following example) was performed in honour of the bridegroom, who was in attendance with his family (RV 10.85.13).³²⁹ On this occasion the two families solemnly promised to give their daughter/son in marriage.³³⁰ Presumably, the date of the wedding was also fixed at this event. The wedding was held some time after the ‘betrothal’ ceremony—according to the Sūryāsukta, one month later (RV 10.85.13).³³¹ Unlike the custom in later times, the organisation and sponsorship of the wedding was the task of the groom’s father, and so the wedding was held in his home.³³² The bride and groom³³³ were conveyed to their new home in a beautifully decorated bridal chariot (RV 10.85.20–26, cf. 10.32.3–4).³³⁴ Once there, the groom was again honoured with an Argha ritual, during which once again a cow was slaughtered to feast the guests. The wedding ritual was then concluded before the wedding fire, also conveyed on the wedding carriage, as a divine witness:³³⁵ the bridegroom grasped the bride’s (right) hand and walked around the fire with her (RV 10.85.36, 38). The spoken marriage vows, which constituted the actual marriage contract, were reinforced by pouring a ceremonial libation into the fire:³³⁶ ‘They anoint [you, O Agni,] with cows (= milk/butter) like a well-made contract when you make the two spouses of one mind’ (RV 5.3.2).³³⁷

³²⁹ The term sūryāý ā vahatú is probably a Genitivius objectivus: ‘The [472] wedding procession to Sūryā has set out, which Savit:r sent’. According to verse 9d, it is Savit:r who ‘gave Sūryā to the husband’. Here, he is clearly exercising his function as the ‘Impeller’. ³³⁰ This is similar to modern-day engagement customs in Germany. ³³¹ According to stanza 13, the Argha ritual takes place on the occasion of the ‘betrothal’ in the month of Māgha, if verse c is to be so understood, and then the same ritual on the occasion of the wedding one month later. Whether this permits the conclusion that in Rgvedic times there was a : preferred or even fixed time for courtship, betrothal, and marriage—comparable to the Germanic custom of celebrating weddings in the weeks after the harvest, or to the Greek in which Gamelion was the month of marriages—remains uncertain. ³³² Where RV 10.17.1 speaks of ‘Tvas: t:r: arranging the wedding for his daughter’, this may be another indication that Saranyū In that case, the wedding would : chose her husband through a Svayamvara. : have taken place in the house of the bride’s father. ³³³ The speculation may be noted here that the final stanza of the Apālā song speaks of the ‘bath’ of the bride, which in the younger ritual is called Indrān: īkarman (see p. 154 fn. 425) or sometimes Alam : karan: a, and during which this stanza is used. Today in India this is called the Tel ceremony. In this ritual, the bride indeed becomes ‘sun-skinned’ (sūŕ yatvac), as turmeric is applied to her skin. It should also be noted that in RV 1.47.9 and 8.8.2, the chariot of the Aśvins—which plays an important role in the wedding ritual (see p. 105)—is also called thus, which in turn is reminiscent of the ‘chariot wheel hub’ through which Indra pulls Apālā. Tradition assumes that her being made ‘sun-skinned’ indicates that she had been afflicted with a skin disease. ‘Sun-skinned’ is also used in RV 7.59.11 to designate the Maruts, the divine counterparts of the (later) Snātakas, the ‘bathed ones’ (see p. 127). ³³⁴ In stanza 23, Aryaman and Bhaga are asked to ‘bring [bride and groom] together’. This collocation of Aryaman and the groom, the latter himself occasionally referred to as Aryaman, and the bride, typically referred to here as kanyā,́ ‘unmarried virgin’ (see p. 96 fn. 103), is in perfect alignment with the Rgvedic wedding ritual. [473] : ³³⁵ This wedding fire is the source of fire for the new household. ³³⁶ In the wedding song, ‘no verses at all are given for several important rites – such as the seven steps, the treading on the stone, the Lājāsacrifice’ (O, Noten on RV 10.85). ³³⁷ Also compare RV 10.68.2: ‘Like Mitra [is anointed] by strangers, [so] he anoints the two spouses’.

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    . 

Then ‘the hearts of the spouses’ were finally ‘anointed into one’ by sprinkling them with water (RV 10.85.47).³³⁸ If the husband died before his wife, one of his brothers³³⁹ could marry her and live with her (RV 10.18.8 [see p. 259 fn. 360 and p. 261], 40.2). This was frequently the youngest brother, with whom the widow had shared—according to our texts— a trusting relationship ever since joining her husband’s family. Moreover, if the husband was unable to sire progeny, one of his brothers could take on this task. Notwithstanding the dictum ‘Not offspring is [293] that begotten by others’ (RV 7.4.7), the child thus begotten was considered that of the sterile husband.³⁴⁰ Of central significance in the Rgvedic wedding ritual was the journey by chariot : of the bride and groom to their new home within the groom’s household, during which they passed through the ‘territory’ of the Gandharva.³⁴¹ For the bride, to mount the chariot meant to ‘ascend to the world of immortality’ (RV 10.85.20). The Rgveda repeatedly uses the images of mounting a chariot, primarily by a : woman, and riding in a chariot as metaphors for marriage; for example, in the myth of Aśvins and Sūryā,³⁴² or the tale of Ghos: ā in which, however, the metaphor is a chariot race (RV 10.40.5). The wedding song itself is full of allusions to and even detailed descriptions of the chariot itself and the journey in it.³⁴³ The speech uttered by the groom upon grasping the bride’s hand also indicates that the chariot ride from the wife’s home to that of her husband was ‘matrimonial’: ‘This is me, that is you; that is you, this is me; the sky is me, the earth is you; the melody of the song is me, the words of the song are you: so let us take the wedding journey’³⁴⁴ (Āśvalāyana-G:rhyasūtra I 7,6 = Pāraskara-Gr: hyasūtra I 6,3 = Śāṅkhāyana-G:rhyasūtra I 13,4 = Mānava-G:rhyasūtra I 10,15). Even in the appointment of the Purohita (see p. 117) by the king, a ceremony clearly modelled on the wedding rites, the king says: ‘Let us take the journey together’ (AitareyaBrāhmana : VIII 27,4). ³³⁸ Presumably, the burlesque of Indra and his monkey, which is the subject of RV 10.86, served to ease the embarrassment of newlyweds—faced with their first sexual intercourse—through humour, and at the same time to enhance the fertility of the act by means of ribaldry (see pp. 179–80). It is not evident from the Rgveda that there was a three-night period of abstinence—the so-called ‘Tobias : nights’—between the wedding and the first sexual intercourse. ³³⁹ This is suggested by RV 10.85.44, where devŕ̥kāmā is evidently to be read as: ‘loving the husband’s brother’ (see E/ N, The Young Wife and her Husbandʼs Brother, Journal of the American Oriental Society 111 [1991], 481–94). ³⁴⁰ According to the highly plausible interpretation found in B, The Race of Mudgala and Mudgalānī, Journal of the American Oriental Society 122 (2002), 224–34, this is mentioned in the song about the ‘Race of Mudgalānī’ (RV 10.102). ³⁴¹ The kinship terms alone, which invariably relate to the husband’s family—śvaśr (‘mother-in-law [of the wife]’), and so on—show that the woman had been separated from her family and lived in the husband’s family after marriage, a usage probably inherited from the Indo-European. ³⁴² There it is also said that Sūryā ‘chose’ the chariot of the Aśvins (see O, Religion, 212). ³⁴³ This may have led to O’s judgment of the Sūryāsūkta, which he called ‘a song full of empty priestly arcana’ (Religion, 462). ³⁴⁴ The translation follows O, Religion, 376 fn. 3. The meaning ‘to marry’ seems to have emerged from vi-√vah, ‘to drive away, to do the wedding journey’.

    .  

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7.10.7 Pregnancy and birth The Rgveda is clear that sexual intercourse between a man and a woman generally : resulted in conception when the woman was in her ‘fertile time’ (RV 5.46.8, 6.67.4, cf. 10.183.2). Yet pregnancy was not thought to follow ‘automatically’ from sexual intercourse, but rather could only be ‘produced’ with the help of the gods: ‘May Vis: nu : prepare the womb, Tvas: t::r carve figures. [294] Prajāpati shall pour in [the semen]. Dhāt:r shall fashion [of this] an embryo. [You, too], Sinīvālī, make an embryo [in the womb], and you too, Sarasvatī! [And also] the two Aśvins, the lotus-wreathed gods, shall create an embryo for you . . . , that you may give birth in the tenth month!’ (RV 10.184.1–2). If the gods thus petitioned fulfilled the tasks that were—also otherwise—incumbent upon them (see p. 153),³⁴⁵ a child was conceived. After that, the most important thing was to prevent miscarriage and protect the embryo from mischief of all kinds, especially from demonic beings who sought to kill the unborn child with diseases, the names of which must not be uttered (RV 10.162.1–2). Seeking this protection, they called upon Agni, the demon slayer, for assistance (RV 10.162.1). The Aśvins (RV 5.78.7–9), too, were called on to ensure a trouble-free pregnancy. When the mother some ten months later finally gave birth to a healthy child,³⁴⁶ in which again the Aśvins were to assist her (RV 10.39.7, 184.3), the gods were invoked to protect the newborn.³⁴⁷ Giving the baby a name was of vital importance. Following Indo-European custom, this was done on the tenth day after the birth, which also marked the end of the period during which the mother was considered ‘unclean’.³⁴⁸

7.10.8 Ancestor and death rituals A death intrudes dramatically into the well-ordered social environment and is dealt with through immediate ‘sacralization’. This is done in a ritual that is in parts very complex; one that gives a firm structure to what is a very profound rupture in the lives of those affected: not only by defining and delineating the critical situation, but also—and most importantly—by allowing the determination of a point at which the new normality has been reached. The core of this ritual is usually the funeral: the ritualistic preparation and disposition of the body. The rites are characterized by, on the one hand, the fact that desires to care for and to ³⁴⁵ On Rākā, another goddess of fertility and reproduction, see p. 153 with fn. 417. ³⁴⁶ Boys were already preferred over girls in Rgvedic times (see RV 10.183.3). Only if there were no : male descendants were daughters entitled to inherit (see RV 9.46.2). [474] ³⁴⁷ RV 2.29.1 and 4.30.16 allude to the abandonment of illegitimate or unwanted newborns. RV 5.2.1 appears to reflect a custom requiring the father to accept the baby as being his biological child— demonstrated for example by lifting it from the ground, as in the Roman custom. ³⁴⁸ The Rgveda itself says nothing about this, nor about birth ceremonies. There are numerous : myths, however, concerning ‘abnormal’ births (see p. 184).

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    . 

be rid of the deceased one [295] are tightly entwined, and on the other hand, the fact that the moment when the bereaved must ultimately be separated from the dead is put off as long as possible, although it is also important to limit the potential hostility of the deceased.³⁴⁹ An essential part of the rites related to the funeral and the grave, however, is aimed at maintaining cohesion of the family, group or society after the disruption caused by the death—not their cohesion with the dead, but specifically cohesion of the survivors with one another. Ensuring their solidarity is the primary objective of the rites surrounding the funeral; especially the collective sacrifice and the shared meal, which are among the rites integral to such ceremonies.³⁵⁰ These lineaments are also seen in the (Rg)Vedic : funerary ritual, which consisted of four ritual complexes—cremation (including the rites performed before, during, and after it), the collection of the bones, the Śāntikarman, and the erection of the Śmaśāna.³⁵¹ The deceased³⁵² is cremated in the scope of a funerary ritual. In the Rgveda : itself (RV 10.15.14, 18.10–13), in the Atharvaveda (Atharvaveda XVIII 2,34), and in the texts dealing with the classic death ritual, however, there are references to a practice of burial, which is probably the older form of disposition.³⁵³ After the body has been washed and the beard, hair and nails cut, it is anointed, garlanded and clothed in fresh garments (cf. Atharvaveda XVIII 4,31).³⁵⁴ Then the funeral procession carries the deceased to the cremation site³⁵⁵—or conveys him there on a cart—preceded by the sacrificial fires of the deceased³⁵⁶ and followed by the cow that will be sacrificed, which in turn is followed by the relatives of the dead.³⁵⁷ The sacrificial implements, such as Soma bowls (cf. RV 10.16.8) and mortars and ³⁴⁹ This emanates primarily from Preta, the unpacified dead. ³⁵⁰ At the same time, the living need to redistribute their roles, especially when a powerful group member has died. This often happens in ‘betting games’, which are remarkably frequent at funerals. ³⁵¹ In the subsequent text, italics mark those components of the ritual that are attested already in the Rgveda. : ³⁵² Vedic texts repeatedly mention that man should die on the bare earth, close to his sacrificial fires. No funeral is held—at least according to the evidence of late Vedic texts (cf. BaudhāyanaPit:rmedhasūtra III 6: 32.8)—for children younger than two years of age (cf. O, Religion, 571 with fn. 2), nor for ascetics, for whom the younger customs have special rules (cf. C, Die altindischen Todten- und Bestattungsgebräuche, Amsterdam 1896, 166). ³⁵³ As in Zoroastrianism, different funerary customs apparently existed side by side in the Vedic culture as well, for a time at least. ³⁵⁴ Regarding these practices, compare C, Die altindischen Todten- und Bestattungsgebräuche, Amsterdam 1896, 14–18, 39–40, and O, Religion, 586. According to some texts, the dead person’s thumbs are tied together, and the two big toes as well. The threads used for this were untied again only after arrival at the cremation site (see C, Die altindischen Todten- und Bestattungsgebräuche, 14–16 and id., Kleine Schriften, Stuttgart 1990, 138–9). ³⁵⁵ The Atharvaveda already mentions ‘wailing women’ (mourners). But the Rgveda (10.17.8) : speaks of ‘women without tears’, and later there is a rule that loud mourning must not go on for too long, as ‘it disturbs the repose of the dead’ (C, Die altindischen Todten- und Bestattungsgebräuche, Amsterdam 1896, 74). ³⁵⁶ More precisely: ‘Fires obtained from those [475] fires by certain manipulation (ŚB XIII,5,2,3, Kauś. p. 80,21, . . . .)’ (O, Religion, 574 fn. 3). ³⁵⁷ For details see C, Die altindischen Todten- und Bestattungsgebräuche, Amsterdam 1896, 19–32. According to O, Religion, 574 fn. 4, verses RV 10.14.7–12 are intended for this stage

    .  

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pestles, also accompany the deceased.³⁵⁸ Once at the cremation site, the dead man is placed on the pyre.³⁵⁹ If he is survived by his wife, she lies down next to her dead husband, but rises again immediately (RV 10.18.7–8).³⁶⁰ Objects dear to him throughout his life—such as his bow—are placed at his side, but these are also removed again [296] (RV 10.18.9). What is left with the dead is his Soma bowl (RV 10.16.8).³⁶¹ Then the corpse is covered, limb by limb, with the parts of a cow slaughtered immediately beforehand, an ‘armour of cows’ (RV 10.16.7); the face is covered with the fatty omentum, a kidney is placed in each hand—to ‘pay off ’ Yama’s two dogs—and the cow’s hide is spread over all.³⁶² In addition, a goat is slaughtered³⁶³—as a portion for Agni Kravyād.³⁶⁴ Then³⁶⁵ the pyre is lit (in the later ritual this is done by directing fire to it, over dry grass, from the three sacrificial fires surrounding the pyre),³⁶⁶ and the dead person is ‘burnt’ in the funeral fire (RV 10.16.1–2). The participants in the ceremony, observing various ‘precautions’,³⁶⁷

of the activities: ‘The verses fit well here insofar as Agni is not mentioned as a guide for the conveyance of the dead, so this is likely not about the situation of the cremation itself (but cf. Āśv. G. IV,4,6), whereas verse 7 . . . seems to indicate . . . the actual traversing of a path on the part of the corpse. The place mentioned in verse 9 . . . is connected . . . in the Kauś. p. 80,42, Āśv. G. IV,2,10, Śāṅkh. Śr. IV,14,7 . . . to the site of cremation; a reference to the place where the bones are buried (cf. Taitt. Ār. VI,6,1) would seem more likely, if the formulas pertaining thereto in the RV : were not given elsewhere (X.18,10 f.)’. C, Die altindischen Todten- und Bestattungsgebräuche, 167 (citing 23–30), on the other hand, sees this part of the funeral ritual represented in RV 10.17.3–6, since these verses are used here by the Taittīriyas and Śaunakins. ³⁵⁸ See C, Die altindischen Todten- und Bestattungsgebräuche, Amsterdam 1896, 51–2. ³⁵⁹ See C, Die altindischen Todten- und Bestattungsgebräuche, Amsterdam 1896, 33–9. ³⁶⁰ Āśvālāyana-G:rhyasūtra IV 2,18 relates ‘This marriage here to the husband who grasps your hand, who courts you, you have attained’ in stanza 8 to ‘the brother-in-law who takes the place of the husband’. On the custom of levirate, which may indeed be behind this stanza, see pp. 256 and 261. ³⁶¹ See p. 261. ³⁶² On the slaughter and dismemberment of the Anustaranī : cow in the later ritual, compare C, Die altindischen Todten- und Bestattungsgebräuche, Amsterdam 1896, 20–1, 40–2, 54–5. ³⁶³ Whether this goat was actually slaughtered and sacrificed in the fire, however, cannot be inferred with certainty from the text (RV 10.16.4.). In the later ritual, a billy goat is tied next to the pyre with a weak rope, which the goat is apparently intended to break when it runs in fright from the blazing fire. ³⁶⁴ This is a dangerous metamorphosis of the hearth fire which, if it did not cause the death of the deceased, at least did not prevent it (on this form of Agni, [476] see also p. 93 fn. 88). The deceased is burnt—or more precisely, placed ‘cooked’ among the ancestors (see p. 296)—by the Jātavedas fire (see also pp. 219–20). The two fires are—ultimately—identical, however, so that the cremation ritual to burn the body uses one fire, which is extinguished afterwards, whereupon a new hearth fire, ‘the other Jātavedas’, must be lit (see p. 260). ³⁶⁵ C, Die altindischen Todten- und Bestattungsgebräuche, Amsterdam 1896, 167, is of the opinion that verses RV 10.17.7–9 show that already in Rgvedic times a sacrifice to Sarasvatī took place : at this point in the ritual; this is, however, disputed by O, Religion, 578 fn. 1. ³⁶⁶ On the question of which fires are used to burn the dead in the classic funerary ritual, compare C, Die altindischen Todten- und Bestattungsgebräuche, Amsterdam 1896, 92–3. See also p. 258 fn. 356 and above fn. 364. ³⁶⁷ Those returning from the cremation site covered their tracks (RV 10.18.2) and lay a stone to separate life from death (RV 10.18.4): When you come, covering the track of death [with the branch], . . . then be pure, purified, you worthy of sacrifice. These living have separated themselves from the dead. Blessed was our invocation of the gods today. Forward we went to dance and joke . . . I set this enclosure

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    . 

return home³⁶⁸ and members of the immediate family extinguish the fire³⁶⁹ of the deceased which served to cremate him (and therefore became unclean),³⁷⁰ whereupon a new fire, the ‘other Jātavedas’ (RV 10.16.9),³⁷¹ is lit for the new head of the family (RV 10.16.9–10, 18.1–7).³⁷² A few days—apparently it must be an odd number of days—after the cremation, the relatives return to the site and extinguish the last embers of the fire (RV 10.16.13–14). Then the bones of the dead are collected and buried in the ground (RV 10.18.10–13) in an urn—‘Varuna’s : clay house’ (RV 7.89.1). Some of the younger texts describe the erecting of a burial mound as the conclusion of these rites.³⁷³ Since on the one hand the stanzas RV 10.17.10–13 could refer to the act of dhuvana,³⁷⁴—that is, the ‘fanning’ of the urn before the cairn is erected over it—and on the other hand, the dhuvana in the later ritual is also an occasion for dancing, singing and making music³⁷⁵ and RV 10.18.3 mentions ‘dance and jest’ as part of the funeral ritual (see also, however, pp. 259–60 fn. 367), the Rgvedic ritual may have already known the : layering of the Śmaśāna.³⁷⁶ In the Rgvedic religion, too, the customs and beliefs related to death have : reciprocal effects on one another. In those times, the dead were thought [297] to have their ‘dwelling place’ under the earth (see pp. 279–80). This is why the burial—with or without prior cremation—is the first step in the Rgvedic as in : other death rituals: the deceased is allocated his future home, where he will henceforth dwell and receive gifts from the bereaved. The fact that the burial focuses on the bones reflects the widespread belief that the bones constitute life, and that the deceased could be ‘revivified’ from his bones, for which reason they must be carefully preserved. That is why, throughout the ages, one of the most important tasks of relatives in funeral rituals is to collect the remains, following for the living. May no other reach this goal. May they live a hundred richly blessed autumns and put a mountain between [themselves and] death! (RV 10.18.2–4) Since ‘dance and joke’ is mentioned, the actions referred to here could also be part of setting up the Śmaśāna (see above). For more details on the younger texts, see O, Religion, 578. ³⁶⁸ It is possible that the stanza RV 10.17.10 refers to a libation of water offered by the relatives of the dead while standing in water, on their return from the cremation site (see C, Die altindischen Todten- und Bestattungsgebräuche, Amsterdam 1896, 76–7). ³⁶⁹ See B, Contributions to the interpretation of the Veda, Second Series, American Journal of Philology 11 (1890) 342–50. ³⁷⁰ That this is indeed the order of the actions of the ritual to be deduced from the Rgveda, i.e. one : that deviates from that of the younger ritual, in which the Śāntikarman takes place only after the [477] burial of the bones (see C, Die altindischen Todten- und Bestattungsgebräuche, Amsterdam 1896, 113–62), remains uncertain (cf. O, Religion, 578–9 fn. 6). ³⁷¹ See above, fn. 364. See also B, On Vedic Agni Kravyavāhana and Agni Kavyavāhana, Streitberg Festgabe, Leipzig 1924, 12–14. ³⁷² On this rite, later called Śāntikarman, compare C, Die altindischen Todten- und Bestattungsgebräuche, Amsterdam 1896, 113–17. ³⁷³ On when and how the burial mound is erected, compare C, Kleine Schriften, Stuttgart 1990, 570, and O, Religion, 581–3. ³⁷⁴ See C, Die altindischen Todten- und Bestattungsgebräuche, Amsterdam 1896, 167. ³⁷⁵ See ibid., 139. ³⁷⁶ Could the ‘pillar’ (sthūń : ā) mentioned in RV 10.18.13 mean this cairn?

    .  

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the cremation, and bury them in an urn. The fact that the bones are arranged in such a way that they form a human figure—according to younger Vedic texts— clearly shows the underlying intention (see also p. 249 fn. 305 and pp. 296–7). Funeral rituals usually involve sacrifice, and this is the case in Rgvedic ritual as : well. According to RV 10.18.9, the ‘occupational instrument’³⁷⁷ of the deceased, his bow, is removed again immediately before the funeral pyre is lit (like the widow rises from the pyre before it is lit). But his Soma bowl (camasá) is left with him (RV 10.16.8), just as, later, some of his sacrificial implements are put on the funeral pyre, and some thrown into the water.³⁷⁸ The Soma bowl, indeed, appears to have been the quintessential burial object:³⁷⁹ the deceased will use it to drink the Soma that is sacrificed to him in the future. The feasts that are characteristic of funerary rituals, on the other hand, are not mentioned in the Rgveda, and even the : post-Rgvedic texts speak of them only in connection with the burial of the urn.³⁸⁰ : In the Rgvedic ritual, as mentioned previously, a cow, the anustaran: ī, is slaugh: tered, and only its inedible parts—particularly the omentum, as well as the hide with the hooves, tail, and head still attached—are placed on the dead body in the later ritual, while the ‘boneless pieces of meat’ are cooked.³⁸¹ But we do not learn [298] what happens to this meat. It seems reasonable to assume that it was consumed by the bereaved in a community meal, held either near the cremation site, or later at home.³⁸² The fate of the deceased after death³⁸³ is inextricably linked to the activities carried out on his behalf by the male survivors who are entitled and indeed obliged to do so.³⁸⁴ This includes all those who were born within a legal marriage and have completed the initiation rites.³⁸⁵ Functionally, the measures that seem to dominate here—although we are largely dependent on post-Rgvedic sources for : this information (but see pp. 263–264)—are those that enable the bereaved to maintain structured, fictitious social contact, while on the phenomenological level we have the survivors’ efforts to maintain ‘living’ conditions for the deceased by

³⁷⁷ This interpretation is based on later G:rhyasūtras, which stipulate that a Ks: atriya is to have a bow placed on the funeral pyre (Āśvalāyana-Gr: hyasūtra IV 2,17; see C, Die altindischen Todten- und Bestattungsgebräuche, Amsterdam 1896, 45–6). ³⁷⁸ See C, Die altindischen Todten- und Bestattungsgebräuche, Amsterdam 1896, 49–54. In the Pravargya, too, the sacrificial implements are sunk in water, and this is not the only thing which that initiation festival and this funerary ritual have in common (see p. 249 fn. 305). ³⁷⁹ It may be that important people also took their favourite horse ‘with them to the grave’ and that RV 10.56 refers to such a horse burial. ³⁸⁰ Cf. C, Die altindischen Todten- und Bestattungsgebräuche, Amsterdam 1896, 127, 139. ³⁸¹ See C, Die altindischen Todten- und Bestattungsgebräuche, Amsterdam 1896, 42. ³⁸² Various texts, however, prescribe the release of the cow, and in the Vaikhānasa-G:rhyasūtra, a very young text, the cow is not mentioned at all. These differences reflect familiar developments. ³⁸³ RV 10.154 is intended to ‘cause the deceased to join the blessed’ (see O, Noten on the song). ³⁸⁴ On the text that follows, compare O, Religion, 549–55. ³⁸⁵ See C, Über Totenverehrung bei einigen der indo-germanischen Völker, Amsterdam 1888, 2.

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    . 

providing food, housing, and general care. In the Pin: dapit :ryajña, the : ‘Klösseväteropfer’ (an oblation offered on the evening before the day of the new moon³⁸⁶ featuring balls of rice)³⁸⁷ and in the (Pārvana-³⁸⁸ and Māsi-)Śrāddha— : here embodied by Brahmans (see p. 291 fn. 77)³⁸⁹—individual families gave food to their dead, who they thought of as being present at this monthly meal (svadhā). This ceremonious provisioning binds the deceased to the family unit across three generations—father, grandfather, and great-grandfather³⁹⁰—with the living head of the family representing the fourth generation. It also minimizes the potential hostility of the deceased. The dead were additionally worshipped in the (Mahā) pit:ryajña on the one hand, and on the other in the last three As: t:akās or the last As: t:akā of the year,³⁹¹ the ekās: :t akā of the month of Māgha.³⁹² As far as can be ascertained, of all these ancestral rituals³⁹³ the (Mahā) pit:ryajña³⁹⁴ and the As: t:akās are the oldest. The former, a kind of All Souls Festival, is part of the Sākamedha, a large ‘public’ ritual, while the As: t:akā ceremonies are part of the domestic cult. That both are celebrated towards the end of ³⁸⁶ The following day is the day of the new moon sacrifice [478]. ³⁸⁷ This ancestral ritual, one of the Śrauta sacrifices, belongs ‘in its present form to the period when the latest of the Samhitās attained and fixed their current form’ (C, Altindischer Ahnenkult, : Leiden 1893, 153). This results from the fact ‘that the order in which the mantras used in the ritual are given in the Samhitā is the same order they have in practice’ (C, Altindischer Ahnenkult). : ³⁸⁸ This Śrāddha sacrifice immediately follows the Pin: dapit r: yajña (see C, Über : Totenverehrung bei einigen der indo-germanischen Völker, Amsterdam 1888, 12). ³⁸⁹ See O, Religion, 553–4. On the various times at which ancestral rituals were held, compare C, Über Totenverehrung bei einigen der indo-germanischen Völker, Amsterdam 1888, 40–7. ³⁹⁰ In the Vedic ritual, the deceased is incorporated into ancestor worship through the Sapin: dakara na, : which is performed one year after death. It unites the cult of the recently deceased : person with that of those longer dead (see C, Über Totenverehrung bei einigen der indogermanischen Völker, Amsterdam 1888, 27–36, and id., Altindischer Ahnenkult, Leiden 1893, 163–5; cf. also O, Religion, 555). In this ritual, the preta, the ‘one who has gone’, becomes the Pit:r, the ‘father’ (ūrdhvam : sam : vatsarāt pretah: pit:rtvam upapadyate, Baudhāyana-G:rhyasūtra III 12,14). During this one year, in the course of which the deceased is worshipped in the Ekoddis: t:aśrāddha—a preliminary sacrifice for the dead (see C, Über Totenverehrung [ . . . ], 22–7; cf. also O, Religion, 555–6)—the deceased is in a state between being one of the living and being one of the pacified dead. Although in the Rgveda the notion apparently prevails that the fire of the funeral pyre transfers : the deceased directly to his place among the fathers, this is not proof that the notion of this intermediate existence does not trace back to Rgvedic times (see O, Religion, 556). : ³⁹¹ C surmises that ‘the number of Asht:akâ ceremonies may originally have been three, taking place in the last three months of the year, specifically, the first in Mârgaçîrsha with cakes, the second in Pausha with meat, and the third in Mâgha with vegetables. [From this] . . . it may be inferred that from time immemorial, at least the middle Asht:akâ was consecrated to the Pitaras . . .’ (Über Totenverehrung bei einigen der indo-germanischen Völker, Amsterdam 1888, 42–3; cf. id., Altindischer Ahnenkult, Leiden 1893, 166–70). [479] ³⁹² See O, Religion, 445–6 and 566–7. Another death ritual takes place within the Sautrāmanī : (see p. 245). It involved sacrificing Surā to the ‘fathers’ from a strainer with a hundred small holes in it, which was hung up over the southern fire. ³⁹³ Many of the ancestral sacrifices are a mirror image, in their execution, of comparable sacrifices to the gods. The same applies to clothing in the broadest sense; the nature of the cremation site, too, is completely the converse of the sacrificial site. With regard to the objects involved, black is the preferred colour. ³⁹⁴ That this ancestral ritual ‘as a Vedic sacrifice is older than the Pin: dapit :ryajña’ was persuasively : shown by C, Altindischer Ahnenkult, Leiden 1893, 152–3.

    .  

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the year³⁹⁵ and that the ancestors as such³⁹⁶ are honoured in both rituals,³⁹⁷ [299] as evident from, among other things, the sacrificial formulas, are features probably inherited from Indo-European times,³⁹⁸ as the (Mahā)pitr: yajña of the Sākamedha continues ‘the ancient winter festival of the dead from Indo-European times’.³⁹⁹ And the three As: t:akās also likely date back to the ancient veneration of the deceased towards the end of the year.⁴⁰⁰ Since in all probability deceased family members have always been venerated in smaller domestic rituals—ancestor worship is, after all, practiced primarily in the domestic sphere—it seems that in postRgvedic times, a new ritual emerged from this practice⁴⁰¹ and from the (Mahā) : pit:ryajña: the Pin: dapit :ryajña, in German the ‘Klösseväteropfer’, an oblation of : balls of rice specifically for ancestors. This practice serves to honour the deceased of an individual family—specifically the previous three generations of the head of the family—and shows clear traces of the more demotic rites of the domestic sphere, although it is in fact a Śrauta ritual.⁴⁰² And modelled on this, in turn, was the original Śrāddha, which seems to have been ‘a Klösseväteropfer⁴⁰³ that was simplified and adapted to the G:rhya ceremonial’. We may therefore assume that the Vedic ancestor cult consists of two distinct ritual complexes: the collective offering of Soma to the ancestors⁴⁰⁴ at the end of the year (see following example), and the regular ‘feeding’ of deceased male family members by each pater familias.⁴⁰⁵ The inclusion of the Soma bowl in the cremation of the dead (see p. 261) indicates that Soma was among the offerings in ancestor rituals. And indeed, the

³⁹⁵ The day on which the Sākamedha ritual was performed—the full moon day of Mārgaśīrs: a (it could instead be celebrated a month earlier, on the full moon day of Kārttika) and the day of the first As: t:akā ceremony—the eighth day of the second half of Mārgaśīrs: a—together indicate that the cult of the dead began in this autumn month. ³⁹⁶ Post-Rgvedic ancestor worship roughly distinguishes between two types of deceased persons: on : the one hand the individual—these are the three immediate ancestors of the head of the family (see pp. 262 and 289)—and on the other the anonymous dead person, who belongs to an indeterminate plurality of the dead, the devāh: pitarah: (see C, Altindischer Ahnenkult, Leiden 1893, 175–6). ³⁹⁷ C, Altindischer Ahnenkult, Leiden 1893, argued convincingly that ‘the Mahāpin: dapit :ryajña is addressed first and foremost to the divine fathers’ (p. 184) and that ‘the worship : of the three human fathers was appended in some Śākhās’ (p. 185). ³⁹⁸ See O, Religion, 441. For example, Roman families venerated their dead, the divi parentum, at the end of the year, in the Parentalia (13–21 February). And November 1, New Year’s Day, was the Day of the Dead in ancient Ireland. ³⁹⁹ O, Religion, 441. ⁴⁰⁰ In the classic ritual, however, As: t:akā ceremonies were usually associated with a Śrāddha (C, Altindischer Ahnenkult, Leiden 1893, 160), so that the worship of the dead as such and that of the ‘individualized’ dead of the separate families were celebrated together [480]. ⁴⁰¹ It is not perceptible within the texts. ⁴⁰² Compare C, Altindischer Ahnenkult, Leiden 1893, 14–17. The Gopitr: yajña is evidently a similar case of a ritual that belongs to both public and domestic spheres. ⁴⁰³ C, Altindischer Ahnenkult, 156–7, cf. id., Kleine Schriften, Stuttgart 1990, 564. ⁴⁰⁴ RV 10.15 makes it appear likely that the collectively revered ‘fathers’ were the deceased of one tribe (or a similar grouping) (see O, Noten on the song). ⁴⁰⁵ However, C believed he found an indication that in the Śrāddha, too, initially the ancestors in general were worshipped (see Altindischer Ahnenkult, Leiden 1893, 175).

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    . 

Rgveda variously speaks of a Soma drink for ancestors,⁴⁰⁶ who are, after all, : ‘worthy of Soma’ (somyá) (RV 6.75.10, 8.48.13, 10.15.1, 5, 8). Presumably, this Soma sacrifice did not take place within domestic ancestor worship, but rather was part of a ‘public’ festival in which all tribal members commemorated the dead. One of the As: t:akā ceremonies is even better suited for this purpose than the aforementioned Sākamedha ritual:⁴⁰⁷ that of the Ekās: t:akā, the ‘main festival of the cult of the dead’[300].⁴⁰⁸ In this rite, the tribute to the ancestors⁴⁰⁹ reaches its climax and concurrently its conclusion. It is also the time at which the leader was selected, a decision reached through various contests (see pp. 14–15). The close connection between competitions and the cult of the dead, as well as that between Indra and the ancestors—his helpers⁴¹⁰ in battle (RV 3.39.4, 6.75.9–10, 9.96.11, 97.39)—suggest that this is one festival which was part of the New Year’s celebration.⁴¹¹ Worship of the ancestors has been kept strictly separate from the cult of the gods, and thus from the ‘normal’ Soma ritual, since the earliest days.⁴¹² The ancestors do, however, receive a portion of Soma in the ‘god sacrifice’. In the classic Agnis: t:oma, for instance, the dead partake of Soma from what are called the Nārāśamsa bowls, which are placed under the southernmost of the two : Soma carts (see p. 230).⁴¹³ ‘Soma consecrated to Narāśamsa’ is already mentioned : in connection with the ‘fathers’ as owners of the sacred songs in RV 10.57.3.⁴¹⁴ And from RV 10.13 it seems likely that the Nārāśamsa : offering, made precisely where this also occurs in the classic ritual, was already part of the Rgvedic : Soma ritual.⁴¹⁵

⁴⁰⁶ The fact that the ninth book says nothing of a Soma drink for the ‘fathers’ is in conformance with the strict separation of ancestral and god sacrifices that prevailed in the later period. ⁴⁰⁷ Since the Sākamedha ancestral ritual centers on (among other things) Soma pit:rmān and the Pitarah: somavantah: , this may be a residue of the ancient Soma ancestral sacrifice held at the turn of the year. ⁴⁰⁸ O, Das Sankhayanagrihyam, in: Indian Studies 15 (1878), 145. ⁴⁰⁹ On the occasion of the As: t:akā ceremonies, the ancestors were also given meat (see p. 262 fn. 391). And the animal sacrifice which was required for this was connected with a Soma sacrifice, as is typical of animal sacrifices (see p. 239). ⁴¹⁰ Ancestors can travel between heaven/the afterworld, and earth, and as mediators between worlds they are invoked for assistance (RV 1.106.3, 6.52.4) and petitioned for wealth (RV 10.15.7), descendants (RV 10.15.11), and protection (RV 6.75.10). They give light (RV 10.107.1), lend strength, provide refuge, and fight alongside the subsequent generations—this last a function they share with the Frauuas: ̌is (see p. 59). ⁴¹¹ If, as claimed previously (see pp. 247–9), the Gharma was primarily for the initiate, then the Gharma drink for ancestors mentioned in RV 10.15.9 (cf. also 10.16.10) probably indicates a close relationship between the initiate and the deceased. See also p. 249 fn. 304. ⁴¹² The ninth book says nothing of a Soma drink for the ancestors (see previous note 406). ⁴¹³ Compare Śatapatha-Brāhmana : III 6,2.25 and Āpastamba-Śrautasūtra XII 25,24–27 [481]. ⁴¹⁴ The theme of the song is the ‘tethering of a sick person to life by the magical power that the ancestors accumulated, by the grace of Narāśamsa, in their Soma and their songs’ (O, Kleine : Schriften, Wiesbaden 1967, 385). ⁴¹⁵ For details, see O, Kleine Schriften, Wiesbaden 1967, Vol. 2, 824–7.

    .  

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7.10.9 The new and full moon rituals Like other moments of change or convergence, the major transitions of the moon were also occasions for rituals. In the classic form, these involve oblations at the new moon to Agni and Indra, and at the full moon to Agni and Soma⁴¹⁶—usually sacrificial cakes made from rice or barley flour (purod: āśa). Both rituals might date back to Rgvedic times,⁴¹⁷ as RV 1.94.4 says: ‘Let us bring kindling hither, let us : prepare sacrificial pourings, mindful with each knot day [of the month], O Agni, let our songs reach the goal, that we may live longer’. Again, it would not have been the [301] moon as such which was honoured with the offering; rather, the moon merely indicated the time at which Agni and presumably Indra were to be worshipped. This ritual, however—like the Agnihotra described next—seems to have been intended to establish a connection between the moon and fire.⁴¹⁸

7.10.10 The Agnihotra ritual Sacrifices were offered up to the fire in the morning and the evening, with sunrise and sunset signalling the times for these rituals:⁴¹⁹ ‘He who praises you at night, who praises you in the morning, and does you kindness offering oblations . . .’ (RV 4.2.8, cf. 2.8.3, 4.12.2, 7.3.5). As in later times, a libation of milk was apparently poured into the fire at this point:⁴²⁰ ‘To whom the young woman goes in the morning [and] evening, the ladle filled with offerings . . .’⁴²¹ (RV 7.1.6). This ritual, called the Agnihotra in later times, sought to integrate the settlements and homes—represented by their sacrificial fires—into the daily rhythms of the cosmos and to establish a connection between sun and sacrificial fire:⁴²² ‘Let us, god ⁴¹⁶ O points out that ‘the information contained in the Rgveda makes it unlikely that, in : the most ancient times, one of the most prominent sacrifices was already directed to Agni-Soma’ (Religion, 439 fn. 2). ‘Apparently’, O continues, ‘the original state was shifted here by the well-known preference among priests of a later period for this pairing of gods, in which the identification of Soma with the moon will also have played a role’. ⁴¹⁷ Certainly since Atharvavedic times. The Atharvaveda, however, as far as can be determined, actually speaks of the worship of the moon (or of the night of the new moon) by means of offerings: ‘To the night of the new moon we will pay homage with sacrifice’ (VII 79,3), ‘To the strong bull of the full moon we sacrifice’ (VII 80,2). ⁴¹⁸ See K, Das Ritual der Feuergründung, Vienna 1982, 508. ⁴¹⁹ Atharvaveda XIII 1,10 (‘The calf shall come here together with its mother, the red [sun]’) indicates that the Sāvitrī (RV 3.62.10)—she is the ‘mother’ of the sun referred to here (see E, Atharva-Veda 13.1.10, Indological Studies in Honor of W. Norman Brown, New Haven 1962, 56–8)—was recited early in the morning, a rite prescribed to this day for devout Hindus. ⁴²⁰ Whether the fire was sprinkled with water beforehand and afterwards, as prescribed by the younger ritual (cf. Kātyāyana-Śrautasūtra IV 13,16–17), is not clear from the passages that seem to speak of this rite (RV 8.39.10, 102.14). See also p. 218 fn. 113. ⁴²¹ The sacrificial ladle (srúc) is referred to as ‘full of ghee’ in RV 6.11.5. ⁴²² According to B, The Daily Evening and Morning Offering (Agnihotra) according to the Brāhman: as, Leiden 1976, 3, it is not so much ‘ensuring the daily rising of the sun from the sacrificial fire into which it went in the evening’ (as K says in Das Ritual der Feuergründung, Vienna 1982,

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    . 

Agni, kindle your light, never-aging [flame], that your marvellous firebrand (, the sun,) shines in the heavens’ (RV 5.6.4). Not only in later times⁴²³ was the daily repeated procedure interpreted to the effect that it actually causes the rising of the sun, an event not quite to be taken for granted (see RV 10.111.7):⁴²⁴ ‘The head of the world during the night is the fire, from it the sun is born when it rises in the morning’ (RV 10.88.6). Expanding upon this idea, the poets of the Rgveda fre: quently transformed the igniting of fire into the creation of the sun in the sky, one of the events that first formed the world: ‘Engulfed was the world, shrouded in darkness. The sun became visible when Agni was born’ (RV 10.88.2).⁴²⁵

7.10.11 Fertility rituals Since fertility rituals are typically encountered in agrarian societies, it is not to be expected that they would play a major role in the predominantly pastoral Rgvedic : society (see pp. 3–4). One of the few songs of the Rgveda that pray for fertile seed : and thriving crops is RV 4.57, addressed to various ‘field deities’. It seems to tell of a ritual that lives on in the later Sītāyajña, or was similar to it, as it invokes Indra, Sītā, and Śuna, offering up sacrifices to them in the ‘furrow sacrifice’ of the G:rhya ritual, and as the focus is on the deified ‘furrow’ and the plough for which blessings are sought.⁴²⁶ In the G:rhya ritual as handed down, however—unlike the aforementioned Rgveda song (see verse 7b)—there is no offering for the : ‘shepherd god’ Pūs: an (see pp. 130–1). In this song (see stanza 5), in addition to Śuna, Sīra is also invoked, like the former a genius, and is asked to bestow blessings on the plough (probably at the first ploughing). Thus the ritual that can be perceived here also seems to be connected with the Śunāsīrīya, which was added to the Cāturmāsya festivals in later times; apparently ‘an artifice of the sacrifice theorists’.⁴²⁷

224 fn. 562) as strengthening the sun, which had been weakened at the end of the day, through the libation of heated milk. Thus for him, the evening Agnihotra is the primary ritual: ‘Therefore the evening Agnihotra is primary. It is the real offering into Agni. It has the formula ‘Agni [482] is the light, the light is Agni’. The morning performance merely seems to be a duplication . . . The mystery of the sun’s disappearance has been brought under control. Its reappearance is produced by kindling the fire. The offering of hot milk strengthens the new sun which now rises’ (B, ibid.). ⁴²³ On these, see Śatapatha-Brāhmana : II 3,1.5. ⁴²⁴ See Gō, Vasis: t:ha and Varuna : in RV VII 88, Indoarisch, Iranisch und die Indogermanistik, Wiesbaden 2000, 148–56. ⁴²⁵ And so this event is also integrated in the world-creation myth of smashing the Vala (see O, Religion, 111). ⁴²⁶ It should be mentioned here that in Rgvedic times—as in ancient Greece and ancient Rome—it : was forbidden to slaughter the plow animal, the companion in man’s labour (see S, Kleine Schriften, Göttingen 1933, 207, and B, Götter, Mythen und Heiligtümer im antiken Griechenland, Darmstadt 1996, 48 with fn. 180 [p. 133]). ⁴²⁷ At least according to O, Religion, 442. K, Der Vanis: t:husava und Indras Offenbarung, Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde Südasiens 19 [1975], 32 fn. 24, presumes there is ‘behind

    .  

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While this ritual was intended to ensure successful sowing of the crops, the Āgrāyan: a, the sacrifice of the first crops (although attested only for later times), was a harvest ritual linked to a plea for food to be available in sufficient quantities in the future. This ritual is performed in spring and autumn, at the time of the harvests⁴²⁸ (see pp. 3–4). In keeping with the harvest seasons for the different grains, barley was sacrificed at the Āgrāyana : performed in spring, and a porridge of millet (with rice) at the Āgrāyana in autumn. It was forbidden to eat of the : harvest before this sacrifice: ‘If, without having performed the Āgrāyana : sacrifice, one were to eat of the new [harvest], one would [303] eat the portion meant for the gods [and] one would fall into misfortune. Therefore one should not, without having performed the Āgrāyana : sacrifice, eat of the new [harvest]’ (Kāt:haka XII 7: 169.20–22).⁴²⁹ With the sacrifice of the first grains, thought to be the best of the crop, the harvest was ʻransomedʼ; this was an acknowledgement that the harvest was the property of another. In fact this ritual defused the delicate situation of deciding who—among the mortals—would be first to receive a share of the harvest.

7.10.12 Exculpatory and expiatory rituals If a man through his own misconduct violates the divine order of the world and the rules of conduct it prescribes, he is guilty and thereby draws ‘evil’⁴³⁰ upon himself and his household.⁴³¹ It does not matter whether the misdeed was committed consciously or unconsciously; essential is the objective fact of the misconduct, not the subjective element of intent. Even an unintentional misdeed or one committed while sleeping is misconduct: ‘Even sleep does not ward off untruth’ (RV 7.86.6); ‘What we have transgressed through down-utterance, through out-utterance, through forth-utterance, whether sleeping or waking—all evil deeds, the odious ones, may Agni take away far from us’ (RV 10.164.3). The evil that results from transgression attaches to the transgressor physically. The removal of ́ this apparently material ‘stain’, the opening of the ‘sin-trap’ (pāśa)⁴³²—a notion the Śunāsīrīya ritual . . . an ancient plowing and New Year festival under Indra’s suzerainty’. And in the same passages she ponders whether ‘prasavah: and utsavah: , RV 1.102.1, [might mean] festivals for driving out the herds and driving home with the additionally captured cattle’. ⁴²⁸ On the coupling of these festivals with the new and full moon sacrifices, see O, Religion, 444–5 fn. 3. ⁴²⁹ Compare also Śatapatha-Brāhmana : II 4,3.1 ff. and II 5,2.1 ff. (see O, Religion, 310–11 fn. 3). ⁴³⁰ Various words in the Rgvedic language denote the ideas addressed here. Unlike énas, which is the : more general expression for the misconduct of man and the resulting ‘evil’, āǵ as specifically names the ‘wrongdoing’ practiced against gods. ⁴³¹ See O, Religion, 293–306, 321–9. ⁴³² The person in question petitioned to ‘drive beyond [these snares] like a horseman with his chariot’ (RV 2.27.16). These snares or fetters are apparently the transgressions and their consequences.

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    . 

repeatedly encountered—can be effected by atoning for the sacrilegious act,⁴³³ through which the transgressor is freed of it ‘as the sweat-covered man from his dirt when he has bathed’ (Atharvaveda VI 115,3). The atonement is addressed to the god whose wrath was aroused by the particular misdeed, and whom one hopes to placate through it. Primarily it is Varuna : who ‘resents’ the culprit (RV 7.86.3, cf. 1.24.11, 25.2).⁴³⁴ When his order was violated, he seized [304] the offender: ‘Why then has King Varuna : seized us? What have we done against the vow to him?’ (RV 10.12.5). Atonement, which is intended to make good the offense and restore order, consists primarily in making apologies and ‘sacrificing away’ the misdeed, whereby the latter, judging from the post-Rgvedic examples, is in a : sense a special case of the supplicatory sacrifice. Here, the divine authority is petitioned for forgiveness, for the non-punishment of a misdeed, the not-avenging of damage inflicted. Apologies, which may also extend to future transgressions (cf. RV 10.63.8), can consist of entire songs in the Rgveda, of individual stanzas, or of verses: ‘If, [when] : ever, we have done any misdeed, be it against the gods, be it against a friend, or against the lord of the family, may this thought (= this song) be an apology to them’ (RV 1.185.8); ‘By my worship (= this song) I will hasten to make apology to you, [so that I may] be free from my misdeed’ (RV 7.86.4). It cannot be said with certainty whether the recitation was accompanied by sacrifices that seem to have been part of the common cult in post-Rgvedic times,⁴³⁵ although the general use of : Rgvedic songs strongly suggests that it was.⁴³⁶ When Agni is invoked, however, to : ‘sacrifice away Varuna’ wrath is beseeched away : (RV 4.1.5), or when ‘Varuna’s : with testimonies of worship, sacrifices, and offerings’ to make up for the transgressions committed (RV 1.24.14), this likely refers to specific ritual acts. And some of these, especially when called ‘removing sacrifice’, evidently have as their goal not so much the appeasement of a god as the removal of the attached guilt, as there seems to have been a prevalent belief that guilt was eradicated by being burned in fire (cf. previous; RV 10.164.3). In addition to fire, water and plants are used in rites of exculpation. These, too, can remove the guilt that is thought of as literally ‘bound to the body’ of the wrongdoer [305] (RV 6.74.3): ‘This, ye waters, carry forth whatever sin is with me, or how I have deceived, or what falsehood I have sworn’ (RV 1.23.22); ‘[The healing herbs] shall deliver me from the consequences of the curse, from the punishment of Varuna, : also from the fetter of Yama and from any misdeed against the gods’ (RV 10.97.16). ⁴³³ It is at least conceivable that hurting ‘plants’, for example when hewing a tree for sacrificial posts (RV 3.8.11); or treating animals badly, for example by beating them with a [483] whip (RV 1.162.17), were also wicked acts requiring atonement (see p. 221). ⁴³⁴ The Varunapraghāsa ceremony, a periodically recurring ritual atonement that is held during the : rainy period and is also discernible in post-Rgvedic customs, is also addressed to Varuna : : (see O, Religion, 323–4). ⁴³⁵ See O, Religion, 322. ⁴³⁶ O, Religion, 322, assumes that RV 7.86 is about a sacrifice to Varuna. :

    .  

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Not only one’s own transgressions must be atoned for⁴³⁷ in this manner, but also those that have been handed down, namely from one’s own father and his ancestors: ‘Put away from us [the sin] of all deceit[s] inherited from the fathers [and] those which we ourselves have done with our bodies’ (RV 7.86.5). One pleads fervently to not be required to atone for transgressions committed by others:⁴³⁸ ‘We do not want to atone for a misdeed against you [O Mitra and Varuna] : that has arisen through others’ (RV 7.52.2, cf. 2.28.9, 6.51.7). On the contrary, one wishes the consequences of one’s own misconduct upon others:⁴³⁹ ‘What we have done to you, O gods, with our tongues or out of rashness, which arouses your grievous anger, lay this guilt on him who does not give [to you], and who wishes us harm’ (RV 10.37.12). ‘Evil’ may come to man not only through his own wrongdoing, but also through harm from others. It is the tangible consequence of dangers that threaten man and his world. As a rule, these do not originate from some impersonal force, but are instead mostly caused by—fairly specific—beings, whether gods, demons or supernatural beings—‘Keep away from us divine danger, away the non-divine missiles’ (RV 8.61.16)—or fellow humans. Sometimes only the threats themselves are known or named, and often only diffusely. The damage they do can attach itself to a person in various ways. In cases where the ‘evil’ is thought of as a substance—as seems to have been the rule—it becomes attached [306] mainly through direct contact, the nature of which depends on whether the wrongdoer takes action himself or the injured party contracts the ‘evil’ involuntarily: fastening, smearing, throwing, or administering the injurious substance in food and drink on the one hand; touching,⁴⁴⁰ handling,⁴⁴¹ or ingesting it on the other. Panic, for example, is thought of as being literally fastened to the enemy army:⁴⁴² ‘Apvā, beguiling those [enemies’] minds, seize their limbs! Go away [from us]! Go hither to them! Burn them with embers in their hearts. Let the enemies meet with grim darkness’ (RV 10.103.12).⁴⁴³ The same happens with evil thoughts about ⁴³⁷ Violations of the proper worship of the gods—that is to say, errors in ritual such as the incorrect assignment of priestly duties (see O, Noten on RV 10.2), also constituted transgressions that required atonement. And here, too, water can put many things right, ‘the atonement for everything’ (Śatapatha-Brāhmana : XII 4,1.5). ⁴³⁸ These may also have been passed on by others with malicious intent. ⁴³⁹ Conversely, it seems the consequences of a good deed can also be transferred to others: ‘To our salvation shall be the good deeds of those who do good’ (RV 7.35.4). ⁴⁴⁰ RV 10.60.12 and 137.7 speak of the healing touch of hands. ⁴⁴¹ Those cases in which a harmful (or also a healing) object is buried, making direct contact impossible, have yet to be examined. Examples are given by O, Religion, 502–3, who points out that ‘the Atharvaveda is full of phrases expressing apprehension towards the magic that has been ‘buried in the sacrificial grass strew, in the boneyard, in the field”. Note, however, that Kauśikasūtra XXXVI 15 f.—to give just one example—prescribes that possessions of the person to be harmed are to be buried with the object in question, meaning direct contact is apparently made, in a sense, after all. ⁴⁴² This is true in particular if the recitation of the stanza was accompanied by an act, such as that prescribed by Kauśikasūtra XIV 22, according to which an arrow is to be shot at the enemy army while reciting. ⁴⁴³ On RV 10.87.7, see p. 277.

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    . 

another person:⁴⁴⁴ ‘The [evil] waking dream, the evil imagining, let it come to him whom we hate, let it come to him who hates us’ (RV 10.164.5). In the prevailing notions of the time, smelling and looking are forms of touching. The ‘touch’ of the evil eye⁴⁴⁵ was particularly feared:⁴⁴⁶ ‘Towards the evil-speaker, O Indra and Soma, shall blazing evil boil, like a pot on the fire. Create inescapable enmity for the Kimīdin who hates the poet who eats raw meat,⁴⁴⁷ whose gaze is evil’ (RV 7.104.2). This is why the newly wed wife is adjured: ‘Be without evil eye, not killing your husband’ (RV 10.85.44).⁴⁴⁸ Alongside not touching and other precautions—such as making noise (cf. RV 7.104.17, 10.36.4)—by means of which man seeks to protect himself,⁴⁴⁹ divine intervention can also prevent ‘contamination’ with ‘evil’. Indra (RV 2.41.11, 7.19.7, 8.47.5), Soma (RV 8.79.4, 9.67.21), Mitra and Varuna, : and the Ādityas (RV 7.50.1, 8.47.1, 5, 10.126.6) may be implored to avert such harms. Should it occur despite all averruncatio, the miasma must be removed. Here, too, the gods were petitioned for help: ‘Brightly burning away the evil from us, O Agni, brightly burn wealth hither, brightly burning away the evil from us’ (RV 1.97.1, cf. 5.3.7); ‘Us: as, burning [up], shall thrust away evil’ [307] (RV 10.35.3). The underlying idea was probably that the evil could be negated—as it was in the case of selfinflicted evil (see p. 268)—by washing, wiping, rubbing, or burning it away. Alternatively, the miasma can be sent back to the one who inflicted it,—a remedy besought in various instances: ‘To him who would bring us evil and blame, give [, O ye gods,] harm, to him who would inflict harm on [others]!’ (RV 5.3.7); ‘[B:rhaspati] direct the [evil] intention back to the evil-speaker!’ (RV 10.182.1, cf. 8.18.14). The expectation is clearly that the wrongdoer will in turn receive worse harm than he had inflicted (see pp. 277–8). Again, it is the gods who carry this out. Among the evils that can befall man—whether through his own fault or that of others—are bad dreams (see pp. 271 and 273), which the Atharvaveda (Atharvaveda X 5,24) mentions alongside “calamity” (duritá) and disease. The one thus afflicted seeks to remove them, to chase them way, into the distance: ‘What effect of evil dream [aims] at the cows, which [aims] at us, O Daughter of the Sky, this, O Radiant One, take away to Trita Āptya. Without evil is your help, well-helping is your help. If [in a dream] one puts a necklace or a wreath on oneself, O Daughter of the Sky, we give over all the effect of the bad dream

⁴⁴⁴ This is how the verse subsequently quoted is to be understood. ⁴⁴⁵ The opposite of the ‘wild (= evil) eye’ (ghóram : caks: úh: ), as it is also called in the Atharvaveda (IV 9.6, XIX 25.3, Paippalāda XI [484] 4.3), is the ‘good, wholesome look’ (bhadrám : cáks: uh: ) spoken of in RV 10.164.2 (see O, Religion, 501). In RV 1.89.8, too, where it says ‘With the eyes we want to see happy things’, that likely refers to this idea. ⁴⁴⁶ Material on the evil eye can be found in C, Altindisches Zauberritual, Amsterdam 1900, 79–80 fn. 27. ⁴⁴⁷ This quality also characterises the ‘the one who injures the embryo’ (RV 10.162.2) and carrion birds (see RV 10.87.7). ⁴⁴⁸ See p. 252. ⁴⁴⁹ See O, Religion, 486.

    .  

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to Trita Āptya. . . . . May Us: as burn away the effect of the evil dream of which we were afraid. Without offense have we become. . . .’ (RV 8.47.14–15, 18). But to ‘wipe off ’ the consequences of bad dreams⁴⁵⁰ on Trita Āptya, the ‘scapegoat’, is not the only remedy sought (see pp. 136 and 145). They can also be passed on to strangers who do not honour their own gods and therefore are not under their protection, and so were likely considered entirely defenceless: ‘The effect of evil dream [directed] at us, at our cows, at our house, let him who is not one of us, who reviles the gods, the scornful, put it on like a necklace’ (Atharvaveda XIX 57.5) [308]. Men of the Rgvedic era considered the greatest evil that could befall him and : shorten his—god-given (RV 1.89.9, 10.33.9)—lifespan of (ideally) one hundred years⁴⁵¹ to be diseases, of which the Rgveda mentions several by name.⁴⁵² It was in : the power of the gods to inflict them.⁴⁵³ In particular it was feared that Rudra would strike people and cattle with diseases of all kinds. But it was he, too, above many other gods,⁴⁵⁴ who was invoked to eliminate them (see p. 132), as he had all manner of remedies at his disposal, of which the one called Jalās: a was considered the most effective. More often than Rudra, however, Agni was implored for assistance, as he could literally burn away and smoulder out sickness. But other gods, too, such as Savitr: , Mitra and Varuna, : Indra,⁴⁵⁵ the Aśvins, and the gods per se (RV 10.63.12) were also invoked for help. And not only divine intervention was besought for protection from and help with illness: wind, water, and plants were thought to have healing powers as well:⁴⁵⁶ ‘Wind, blow a remedy hither! Wind, blow away the disease! For you, the all-healing one, go forth as the messenger of the gods’ (RV 10.137.3); ‘The waters are healing, the waters make diseases crawl away. The waters that heal all things, they shall prepare a remedy for you’ (RV 10.137.6); ‘[You plants], your mother’s name is “making healed” and you are healings. . . . . The healing plants have driven away every disease of the body’ (RV 10.97.9–10). The ‘herbs’ were used by physicians, specialists knowledgeable in

⁴⁵⁰ RV 10.37.4 also speaks of bad dreams, beseeching Sūrya, the sun god, to ‘displace and drive them away’ with his light. ⁴⁵¹ The lifespan allotted to man is one hundred years (see RV 1.89.9, 2.27.10, 33.2, 3.36.10, 10.18.4, 85.39, and especially 10.161). He could fulfill this span if it were not for the many ‘evils’ that shorten it. There are ‘one hundred and one kinds of death’ (Atharvaveda VIII 2,27), and only one of them is death by aging (Atharvaveda II 28,1). ⁴⁵² RV 7.50 in particular enumerates such, all of which were probably considered ‘of bad name’ (see RV 10.162.2). Like so many ‘evils’, diseases came to man from ‘outside’: ‘The diseases that follow the bride’s brilliant wedding procession from a foreign realm, the gods worthy of sacrifice shall lead them back whence they came’ (RV 10.85.31). Apparently, the idea that diseases originated within the human body was quite unknown. ⁴⁵³ Later, it is mainly Piśācas and Rāks: asas who are held responsible for bringing disease (see O, Religion, 265). ⁴⁵⁴ RV 7.50 is a case in which Mitra and Varuna : and the All Gods are invoked in such a matter. ⁴⁵⁵ In the Apālā song (RV 8.91), Indra is invoked to heal baldness. This request is made by reminding the god of the ‘healing’ of Apālā, to whom he had provided ‘sunlike skin’ by pulling her through the hub of a chariot wheel three times (see p. 255 fn. 333, also on Apālā’s putative skin disease). ⁴⁵⁶ ‘Water and poisonless plants’ are mentioned together in RV 6.39.5.

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    . 

healing⁴⁵⁷ who had their divine counterparts in the Aśvins (cf. RV 8.18.8):⁴⁵⁸ ‘With whom the herbs have come together . . . the knowledgeable one is called a physician’ (RV 10.97.6). Special healing power was attributed to Soma, the ‘king of plants’ (RV 10.97.18–19, 22), for ‘he heals all that is sick’ (RV 8.79.2). And so he is also beseeched, along with Rudra, to ‘remove the disease that has invaded the abode’ and ‘give all remedies to the bodies’ (RV 6.74.2–3). [309] While there are ‘exorcistic’ speech acts perceptible in many songs of the Rgveda, : the text says very little indeed about any specific ritual acts accompanying them. Whether demons of illness were carried away in effigy, consigned to water and left to float, or even burned—when, for instance, it is said that ‘we lay my jaundice on the parrots, on the Ropanākās, and on the Hāridravas’ (RV 1.50.12)⁴⁵⁹—is not : discernible, nor what the ‘thousand-eyed, hundred-lived oblation’ consists of, by which the full lifespan of a hundred years is to be ‘attained through sacrifice’ (RV 10.161). One of the few actions mentioned with regard to the removal of disease is a ‘healing’ touch with the hands (RV 2.33.7, 10.60.12, 137.7). Although disaster usually befalls men without warning, it is sometimes heralded. Animals in particular play a significant role in omina and portenta. In the service of divine patrons, they appear to man and announce to him that terrible things will happen: ‘Shouting [there] in the heavenly region of the fathers, speak here as propitious speaker of happy foreshadowing’ (RV 2.42.2).⁴⁶⁰ With the help of the gods, the fate that threatens can be averted if the portents are interpreted correctly: ‘Crush the ass, Indra, that cries so foul’ (RV 1.29.5); ‘May the dove sent [to us] be salutary to us . . . May Agni therefore enjoy our offering’ (RV 10.165.2). Powerful words were recited and sung in attempts to scare away ominous animals and thus avert the impending disaster: “Against that which this dove, seeking, has come hither as a messenger of Nirr: ti,⁴⁶¹ sent [by her], let us sing and make atonement. . . . . Let not the dove bring us harm here, o gods. . . . What the owl screeches, that shall be in vain, and

⁴⁵⁷ RV 9.112.1 names the physician, carpenter, and priest [485] as representatives of a ‘profession’ who are on the lookout for someone who needs their help: ‘The carpenter looks for damage, the physician for an injury, the priest for one who presses [the Soma]’. ⁴⁵⁸ The Aśvins, who are ‘defiled’ by their contact with the people to whom they give aid (see Taittirīya-Samhitā VI 4,9.1), even put an iron prosthesis on the mare Viśpalā, who had lost the lower : part of one leg in the chariot race (RV 1.116.15). ⁴⁵⁹ The ancient Greeks also believed jaundice could be cured by looking at a yellow bird. And the name by which the Physiologus calls this bird, Charadrios (χαραδριός), is probably based on the Vedic Hāridrava since, just as Kauśika XXIX 18 decrees that the latter is to be tied to the bedside of the sick person, the Greek author says that the Charadrios is to be ‘placed on the bed in front of the sick person’ (see also C, Altindisches Zauberritual, Amsterdam 1900, 75–6 fn. 12). ⁴⁶⁰ The stanza is to be understood in the sense that when the bird sent out by the dead caws in the south—the celestial region of the deceased—this portends a death, perhaps that of him who hears the bird’s voice. ⁴⁶¹ For more on this goddess, see p. 155.

    .  

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[likewise] when the dove sets her foot by the fire . . . With one verse, shoo the dove away . . .”. (RV 10.165.1, 3–5) [310]

‘To extirpate all calamity’, it was helpful to, for example, walk around leading a cow (RV 10.155.5, 165.5). Also, one sought to meet ‘like with like’ (similia similibus) and to turn bad omens into good ones—such as the neighing of a horse—through the use of euphemisms: ‘If you, O bird, are of good omen, may no any beacon [with the evil eye] strike you. May no hawk, no eagle kill you! May no heroic archer find you. Crying aloud in the direction of the fathers, speak here as of happy omen [and] with auspicious voice’ (RV 2.42.1–3). Where and from which direction the animal cries sounded played an important role: ‘Cry to the right of the houses. Be of happy omen [and] with auspicious voice, o bird’ (RV 2.42.3, cf. 2.43.1). As here, the direction from left to right is favourable for an omen, the reverse unfavourable.⁴⁶² Not only animals, however: humans could also give ‘signs’, whereby the stanza quoted next seems to speak of physical characteristics of a newly wed wife:⁴⁶³ ‘Of good omen is this woman! Come hither and behold her’ (RV 10.85.33). But dreams, too, can herald disaster. And so one sought to ‘chase them away’ (see p. 270): “If, O king, an ally or a friend in a dream promises fearful things to me, the fearful one, if a thief or a wolf treacherously wants to harm us, protect us from that, O Varuna” : (RV 2.28.10); “Go away, lord of thought, depart, wander into the distance! In the distance announce to Nirr: ti: ‘Of many kinds is the thinking of the living’ ”. (RV 10.164.1)⁴⁶⁴

In these cases, future events can be read from present signs, at least by those who know how to interpret them. Such portents let a man look into the future, [311] to events that are yet to arise. The hope of mastering all possible uncertainties of life led to an extensive system of divination. Divination was particularly important, however, for the successful performance of rituals.⁴⁶⁵ And here, too, signs ‘sent out’ by animals were the preferred medium for seeing into the future: ‘They set the cow free [at the Trirātra sacrifice]. If it, without anyone urging it, should go

⁴⁶² Just as right is in general auspicious, and left the opposite. Actions in rituals that are not part of the cult of the dead nor of ‘magic’ are generally performed with emphasis on the right-hand side, while actions concerning magic and the dead are performed from the left. ⁴⁶³ Atharvaveda VII 115 in particular speaks of such bodily signs: ‘One hundred and one characteristics man possesses, along with his body born at his birth. The worst of them we send away from here’ (3). ⁴⁶⁴ Ritually inducing premonitory dreams, a practice known as ‘incubation’, does not seem to be mentioned by Vedic texts (see  N, Der Traumschlüssel des Jagaddeva, Gießen 1912, p. 40–3). ⁴⁶⁵ See O, Religion, 507–11.

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    . 

eastward, then one would know that the patron of this ritual has succeeded, that he has won for himself a wholesome world’ (Śatapatha-Brāhmana : IV 5,8.11).

7.11 Magic In addition to hymns that are addressed to the gods of the Rgvedic pantheon and : used in their cult, there are a large number of other songs, most of them in the tenth Man: dala. These deal with such topics as, for example, destroying sorcerers, : chasing away demonesses, warding off or healing certain diseases, eradicating worms, neutralising poisons,⁴⁶⁶ obtaining progeny, sustaining a healthy embryo, eliminating a female rival, calling back the ‘spirit’ of a terminally ill person, and bringing rain. Many of these have self-protection as objectives. The intended results could be attained through, on the one hand, the power of the song’s words—merely speaking them could make the desired goal a reality—and on the other hand, presumably, through actions that employed the strategies mentioned in these songs: keeping away,⁴⁶⁷ fending off, averting, removing, and diverting harmful and dangerous beings and essences.⁴⁶⁸ Although Agni in particular plays an important role in these acts,⁴⁶⁹ these rites and rituals are in fact an extension of the ‘ordinary’ cult of the gods, [312] ‘alongside’ which they stand.⁴⁷⁰ They are clearly distinct from practices in the latter, which centre on the invocation and subsequent worship of divine beings through sacrifice. These songs feature close relationships and connections between action and speech:⁴⁷¹ “On Sūrya I hang the poison [like] a leather bag in the house of a Surā-owner” (RV 1.191.10); “Downward blows the wind, downward shines the sun, downward flows the cow’s milk, may downward go your affliction. This hand of mine is auspicious, this [other] even more auspicious.⁴⁷² This [hand of] mine is all-healing, this is of healing touch” (RV 10.60.12); “I deliver you through ⁴⁶⁶ An entire song, RV 1.191, which was appended to the original collection, revolves around this. That certain birds are able to detect and neutralise poison is also a common idea in later times (see C, Poison-Detecting Birds, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 5 [1929], 233–42). [486] ⁴⁶⁷ This was done by not touching, not listening to, not looking at, and similar precautions (see O, Religion, 486–7). ⁴⁶⁸ Ghos: ā, too, apparently used such a technique when she petitioned the Aśvins to find a husband for her: ‘Ghos: ā spoke to you, you Aśvins, walking round you: “I beseech you, you men: ‘Be there for me by day and be there by night . . .’ ” (RV 10.40.5). ⁴⁶⁹ Songs RV 10.87 and 10.162 in particular invoke Agni’s help against ‘sorcerers’ (yātudhána) and ‘harmers of the embryo’. ⁴⁷⁰ All this was often addressed using the terms magic and sorcery. For the (Rg)Vedic ritual, : however, these terms are even more problematic than elsewhere, as the ‘magical’ rites and rituals are essentially performed in the same manner as those of the god cult. What applies to them applies here as well: ‘In a pure state one takes the actions’ (Kauśikasūtra VII 29). And the sacrificial paradigm is that of all G:rhya rituals: that of the new and full moon sacrifice belonging to the ‘god cult’. ⁴⁷¹ Provided, of course, that rites and rituals belonged to the hymns. ⁴⁷² This surely means the right hand.

    .  

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sacrificial offering, that you may [continue] to live, from unknown emaciation and kingly emaciation” (RV 10.161.1); “From your eyes, from the two nostrils, from your two ears, from your chin, from your brain, from your tongue, I draw away the emaciation seated in the head.” (RV 10.163.1)⁴⁷³

These precise descriptions of actions are repeated in almost all of the songs discussed here: ‘Protect us, O Agni, from below, from above, you from behind and from before! . . . From behind, from before, from below, from above . . . protect us’ (RV 10.87.20–21).⁴⁷⁴ With much repetition of words, the use of the refrain,⁴⁷⁵ and the use of quasi-synonyms to describe the goals comprehensively and omit nothing, these descriptions give some of these songs a powerfully evocative effect: “Slay the sorcerer in owl form,⁴⁷⁶ slay the sorcerer in owlet form, the sorcerer in dog form and the sorcerer in eagle-owl form, slay the sorcerer in eagle form and [also] the sorcerer in vulture form . . .” (RV 7.104.22);⁴⁷⁷ “Smite, bountiful [Indra], this host of these sorceresses, on the little pit, on the rubble field, [313] on the great pit, on the rubble field” (RV 1.133.3);⁴⁷⁸ “Let the mother sleep, let the father sleep, let the dog sleep, let the Lord of the Settlement sleep.” (RV 7.55.5)⁴⁷⁹

Names play an important role in these spells⁴⁸⁰ which, through the naming power of their words and the fact that the words are identical with what is named, actually create effects⁴⁸¹ in the world of objects—specifically, the process named.⁴⁸² The fact that a name fully represents what it names, and creates and

⁴⁷³ The detailed information in RV 10.163 has a clear parallel in the Avestian Vīdēvdād (VIII 35–72), yet one cannot infer from this a ‘temporal and cultural congruity of the younger Awesta with the Rgveda’ (as claimed by H apud Mü, Asia Major 6 [1930] 377). After all, the inclusion of : such details characterizes ‘magic’ acts the world over. ⁴⁷⁴ Other examples include RV 1.108.8–12, 7.104.19, and 8.61.16. ⁴⁷⁵ This considerably more frequent in the Atharvaveda. Likewise, the formation of the song as a whole gains in importance as one stanza takes another into account. ⁴⁷⁶ The owl is considered a bird of omen (see pp. 272–3). ⁴⁷⁷ In the original, stanza 7.104.22 reads: úlūkayātum : śuśulūḱ ayātum : jahí śváyātum utá kókayātum / suparn: áyātum utá gŕ̥dhrayātum : d:r:sádeva prá m:rn: a ráks: a indra. ⁴⁷⁸ The original of this text is: ávāsām maghavañ jahi śardho yātumátīnām / vailasthānaké armaké mahāv́ ailasthe armake. ⁴⁷⁹ The original text reads: sástu mātā ́ sástu pitā ́ sástu śvā ́ sástu viśpátih: . ⁴⁸⁰ In the later ritual, these were whispered softly, [487] often three times in a row. Compared to ‘normal’ sacrificial formulas, the spells are sometimes characterized by a reversal of the order of words or syllables (cf. Taittirīya-Brāhmana : II 3,2.1–2 and Āpastamba-Śrautasūtra XIV 15,1, XV 21,3), just as a sacrifice in reverse order causes harm (cf. Taittirīya-Samhitā III 4,8.5). : ⁴⁸¹ The idea that the spell—frequently, at least—works only for a certain period of time is particular to the younger ritual. ⁴⁸² This is often compared to processes in nature the regular course of which promotes the desired process: ‘As the wind sets the lotus pond in motion from every side, so shall thy womb stir’ (RV 5.78.7); ‘May your spirit run after me as the heifer after the calf, as the water upon the path shall it run’ (RV 10.145.6).

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    . 

guarantees that thing’s identity, is the basis for name magic and name sorcery: he who knows the name has power over him who bears that name, and can summon him; the phonetic actualization of the name usually guarantees the presence of the absent person.⁴⁸³ And this means having control over him—that is the belief on which magical techniques are based. However, the technicality of magical practices requires exact knowledge of all (or as many as possible) of the names of the ‘target’:⁴⁸⁴ ‘This plant I dig up, the herb of greatest power. . . . O flat-leaved, healing, god-given, victorious one! Blow away my rival! Make the husband mine alone!’ (RV 10.145.2). If, on the other hand, one does not wish someone or something to appear—something dangerous or undesirable—one avoids at all costs ‘taking his name’: ‘I do not take her name’—referring again to the rival of the previous stanza—‘nor does she tarry with this tribe. Into the farthest distance we make the rival go’ (RV 10.145.4).⁴⁸⁵ The repetitions in the spoken part of the rituals were likely matched by repetitions of the actions, as ‘to intensify the impact and heighten certainty, several procedures aimed at the same goal were combined’.⁴⁸⁶ For these actions, which support the performative speech acts,⁴⁸⁷ images and parts are, at least in the younger Vedic era, of material importance: what is done to the image has an effect on what is depicted; what is done to the part directly affects the whole[314].⁴⁸⁸ How similar the supplication for divine help is to the use of one’s own magic, and how different at the same time, is beautifully illustrated by RV 10.98, the song of Devāpi’s retrieval of the rain.⁴⁸⁹ It begins with praise for the gods, who are asked to send the rain that has failed to come. Then, suddenly, it is the magic power of the words—spoken at a sacrifice by the Devāpi, who has been made a Hot:r—that causes ‘the waters held back by the gods’ to fall to the earth in abundance. Bringing down the rain from the sky, where it is stored in a huge sea, seems to have been one of the main purposes for which magic was used. Because ‘the essence of rain is black’ (Taittirīya-Samhitā II 1,8.5), black animals were sacrificed—sometimes : explicitly those with white spots and horns that pointed downward—and the

⁴⁸³ Thus the woman who wishes to win back her husband from a rival refuses to utter her rival’s name: ‘I do not take her name’ (RV 10.145.2). Otherwise, the woman she named would surely appear. Should it be necessary to speak a name with reference to someone whose presence is not desired, there are typical epithets that must be used in place of the name or its periphrase. ⁴⁸⁴ Such instrumental utility of the name entails strategies for guarding its secrecy: The ‘real’ name (such as the first name given to the newborn) is kept secret, or it is made known only to a few, or a person or thing may have no name at all. ⁴⁸⁵ On the practice of ‘taking the name’, see also H, Aufsätze zur Indoiranistik, Vol. I, Wiesbaden 1975, 300–1. ⁴⁸⁶ O, Religion, 484. ⁴⁸⁷ The close connection of words and actions is ‘what is specific in the magical ritual’ (Graf, Gottesnähe und Schadenzauber, Munich 1996, 184). ⁴⁸⁸ On burying things that belong to the person to be harmed together with the object that causes said harm, see p. 269 fn. 441. ⁴⁸⁹ Regarding this song, compare O, Religion, 320–1.

    .  

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people taking part in the rites had to wear black robes with black fringes. Arrows were shot at targets that represented the sky in which the rain was enclosed. Girls poured out jugs full of water and sang songs about bathing cows. All of these rites and rituals, however, are part of the ‘normal’ cult. Many of them are found in the Pravargya ritual, a great Śrauta ritual in which the initiates summon the monsoon clouds, and thus the rainfall, of late summer (see p. 250).⁴⁹⁰

7.12 Curses and malediction Among the ways in which man wards off and eliminates beings dangerous or threatening to him (see p. 274)⁴⁹¹ is the curse: the wish—usually expressed aloud in words—that bad things may happen to someone, or that evil may befall him and his family.⁴⁹² The curse either threatens that this evil will occur in the future or actually brings it about in the present. A word, which by virtue of its corresponding with the object or act that it designates produces an effect in the objective world [315] (see also p. 275), can have this effect merely by being uttered.⁴⁹³ The effect of a curse is intensified by the interposition of a divine executor: ‘And make the touched one free from the sorcerer who touched [him]⁴⁹⁴ with your spears, O Jātavedas! Agni, strike him down first by flaring up. The flesh-eating, manycoloured Ks: viṅkas shall devour him’ (RV 10.87.7). Quite often, speaking the words of the curse is accompanied by a ritual action, the meaning of which is explained by the words: what happens to the object of the rite should and will happen to the one who is cursed. Comparisons illustrate on a textual level how such reinforcing rites may be imagined:⁴⁹⁵ ‘Crush the hostility like [grains] with a millstone’ (RV 7.104.22). A curse, once uttered, brings about the effect that is expressed in its words. Since it ‘automatically’ produced the desired result, it generally could not be taken back after it had been spoken. Nevertheless, the one cursed might—also with divine assistance—mitigate the harmful effect, or even eliminate it. One proven

⁴⁹⁰ It must be incorrect when O, Religion, 456, regards the Soma sacrifice as another instance of ‘rain magic’. That would reduce this quite complex ritual to at most an incidental aspect (see Oberlies, Die Religion des Rgveda, Part II, Vienna 1999, 40–2). : ⁴⁹¹ On the other hand, a curse may be directed against one who has committed such a crime [488] that he is a danger to the community. If the offense is such that it arouses the wrath of a god or even the gods (ira deorum)—such as a sacral offense—the punishment may come directly from the god or gods offended. In that case, it is not necessary that the, or a, curse be uttered. In the Rgveda, it is Varuna : : in particular who punishes such offenses, usually by afflicting the offender with edema. ⁴⁹² The curse extends to ‘body and children’ (RV 7.104.11), especially—of course—sons (7.104.15). ⁴⁹³ See O, Religion, 515. ⁴⁹⁴ This stanza furnishes an excellent example of magic taking effect through touch (see p. 269). ⁴⁹⁵ The Rgveda is silent about such rites, the existence of which we may surmise (see also p. 274 : fn. 471). A fine example from the younger ritual is provided by O, Religion, 517.

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    . 

means was to send the curse back to its originator: ‘Today the gods shall crush the dishonest! Back onto him shall go his biting curses!’ (RV 10.87.15); ‘To the curser go the curse. With the spell that is friendly to us, we crush the eye and ribs of the hostile curse’ (Atharvaveda II 7,5). But also medicinal herbs were said to have the ability to ‘deliver [one] from the effects of a curse’ (RV 10.97.16) [315].⁴⁹⁶

⁴⁹⁶ Strongly scented herbs are a popular way to keep ‘evil spirits’ away. Evidently ‘smoking out’ the effect of the curse is meant here.

8 Rgvedic Conceptions of the World : Beyond and the Soul The beliefs held by a people, a class, or a group concerning a world beyond are directly related to the social, economic and psychological circumstances of their time, and so can be interpreted as expressing these people’s assessment of their personal and cultural situation. Death, too—itself more than a mere biological fact—is largely part of a social construct, one that encompasses the modalities of continued existence after death. After all, the ‘social construct’ of death is concomitant with ideas about how those who have died still physically exist, and these ideas are characterised by the social and emotional situation of the bereaved. To the extent that basic concepts of life after death seem to mainly serve the needs of the bereaved, the status of the dead is entirely within the sphere of society’s influence. For example, funeral and death rites can be denied or withdrawn in order to punish the deceased beyond death, causing them to suffer hunger and thirst or even, under certain circumstances, to ‘die’ again. The mere fact of having died is not enough to ensure that the deceased will rest in peace. Only integration into the system of ancestor worship¹ maintained by the family group can secure such an existence over time, by binding the deceased to the memory of the survivors. The world beyond, the realm in which the dead are thought to exist,² is often fundamentally separated, for example by water, from the human world.³ It can be under the earth, on the earth—in most cases at its edge, usually [317] behind mountains or on an island—or above the earth. There are in all likelihood connections between the form of afterlife and the type of funeral: burial seems to be associated with a continued existence ‘on’ or under the ground, and cremation with an existence above the earth. Since the various types of funerary

¹ In the Vedic cult of the dead, this is accomplished through the Sapin: dakara na : (see p. 262 fn. 390). : ² As is very often the case, so too in (Rg)Vedic India is this realm a ‘laterally transposed’ world. One : need only recall Varuna’s tree, with its branches growing downward and its roots upward. The : ‘ancestors hanging in a large pit with their feet up and their heads down’ of the seer Jaratkāru, of whom the Mahābhārata speaks (1,13.11, cf. 42.3), might belong here as well. Likewise the entire ‘logic’ of the Bh:rgu narrative is based on the mirror-image aspect of the afterworld; after all, everything that he experiences there is ‘turned around’ as compared to this world (on this narrative, see also p. 292). ³ Only a few ‘chosen’ people—and this includes ecstatics—can enter the afterworld as living beings, as did Bh:rgu. [489]

The Religion of the Rgveda. Thomas Oberlies, Oxford University Press. © Thomas Oberlies 2023. : DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780192868213.003.0008

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    . 

customs often overlap in time, different conceptions of the beyond may exist side by side, with little or no interfusion. It is generally true, however—as the example of Greece clearly shows—that a symbology need not elaborate a consistent and self-contained concept of the realm of the dead: beliefs in this area are ‘practically always diverse and contradictory’,⁴ as must be kept in mind with regard to the following as well. A temporal stratification, such as that presented next, of the Rgveda’s state: ments on the beyond clearly shows a belief ‘that the dead live on in the grave, near their former dwelling, or otherwise on earth, or that they dwell—this perhaps already a more developed idea—in the underworld’.⁵ Later, ‘the location of at least the privileged dead was transferred to a supernatural realm, . . . to heaven, while the underworld remained the abode of those who could not ascend to heaven through outstanding deeds, nor sacrifices offered on their behalf ’.⁶ This ‘relocation’ of the afterworld might be, as suggested previously, connected with a change in funeral rites. In being buried, the dead are connected to the earth and hence to the world of the living; through the practice of cremation, however, the world of the dead is separated from that of the living. These different conceptions of an afterworld coexist in the Rgveda, as elsewhere. Heaven and the underworld, as two : different aspects of the beyond, complement this world as well, and are both inhabited by ‘non-men’—that is, gods and deceased ancestors. The subsequent development of these concepts was presaged by the fact that the sky, as the abode of the undying gods, became the antipode of the underworld, [318] populated by the deceased. This polarisation was heightened by the idea— probably based on everyday experiences⁷—that the heavenly beyond is not open to everyone, nor readily accessible to anyone: only some of the dead live on in heaven; all others remain in the underworld.⁸ Thus there is juxtaposition not only between heaven and the world of the dead, but also between heaven and a divine paradise for the deceased, on the one hand, and a gloomy underground realm of the dead on the other. And while the underworld as subterranean world of the dead was initially the sphere of existence for all those who could not gain access to paradise, it gradually changed over time, first into

⁴ B, Greek Religion, Harvard University Press 1985, 190. ⁵ A L, H B, article: Himmel, in: Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum 15 (1991), 173–212, here 176. ⁶ Ibid. ⁷ As early as Rgvedic times, society was characterised by distinct social stratification that engendered : a striking level of inequality. ⁸ These afterworld realms were also geographically separated, indeed most likely as far back as the earliest times: the world of the gods is shifted to the north, the world of the fathers to the south (RV 10.15.6, 17.9). Interestingly, according to conceptions in the Old Iranian religion, the world of the dead is in the north (see O, Religion, 342–3 fn. 3). This makes O’s conjecture that ‘the heavenly region of the fathers is, perhaps already in Indo-Iranian belief, the south’ (Religion, 544 fn. 4) quite dubious.

.         

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a place where the ‘impious’ go after dying,⁹ and ultimately to a sinister place of punishment for the wicked—a kind of hell.¹⁰

8.1 Conceptions of life after death Evidence of beliefs concerning a life after death is barely perceptible in the family books (II-VII), which comprise the oldest parts of the Rgveda. Similarly sparse in : these Man: dalas are comments on death and references to Yama as the god of the : dead. In the few passages that do speak of an afterlife, it is located not in heaven but in a gloomy ‘underworld’.¹¹ This idea is likely related to the ancient practice of burial,¹² as the body of the dead ‘stays’ on earth (cf. RV 10.18.10-13).¹³ More concrete ideas of a life post mortem in a realm ‘beyond’ first begin to emerge in the songs appended to the family books; and then in the first and eighth books—i.e. the younger ones—as well. It is clear from these passages—and hinted at vaguely in the family books—that although death was not thought of as simply obliteration, [319] neither was existence in the ‘world of the ancestors’ (pit:rloka) imagined as pleasant or in any way desirable; no more than it was in ancient Greece. When a post-mortem existence in heaven—especially a joyful one—is spoken of, its attainment is for the most part placed in direct connection with the performance of sacrifices and / or the drinking of Soma (RV 1.31.15, 73.7, 121.13, 125.5; 8.48.3). Only the most recent parts of the Rgveda, primarily in the tenth Man: dala, : : contain abundant statements about an afterlife and a realm beyond. According to these later Rgvedic conceptions, the realm of the dead lies high above the earth, in : heaven:¹⁴ ‘So do the celestials speak to you, son of Idā: : “As it is, you are one whose ⁹ The late appended song RV 7.104, in particular, exhibits some aspects of a belief in hell in the Rgvedic period, according to which hell was a dark dungeon in the depths of the earth (3, 11), from : which those who are entrapped in it cannot escape to the sunlight (24). The dead V:rtra had also been thrust down (9) into this ‘womb of Nir:rti’, where frightening silence reigns (5). Not only demonic beings end up there, but also those who commit a serious breach of Varuna’s order (see also O, : Religion, 538–40). ¹⁰ See O, Religion, 536–43. ¹¹ O, Religion, 544–9, was the first to point out that the conception of a realm beyond located in the heavens was superimposed upon the older belief, according to which the world of the dead—like the Homeric Hades—is ‘a subterranean shadow world’. The text passages, however, that speak of that ‘underworld’ show with sufficient clarity that it is primarily thought of as a horizontal beyond; with the natural environs of the Rgvedic tribes in mind, one imagines it lying beyond the : mountains that loom in the (north) east: there lies the entrance to the afterlife, both heavenly and ‘underground’, and there, too, heaven and the ‘underworld’ meet. See also pp. 66–7. [490] ¹² The evidence provided by the Rgveda for the existence of such a practice, however, is extremely : sparse, and all of it controversial (see p. 258). ¹³ RV 10.15.2 allows some of the dead to dwell in ‘earthly space or in settlements with good clans’. Even if one translates suv:rjánāsu viks: ú differently (as for example O, Religion, 558), their own settlements (or their proximity) are surely very concretely meant. ¹⁴ Compare O, Religion, 530–4.

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    . 

origin is death. Your descendants will worship the celestials with offerings. And in heaven you too will rejoice” ’ (RV 10.95.18). More precise localisations place it in the centre of the sky: ‘[The departed], whether burned by fire or not, satiate themselves . . . in the middle of the sky’ (RV 10.15.14).¹⁵ Some sites there, however, are preferred over others.¹⁶ These are reached by those who have earned special merit through sacrifice: ‘High in the sky are those who have given rich offerings; the horse givers tarry with the sun’ (RV 10.107.2).¹⁷ There is a path leading upward from the earth to this glorious world over which Yama rules. It was he who walked this path as the first to die (RV 10.14.2, Atharvaveda XVIII 3,13), and since that time it has been walked by all the dead (RV 10.14.7, 15), who are ruled by Yama in his realm as their king (RV 1.38.5, 10.16.9).¹⁸ But the way to Yama’s kingdom is long and arduous, and cannot be traversed without the guidance of Pūs: an (RV 10.17.3-6), god of the pathways (see pp. 130–1). Along the way, moreover, the dead must get past Yama’s dogs: ‘Past the two spotted dogs, the descendants of the Saramā, the four-eyed ones, go on the right path. Then go to the well-distributing fathers . . .’ (RV [320] 10.14.10). Apparently they guard the entry to the world beyond. As is evident from the Vala myth (see p. 171), this lies beyond the Rasā,¹⁹ the broad stream that separates heaven, the underworld, and earth.²⁰ The deceased must cross this river²¹ to reach the world beyond.²² There he joins Yama—son of Vivasvant— who rules over the dead. His kingdom, which is repeatedly described in the

¹⁵ Quite specific information on the situation of the ‘world of the fathers’, ‘on the place of the blessed life with Yama’ (O, Religion, 533 as well as other passages), is found in the Atharvaveda: ‘The watery one, thus is the lowest heaven called, the pīlu-rich one the middle, the third one is called the uppermost heaven, in which the fathers sit’ (XVIII 2,48). ¹⁶ The ‘brightness’ of these places is emphasised, a characterisation found in the Avesta as well. There, the ‘space of the blessed’ (to quote B, Altiranisches Wörterbuch, Strasbourg 1904, col. 1490), is called raocah, ‘light(s) (n.); light (adj.)’: ‘For the following as the first favour I ask of you, O . . . Haoma, the best life of the truthful ones, the shining [paradise] that offers all comforts’ (Y 9.19). It is to this place that the Haoma also transports the one who consumes it: ‘When tasted, [the Haoma] is exquisite, and for the soul most providing for travel provisions’ (Y 9.16). The brightness of the hereafter is doubtless attributable to the sun, and so Yima is called ‘seeing the sun’ (Y 9.4). ¹⁷ Compare RV 10.154.2, 5 (see also O, Religion, 534). ¹⁸ The idea that Yama ruled over the dead who ‘lived’ in his realm seems to have developed only after the Indo-Iranian period. On the other hand, the Rgveda says nothing about him ruling as king of a : golden age, which however is a fundamental belief in the Avesta (see O, Religion, 532–3). ¹⁹ There was the entrance to the Vala (before it was smashed), the stone heaven, which Saramā, the mother of Yama’s dogs, tracks down. ²⁰ We encounter a very similar idea on the Greek side: The souls guided by Hermes must cross the river Acheron to get to Pluto’s realm. On its far shore is the entrance to Hades, [491] guarded by Cerberus. According to the younger conception, they are received at the Acheron by the ferryman Charon, who carries them across the river if his toll is paid and their bodies were properly buried. This, in turn, is highly reminiscent of Atharvaveda III 29,1, which says that of the dead man’s property—the reward for his good works which follows him into the afterworld—one-sixteenth is paid as tribute to Yama’s royal assessors. ²¹ From Atharvaveda XVIII 4,7 we learn that “fords” (tīrthá) make this crossing possible. ²² RV 10.63.10 could also be referring to this border river, which is to be crossed by boat.

.         

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Rgveda as bright (RV 10.64.3, 123.6, cf. 10.154.5),²³ is located far away—RV : 10.51.3 indicates a journey of more than ten days²⁴—high up in the sky, in the ‘third’ heaven, and exactly in its centre (see previous), where the world tree is also located: “Three heavens there are, two are in the lap of Savitr: , one is in the world of Yama, . . .” (RV 1.35.6); “Come together with the ancestors, with Yama, with that which you have earned, in the highest heaven. . . . A resting place adorned by days, waters, and nights Yama gives to this [dead one]” (RV 10.14.8–9); “Where the son of Vivasvat is king, . . . in the thrice vaulted, threefold sky of heaven . . . make me alive!” (RV 9.113.8–9); “Where under a beautifully leaved tree²⁵ Yama carouses with the gods. . . .” (RV 10.135.1)

The place where Yama ‘makes men go together’ (RV 10.14.1)²⁶ is also the abode of Varuna, : who ‘holds the crest [of the world tree]’ (see p. 192), and so RV 10.14.7 names him as the second god, alongside Yama, to whom the departed go.²⁷ Yama was the first to die because he, the son of Vivasvant, had chosen mortality in order to have descendants. And so he became the mortal²⁸ ancestor of man (RV 1.66.8, 7.33.9, 12).²⁹ By ruling in the realm of the deceased, where the Aṅgiras, called ‘fathers’ in RV 10.14.4 (see p. 189 fn. 151), form his close retinue (RV 10.14.2–4),³⁰ Yama became—probably only gradually—a god who commands death, a real death god:³¹ ‘To Yama, to death, be worship!’ (RV 10.165.4). And his [321] dogs,

²³ Yama’s Sabhā, already mentioned in Jaiminīya-Brāhmana : I 167, is similarly described in the Mahābhārata (2,8.1–5), which is similar to the description of conditions in the K:rtayuga, the ‘Golden Age’, as presented in various passages of that text. ²⁴ There it is said that Yama discovered Agni shining across a distance of ten day’s travel. The latter had evaded the task connected with his office of Hot:r by fleeing to the farthest distance (see p. 99). ²⁵ O had already compared this tree with information in the Nordic myth that Hel’s seat is located at the root of the world ash tree Yggdrasil (Buddha: Sein Leben, seine Lehre, seine Gemeinde, Berlin 1881, 88). ²⁶ This is not to say that all the dead reach that place. Yama reunites those who had died in earlier times with those who died recently (cf. RV 10.15.2), but only the ‘pious’. According to the (Rg)Vedic : conception, these are the ones who, among other things, sacrificed abundantly over the course of their lives (see RV 10.16.4, cf. 10.17.4; see also Vājasaneyi-Samhitā XV 50). : ²⁷ For details, see pp. 285–7. On the notion of judgment of the dead, possibly attested in more recent Vedic texts while in the Rgveda only in 10.12.8, compare O, Religion, 541–2. : ²⁸ The ‘mortal’ (márta) in RV 1.72.4 refers to Yama, as shown by comparison with RV 10.51.3. ²⁹ His (unconsummated) incest with his twin sister Yamī is addressed on p. 186. ³⁰ Like Yama with the Aṅgiras, RV 10.14.3 pairs Mātalī with the Kavyas and B:rhaspati with the Rkvans. The Kavyas, [492] sacrificers in antiquity and related to the deceased ancestors, are also : mentioned in RV 9.91.2 and 10.15.9. They seem to owe their ephemeral existence to an interpretation of the euphemism kavyavāhana, which—as a word—is attested only in post-Rgvedic times. : ³¹ It seems that over the course of time, conceptions and attributes were transferred to him that had initially been associated with the (or an) ‘actual’ death god, as for example his nets, fetters, and snares. For details, see A´ -T, The Indo-Iranian noose of death, Zarathushtra entre l’Inde et l’Iran, Wiesbaden 2009, 1–16, who also elucidates Indo-Iranian formulations for the ‘shackling’ by death.

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    . 

who initially—it seems—merely guarded the entrance to the realm of the dead, became veritable messengers of death, who fetch the dying to Yama’s realm.³² Of great importance for the god figure Yama are also his family relationships, which—apart from Saranyū : as his mother—are all inherited. Specifically, Yama’s father Vivasvant, like him ancestor of man and moreover the first sacrificer; his twin sister Yamī, who tries to seduce him into committing incest; and his twin brother Manu, another ‘first’ man, all have counterparts on the Iranian side. A comparison with the Avestan Yima, however, yields a rather more precise idea of where Yama’s kingdom is located than do the passages of the Rgveda : cited previously. From this comparison we learn that Yama’s realm—or more precisely: that of his Indo-Iranian predecessor—is in the east, in the high mountains that loom on the horizon. These mountains were formed at the beginning of world, from the amorphous stone mass of the Vala. That giant rock, rising from the primordial waters of ‘chaos’, was smashed by Indra with the help of the Aṅgiras, his companions in battle. That deed caused heaven, earth, and the space between them to appear out of the ‘featureless salt tide’ (RV 10.129.3), out of the everlasting darkness of the ‘before times’: ‘This is the sunlight. This is the brightness, the broad midspace’ (RV 10.124.6). The remains of this primordial world, the immense boulders and the primeval water, were then incorporated in the structure of the emerging world.³³ As noted previously, the stone mass came to form the bordering mountains and the underworld³⁴ on top of which the vault of heaven now rested, and the primeval water now extended below ground and above the earth as subterranean sea and celestial ocean, respectively. There where underworld and heaven meet; in the mountains at the eastern horizon;³⁵ at the border between heaven and underworld, is where ancient belief places Yama’s kingdom (see pp. 65–6). While it is true that this conception survived into Rgvedic : times, [322] as we have seen, Yama’s kingdom was now also moved into the highest heaven, to its centre.³⁶

³² Much has been written about these dogs, because their epithet, śabála, ‘spotted’ (RV 10.14.10) has been seen as related to the Greek Kérberos, thus establishing a connection to that canine guardian of the entrance to the underworld. As he in turn was compared with the Fenris wolf (see M, Der germanische Himmelsgott, Abhandlungen zur germanischen Philologie, Festgabe für Richard Heinzel, Halle 1898, 221), this inevitably led to an ‘Indo-European’ hellhound. These deductions, however, have always been met with scepticism (cf. O, Religion, 538 fn. 3). It is undisputed, however, that they are related to Yima’s two dogs who guard his bridge, although the parallels we have for such guard animals are widespread. ³³ This explains the statement in the Atharvaveda (XVII 1,19) that ‘the sát is founded on the ásat’. ³⁴ The ‘underworld’ spoken of in RV 7.104.3 (cf. also 5.32.8) is called vavrá, ‘dungeon’. However, RV 4.1.13 and 5.31.3 also call the Vala lair by this name. ³⁵ At night, the mountains and sky merge and become one, creating the idea of a ‘stone sky’ (see p. 67). ³⁶ Thus the spatial ‘displacement’ of Yama’s kingdom corresponds to that of the hereafter generally (see pp. 280–1).

.         

285

8.2 Svàrnara: Location of the heavenly ‘paradise’ : A fairly clear picture of how people in the Rgvedic period imagined life after death : and the heavenly beyond is first portrayed in RV 9.113, a young ancillary song that imagines heaven as a paradise flooded with light (7–8) where fresh waters flow (8), food and drink are plentiful (10), and life is good (11). And cooling shade against the light of the sun, which apparently always shines there,³⁷ is provided— according to RV 10.135.7—by trees (see p. 283) under which bright flute music resounds. When this information is collocated with what the hymns tell us about the site of the celestial beyond (see pp. 286–7), it follows that those dead who reach the afterworld were thought to dwell exactly where the Soma gushes from its source. Other information in the text pertaining to this location indicates the same: ‘I would like to reach [Vis: nu’s] own enclosure, where men who : worship the gods become inebriated [with Soma]. For this is the origin of the far-striding, the source of the (Soma-) honey in Vis: nu’s highest footprint. We : wish to reach these abodes of yours, [O Indra and Vis: nu], : where the many-horned wild cows [graze]’ (RV 1.154.5-6).³⁸ So the idea apparently prevailed on the Indian side too³⁹ that the great beyond situated in the sky is a grassy meadow—RV 10.14.2 explicitly calls it a ‘pasture’ (gávyūti)—a grove, or a parkland with an everflowing Soma spring⁴⁰ and shady trees. And the external conditions of [323] this area are those of a typical locus amoenus, a ‘pleasant place’. The dead enter this heavenly realm by the same path⁴¹ on which Agni conveys offerings to the gods in heaven,⁴² and on which the gods come to the sacrifice and then return to their abode.⁴³ Since this is also the path on which Soma travels between heaven and earth,⁴⁴ the request can, as in RV 9.113, be made repeatedly to Soma to convey the drinker of Soma to the heavenly world and there make him

³⁷ The Atharvaveda believes that an excess of heat must even be avoided: ‘Beneficial winds shall blow upon you. . . . The water-bearing Maruts shall wet you with rain, giving you coolness . . .’ (XVIII 2,22). ³⁸ This stanza may be discussed in the context of beliefs about the afterworld, since it says in RV 10.15.3: ‘I found the . . . fathers, the grandson, and the stride of Vis: nu’. : Note the association of ‘fathers’ and ‘grandson’ in the highest heaven (see pp. 288–9). [493] ³⁹ As among the Greeks or Hittites. ⁴⁰ Apparently Yama drinks from this in the company of the gods and the dead (RV 10.14.10, 135.1). Of the latter, RV 10.154.1 states: ‘Soma purifies itself for some, to the Ghr: ta others sit down, for whom honey flows: may he go into them’. Note that a distinction is made here between Soma and honey (mádhu). ⁴¹ The development that turned the devayā́na of the Rgveda into such a path (see H, : Vorstufen der indischen Seelenwanderungslehre, Asiatische Studien 25 [1971], 108–11), even though it ‘originally had nothing to do with the path of the dead’ (H, l.c. 108), was likely parallel to the shift that led from the ‘underworld’ of the dead to the heavenly beyond. ⁴² Yet ‘it is not only the burned dead who are thought to be in heaven: “those who are burned by fire and those who are not burned by fire enjoy food for the soul in the middle of heaven”, it is said . . . in Rgveda (X 15,14)’ (O, Religion, 585). : ⁴³ The plural form of devayā́na might indicate that each individual god had his own path to earth. ⁴⁴ For details see pp. 62–3.

286

    . 

́ a—probably immortal.⁴⁵ Various indicators suggest that this path, the devayān along the sun’s rays⁴⁶—leads across the space between heaven and earth to where the dawn and the sun rise up from the horizon every day.⁴⁷ There lies the entrance to the heavenly and to the subterranean beyond,⁴⁸ and just there the path seems to fork,⁴⁹ with one part leading upward into the vault of heaven⁵⁰ while the other leads downward into the underworld. The latter is the path that death traversed by death himself (RV 10.18.1). The obvious assumption is that the dogs of Yama (see p. 282) stand at this fork in the road⁵¹ to guide some of the dead along ‘the right path’ (RV 10.14.10) and to deny this access to others.⁵² Thus, according to Rgvedic conception, the path of the dead apparently runs ‘forward’, i.e. eastward, : along the way by which Soma comes down to earth and then ascends to heaven again (see pp. 66–7). Various factors may have naturally contributed to the localisation of the heavenly afterlife near the Soma spring. A very important role will have been played by the idea that the consumption of Soma is what enables continued existence for the deceased, just as it maintains the immortality of the gods. But ⁴⁵ This can be asked of (the god) Soma, since he transports the Soma drinker to the heavenly beyond by inducing a state of ecstasy. Moreover, he ‘knows the territory’ (RV 9.70.9) and can therefore act as a ‘guide’. ⁴⁶ In Atharvaveda XI 1.36 the firmament is called saptáraśmi, which may refer to the ‘septet’ of the sun’s rays (RV 1.105.9, cf. Atharvaveda VII 107,1). And since the same verse speaks of the ‘paths of the gods’ (patháh: . . . devayā́nān), it is reasonable to assume a connection between sunbeams and gods’ paths. ⁴⁷ This is the site of the gate of heaven from which Us: as steps every morning (cf. RV 1.113.14). RV 3.43.6 seems to mention the posts that frame this gate. ⁴⁸ While the dome of the sky was thought to rest upon the earth, with its rim meeting the ground all the way around, crossing over from earth to heaven was probably considered possible only at certain points, for example by means of bridges or dams. ⁴⁹ The Pañcāgnividyā of the Jaiminīya-Brāhmana : (I 49) and that of the Kaus: ītaki-Upanis: ad teach that all of the dead set out on the same path when they leave this earth. And this uniform path, which [494] forks only at the moon, is the older conception (see also p. 292 fn. 87). That the Chāndogya- and B:rhadāranyaka-Upani s: ad versions, which are the more recent at least in this point, have the moon : serving as a transit station for both paths—the deva- and the pit:ryāna—can likely be explained as having survived from this older conception. ⁵⁰ G understands the difficult stanza RV 10.14.16 to mean that ‘the dead person, or rather his soul, flies to heaven during (a) three-day celebration that immediately follows the funeral service’. If this interpretation is correct, it would provide both a precise description of the path that the deceased takes to the afterlife and an indication of how long his journey takes. ⁵¹ In the Pañcāgnividyā versions of the Jaiminīya-Brāhmana : and the Kaus: ītaki-Upanis: ad, the seasons and the moon function as afterworld guardians. ⁵² This fork in the road at the entrance to the afterlife would then have its exact counterpart in Zarathustra’s Cinuuat̰ Bridge, where dogs keep watch (Vīdēvdād 13.9) and separate the good from the bad at the Last Judgment. This bridge is approached by all the dead on the ‘paths created by Zruuan’ (Vīdēvdād 19.29), and there they are met by a young girl who has come over the Harā Mountains (Vīdēvdād 19.30). Also, according to the 30th chapter of the Bundahišn, one end of the bridge is at the foot of Mount Harburz, descendant of the Avestan Harā bәrәzaitī. Accordingly, this bridge seems to be located exactly where the sun comes up over the horizon every day. For just like this girl, Miθra also ascends over the Harā with the rising sun (‘[Miθra], who is the first spiritual god to ascend over the Harā, preceding the immortal sun, who has swift steeds’, Yt. 10.13). This would provide a simple explanation for the fact that the daēnā, received by the soul of the dead in the afterworld, is designated gives to Us: as (see also p. 56 fn. 51). in the Hāδōxt-Nask (2.9) with epithets that the Rgveda :

.         

287

in order for them to be ‘sated’ with Soma, they must be, ideally, exactly where it exists: ‘in the middle of heaven’ (RV 10.15.14). There is also a widespread [324] notion that the dead have a sometimes-agonizing thirst they must quench.⁵³ And where better could the ‘fathers worthy of the Soma’ do this than where the Soma gushes from its source? This will always and abundantly provide Soma, but only if those they left behind on earth press it for them: thus a direct relationship is established between a location in the afterworld and an essential part of the ancestor ritual.⁵⁴ But the dead feast not only on the Soma pressed for them; in Yama’s realm, they also enjoy the yield of the sacrifices they themselves had performed throughout their lives, as here they are reunited (RV 10.14.8) with the ‘sacrificed and bestowed’ (is: t:āpūrtá) which they had ‘sent ahead’ (RV 10.2.3). This can be understood to refer primarily to Soma sacrifices, meaning what they have earned is once again directly related to Soma. And thus it comes full circle: A favoured few attain the heavenly beyond⁵⁵—RV 10.16.2 calls it ‘the world of the pious’—because they perform sacrifices, most importantly Soma sacrifices; in this world beyond, their existence continues both because they feed on what they had sacrificed in their lifetime—specifically, no doubt, on ‘their’ Soma—and because their surviving family members sacrifice Soma to them. The exclusivity of the Soma sacrifice thus continues from this world into the next.⁵⁶

8.3 The Rgvedic conception of ‘reincarnation’ : Another important function of Soma in the construct of post-mortem existence is alluded to, if less clearly, in the Rgvedic hymns. In the Rgveda, as noted previously, : : the ascent to heaven following death was conceived of as analogous to the ascent and descent of Soma to and from its heavenly origin (see pp. 285–6). In the Pañcāgnividyā, that classical explication of the concept of reincarnation, the descent of the Soma (and the transformation that takes place in the process) and the steps [325] leading to the birth of an individual human being⁵⁷ are apparently considered a single process. This might indicate that the ancient conception sees ⁵³ RV 10.15.9 speaks of the fact that ‘the ancestors abiding with the gods felt a craving thirst’, which is why their survivors must sacrifice Soma to them in the death ritual. ⁵⁴ See O, Religion, 535. ⁵⁵ See O, Religion, 536. ⁵⁶ This calls to mind the term iteration, coined by M. P. N for the idea, documented since Homer, that the dead continue in the afterworld doing what they [495] had done during their life. Thus in the Rgveda, too, the world of the dead was not yet conceived of as a corrective realm complementary : to this world, as was later the case. ⁵⁷ This Vidyā teaches that reincarnation results from a cycle of transformation of material elements—the celestial waters, Soma, rain, food, and semen. These elements are transformed by being sacrificed into various fires: the beyond, the thundercloud, the earth, the man, and the woman. The sacrificial fires transform the elements as follows: from the celestial waters comes the Soma, from Soma comes rain, from rain comes food, and from food comes the man’s seed. And this is ‘sacrificed’ into the woman, from whom man is, in turn, born.

288

    . 

the deceased—although probably only chosen ones—as being a part of the Soma cycle. This would mean, however, that the idea of a kind of cycle of birth, death, and rebirth was already known in ancient times. And evidence for this is indeed found in a number of Rgvedic hymns.⁵⁸ Furthermore, the conception—of at least : the possibility—of ‘re-death’ (punarm:rtyu) must have existed from the beginning, even if it is mentioned expressis verbis only later.⁵⁹ As mentioned previously, not only the immortality of the gods is thought to be directly dependent on Soma but also the continued existence of the dead in the heavenly beyond; thus either could be ‘ended’ by the withdrawal of Soma.⁶⁰ Moreover, these ideas about life after death are generally centred on a continuation of the previous life, if in a reduced form, and are characterised by the notion that the continued existence is not indefinite. Various sources⁶¹ have argued quite plausibly that in early Vedic times, the cycle of rebirth was conceived such that the deceased return to earth after a stay in the heavenly beyond, and are born again into their own family.⁶² This is a cycle not of various births of a specific individual, but of different generations in a single family: great-grandfather, grandfather, father, son, and grandson are all

⁵⁸ See W, The earliest form of the concept of rebirth in India, Papers presented at the 31st International Congress of Human Sciences in Asia and North Africa, Tokyo 1983 (unpublished) and M, Foreshadowings of transmigration in the Rgveda, Sauh:rdayamaṅgalam, Studies in Honour of : Siegfried Lienhard on his 70th Birthday, Stockholm 1995, 207–13. ⁵⁹ The term ‘punarm:rtyu’ appears late and relatively rarely, and even in the few places it occurs, it is not really clear whither the renewed dying leads. Śatapatha-Brāhmana : II 3,3.8, however, indicates that re-death does occur in the beyond: ‘Whosoever, without having freed himself from death, enters the world beyond . . . him the sun causes to die again and again in the world beyond’. ⁶⁰ S’s thoughts seem to go in the same direction: ‘This [scil., the idea that one also dies in the hereafter at some point] does not necessarily assume a return to this world; according to B there is no mention made of such in any of the relevant Brāhmana : passages. But such a return might nevertheless have lent itself as a possible interpretation or further development of the concept of re-death, similar for example to cycles like that of damp (of the Soma juice and / or water) which rises (with the smoke of the offering fire or through the heat of the sun) from the earth into the sky (/ sun / moon) and returns to the earth as rain; or as analogous to the ritual in which the patron’s symbolic ascent into the sky, [496] which prefigures the journey of the dead to heaven, is followed by his symbolic return to this world’ (S, Mensch, Tier und Pflanze und der Tod in den älteren Upanis: aden, Im Tod gewinnt der Mensch sein Selbst, ed. G. O, Vienna 1995, 48–9). Compare also O, Die Lehre der Upanishaden und die Anfänge des Buddhismus, Göttingen 1915, 24 fn. 2: ‘It is . . . not impossible that this idea of “re-death” goes back to the time of the Rigveda or even further. In an invocation of Soma (Rigv, IX, 113) the heavenly worlds are spoken of and stanza by stanza the prayer is repeated: “There make me immortal.” This can indicate that in those worlds too, new death threatened. In fact, the passage appears to be quite similar to some later ones that speak of attaining immortality in the heavenly world in this sense’. ⁶¹ See  N, Eine Quelle der indischen Seelenwanderungsvorstellung, Archiv für Religionswissenschaft 6 (1903) 320–33, W, The earliest form of the concept of rebirth in India, Papers presented at the 31st International Congress of Human Sciences in Asia and North Africa, Tokyo 1983 (unpublished) and I, Some aspects of the idea of rebirth in Vedic literature, Indo-Shisōi Kenkyū 6 (1989) 155–64. The first of these studies was unknown to the latter two. ⁶² The idea that one’s own life continues in one’s descendants is perceptible in several passages (cf. RV 6.70.3, 8.27.16, 10.1.7, 63.13). This is served by the sampradāna ritual familiar from more recent : Vedic times, in which the dying father passes on his ‘vital functions’ to his son in a very concrete way. For example, the son inhales his father’s breath.

.         

289

part of a self-renewing line of succession. The deceased is preferentially ‘reborn’ as his own (great-great) grandson. ‘Shining in the womb as the father of his father (= as his grandfather) . . .’, it says RV 6.16.35. This ensures that the individual lives on (cf. RV 10.85.42),⁶³ and at the same time⁶⁴ that the continuity of the family is preserved⁶⁵—a desire expressed repeatedly (RV 1.114.8, 2.33.1, 10.62.8, 183.1–2)—and the ‘extended thread’ (ā́tatas tántuh) : does not break: ‘The ancestors put their own offspring, [326] the paternal power, the extended thread into the descendants’ (RV 10.56.6); ‘Who put the seed into him, that the thread might be extended?’ (Atharvaveda X 2,17). In order to ‘keep the thread extended’,⁶⁶ one of the most important duties of a man is to sire a male⁶⁷ descendant: ‘[A man] shall place [in his wife] his father’s grandson (= sire a son), thinking of a continuer [of the family] on earth’ (RV 10.10.1). If indeed the idea existed that the greatgreat-grandfather is reborn in the ‘grandson’, that would also explain why, according to the Sapin: dakara na : (see p. 262 fn. 390), the deceased of the fourth : generation (previous to the pater familias) was no longer included in the ancestral line to whom the monthly offerings were sacrificed,⁶⁸ but instead passed into the general, indeterminate host of fathers. Indeed, the sacrificer makes offerings only to his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather, and the furthest removed of the preceding ancestors gives up his claim in favour of the newly added dead.⁶⁹ And so the ‘cycle of rebirthʼ could have been conceived of in Rgvedic times as : depicted here:⁷⁰

⁶³ See Schulze, Kleine Schriften, Göttingen 1934, 68 fn. 2. ⁶⁴ The explanation of the Vedic ritual texts as to why RV 7.59.12 is used (see p. 225 fn. 156)—‘. . . May I, like the gourd from the stem, be delivered from death, not from not dying’—to accompany the Tryambaka offerings with which Rudra is ‘requited’ shows the close association of offspring with survival: ‘He thereby frees the descendants born to him from Rudra’s power’ (Śatapatha-Brāhmana : II 6,2.4; cf. Kāt:haka XXXVI 14: 80,17). It is particularly interesting that the unmarried daughters of the sacrificer are supposed to make these offerings as well (replacing the pus:t:ivárdhanam of the ‘Tryambaka stanza’ [see p. 108 fn. 156] with pativédanam [see ĀpastambaŚrautasūtra VIII 18,3]); in their case, to ‘obtain a husband’ [497] (see Oldenberg, Religion, 442). Grandchildren in particular are supposed to ensure the survival of the sacrificer. ⁶⁵ The practices regarding inheritance law—the subject of RV 1.70.10, 9.46.2, and 10.132.3—and family planning also show clearly that a correlation was ‘seen’ between the continued existence of the family unit on the one hand and of its dead on the other. ⁶⁶ This ‘extended thread’ is also spoken of in RV 10.57.2, in a song that pleads for ‘preservation of life’. ⁶⁷ Only the son can perform the ancestral sacrifices—the subject, for example, of the Jaratkāru narratives of the Mahābhārata (1.13, 41)—and to him falls the duty of arranging for the cremation of the deceased. That is why ‘a man who has no son does not possess a world [beyond]’ (nāputrasya loko ʼsti, Aitareya-Brāhmana : VII 13,12). In younger Vedic times, the illegitimate son of the wife can also offer the ancestral sacrifices for her lawful husband (see P, Göttingische Gelehrte Anzeigen 1894, 1002–4). Whether this also applies at the time of the Rgveda remains questionable, since RV 7.4.7 : states: ‘Not offspring is that begotten by others’ (see also p. 256). ⁶⁸ The sapin: da : relationship, too, exists only within four generations (see Gautama-Dharmasūtra XIV 13); see also C, Kleine Schriften, Stuttgart 1990, 570. ⁶⁹ See O, Religion, 555. ⁷⁰ This also answered the question of who the ‘anonymous’ dead were in ancient times (see p. 263 fn. 396).

290

    .  Years of age

Living

Ancestor

100

Undifferentiated ancestors

Great-grandfather → Great-great-grandfather

80

Grandfather

60

↓

Father

40

EGO

20

Son

0

←

Grandson

This is conceptually embedded in a widespread belief that the births of new members in a group follow on the intervention of ancestral spirits. In the Rgveda, : too, this [327] idea is found elsewhere: ‘You fathers!⁷¹ . . . Bestow a wealth of consummate heroes’ (RV 10.15.11).⁷² Involvement of the ancestors in the procreation of offspring was also ensured through ritual, for example in the sacrifice to deceased ancestors, by having the wife eat the leftovers of the offering while the stanza ‘Put in me, O fathers, a fruit, a lotus-wreathed boy, that here may be a man’ (among others) is recited (Āpastamba-Śrautasūtra I 10,11).⁷³ The idea sketched here might answer the question of why concepts related to an afterworld are only very dimly perceptible in the older parts of the Rgveda. : An aversion to speaking about death cannot alone explain its near complete absence.⁷⁴ Evidently, the poets of the ancient portions of the Rgveda had not yet : developed any conception of a life in heaven, nor more generally of a happy postmortal existence for man.⁷⁵ This begs the question as to why such notions had not developed, since ethnology teaches us that the concept of a post-mortal existence of whatever kind is a simpler and more general belief than that of an absolute death,⁷⁶ because man’s entire existence is oriented towards stability. Contemplations on how existence could be continued even after death must have ⁷¹ Like the (Rg)Vedic ‘fathers’ to whom they are related, the Avestan Frauuas: ̌is (see p. 59) are also : responsible for making women become pregnant: ‘By the power and the radiant fortune of the sovereignty of the [Frauuas: ̌is], women conceive sons . . . [and] bear them with easy birth’ (Yt. 13.15). ⁷² Also compare RV 10.64.14 as well as Atharvaveda XIV 2,73, Kauśikasūtra LXXXVIII 25, and LXXXIX 6. ⁷³ See C, Altindischer Ahnencult, Leiden 1893, 191. ⁷⁴ And in view of the countless petitions for wealth, well-being, power, and long life, one would certainly expect to find a request for a pleasant post-mortem existence as well, even in light of the fact that in the older parts of the Rgveda, immortality is understood to mean living out the full span of years : accorded to man, [498] ideally one hundred years—in other words, delaying death until the last possible moment: ‘A duration of a hundred years: So great is immortality, the infinite, boundless’, Śatapatha-Brāhmana : X 1,5.4 (see O, Religion, 530). Incidentally, it is Soma (among other things) that allows a man to attain the full span of years (see RV 8.48.11, 79.6; 10.59.4). ⁷⁵ According to B, Life after death, Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde Südasiens 38 [1994], 27. ⁷⁶ Life after death is not granted by Yama nor any other god; rather, it is taken as a matter of course, in a way (see O, Religion, 537).

.         

291

arisen therefore very early, even in Rgvedic India. There is a very similar case, : however, that might shed some light on this seeming conundrum: the Romans, too, lacked specific concepts of an afterlife.⁷⁷ Numerous indications suggest that in ancient Rome, no need for differentiated conceptions of life after death arose because the cult of the dead was so tightly bound to the familia. A similarly close integration of the deceased into the family may be what impeded, for quite some time, the emergence of such conceptions on the Vedic side [328].

8.3.1 Soma and the ‘five-fire doctrine’ The ideas traced in the foregoing form a background against which to view the role of Soma in the Pañcāgnividyā, the ‘five-fire doctrine’. In the oldest version of this teaching, that found in the Jaiminīya-Brāhmana : (I 45-46), ‘the animating power of water seems to be the basic fact’ from which ‘this doctrine proceeds’,⁷⁸ yet it is also here that we find the Soma originating from ‘(heavenly) waters that are immortality’ (see p. 62). And so the Upanis: ad versions⁷⁹ replace this celestial water, as the first offering, with the ‘faithfulness’ (śraddhā) which in the Rgveda characterises the attitude of those pressing the Soma:⁸⁰ ‘Out of the : frothy [strainer] purify yourself, . . . Soma, you who were pressed with true truthspeech, with faithfulness, with heating!’⁸¹ (RV 9.113.2).⁸² This moves Soma into an even more central position of the ‘five-fire doctrine’ than it holds in the Jaiminīya-Brāhmana. : It is Soma that is transformed through a series of sacrifices, first—in its descent from heaven—into rain,⁸³ causing plants and ⁷⁷ Another common feature that seems to belong in the context under discussion concerns an external element of ancestor veneration: Just as on the Roman side the deceased are represented at the pompa funebris by actors wearing ancestral masks (and by other persons; see the article imagines maiorum in Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum), in the Śrāddhas, a type of Vedic ancestral ritual, the dead are embodied by Brahmans (see K, Das Ritual der Feuergründung, Vienna 1982, 76 fn. 194). ⁷⁸ E F, Geschichte der indischen Philosophie, Vol. 1, Salzburg 1953, 49.—That the designation ‘water doctrine’ is misleading, even inaccurate, was already pointed out by S in his review of Fʼs book (see Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 107 [1957], 661). ⁷⁹ S, Zur Textgeschichte der Pañcāgnividyā, Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde Südasiens 38 (1994) 43–60, argued convincingly that the Pañcāgnividyā version on which the Chāndogya- and B:rhadāranyaka-Upani s: ad versions are based (which he designates *U) is a recasting : of the older version in the Jaiminīya-Brāhmana : under the influence of Śatapatha-Brāhmana : XI 6,2. ⁸⁰ In Śatapatha-Brāhmana : XI 6,2.6 ff., that part of the text which is related to the Pañcāgnividyā, it is instead the moon—surely because the moon is frequently identified with Soma, or the Soma container. ⁸¹ It seems to me more than mere coincidence that the sequence satyéna śraddháyā tápasā recurs in the Pañcāgnividyā versions of the Chāndogya- and B:rhadāranyaka-Upani s: ads: ye ceme ʼranye : : śraddhām : tapa ity upāsate (Chāndogya-Upanis: ad V 10,1), te ya evam etad vidur ye cāmī aranye : śraddhām s: ad VI 2,15). [499] : : satyam upāsate . . . (B:rhadāranyaka-Upani ⁸² Also compare RV 10.151.1. ⁸³ This is based on the old conception that the rain carries the Soma in its descent from the sky (see pp. 62 and 65)—the macrocosmic aspect of this descent—or that the pressed Soma drips as rain through the strainer—the microcosmic counterpart.

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    . 

animals to grow,⁸⁴ which in turn serve as food for man.⁸⁵ This ‘Soma-like’ food is eaten by man and woman, in whom ‘seeds’—arguably both semen and female procreative material—is then produced: ‘When it rains, plants emerge. When one has eaten the plants and drunk (the rain) water, this (seed-) liquid is formed’ (Śatapatha-Brāhmana : I 3,1.25).⁸⁶ During ritual intercourse, the man pours his semen, and that means Soma, into the woman, his sacrificial fire, whereupon a new human being is created. Thus Soma, which comes from heaven, ultimately ‘becomes’ a human being on earth. And so it says in B:rhadāranyaka-Upani s: ad VI : 2,2: ‘Do you know after how many oblations are offered the waters have become such whose voice is that of a man, [and] . . . . speak as such?’ (vettho yatithyām āhutyām : hutāyām āpah: purus:avāco bhūtvā samutthāya vadantī3 iti) [329]. In the Jaiminīya-Brāhmana, : as well as in the Chāndogya- and B:rhadāranyaka: Upanis: ads, the Pañcāgnividyā is coupled with the ‘doctrine of the two ways’.⁸⁷ Where the ‘five-fire doctrine’ per se offers a model of the origin of the individual human or other living being, the ‘two-way doctrine’ shows what happens to him or it after death. According to this teaching, those who practice asceticism in the wilderness will walk the ‘path of the gods’ (devayā́na, see pp. 285–6) and thus escape the cycle of rebirth, while those who offer sacrifices in the village take the ‘path of the fathers’ (pit:ryā́na) to the next rebirth. The ancient textual environment of the ‘five-fire doctrine’ permits of conclusions concerning the intention of its content, as both that of the Jaiminīya-Brāhmana : and the related passage of the Śatapatha-Brahmana : are immediately preceded by the narrative of ‘Bh:rgu in the hereafter’, and in both texts it is embedded in the treatment of the Agnihotra. Moreover, interspersed in that of the Jaiminīya-Brāhmana : is a discussion of funeral rites. The juxtaposition of these passages is unlikely to be coincidental; rather, they appear to have been joined because of their thematic commonalities. It is clear that the exchange of ‘goods’ between heaven and earth provides the common framework within which the diverse conceptions are developed. It is also clear—especially in light of the connection to the Bh:rgu tale—that what is ⁸⁴ Śatapatha-Brāhmana : I 6,4.15 says of the Soma: ‘Then he comes into this world. Here he enters the waters and the plants’. ⁸⁵ Perhaps the idea also prevailed that the dead person dwells in the earth and that the Soma-rain transports ‘him’ into the plants. According to Śatapatha-Brāhmana : XIII 8,1.20, ‘the fathers creep towards the roots of the plants’. In the Taittirīya-Brāhmana : it is even said—according to  N, Die Luft- und Wasserblase im Volksglauben, Archiv für Religionswissenschaft 5 (1902), 146, although unfortunately without indicating the exact passage, which could not be found despite all efforts—that ‘in every raindrop an ancestor is to be seen’. Knowledge of the context would be prerequisite to an appraisal of this idea. ⁸⁶ This may refer to the daily intake of food or, for example, to the first meal taken together by husband and wife after marriage, or a meal before coitus—vividly described in B:rhadāranyaka: Upanis: ad VI 4,13–22—meant to enhance the couple’s fertility. ⁸⁷ That the notion of two paths, that of ‘the gods’ and that of ‘the fathers’, is independent of the ‘fivefire doctrine’ is evinced, for example, by Śatapatha-Brāhmana : I 9,3.2, a passage according to which it is one path that leads from the place of sacrifice to the ‘hereafter’ (see p. 286 fn. 49). And in the Kaus: ītakiUpanis: ad, too, there is a ‘two-path doctrine’ without the Pañcāgnividyā.

.         

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exchanged is the human being, who goes to the hereafter and returns from there to earth. The inclusion of the ‘five-fire doctrine’ in the Jaiminīya-Brāhmana : in the context of the burning of corpses, moreover, is probably due to the fact that this exchange occurs through the dying and rebirth of man. And Soma, the god who dies and rises again, is the quintessence of alternating between death and birth. Thus, according to Jaiminīya-Brāhmana : I 18—and corresponding to Kaus: ītakiUpanis: ad I 2—the answer that the deceased must give in order to gain access from the seasons to the place of immortality [330] refers to his descendance from Soma: ‘You seasons, from whom . . . , that which is pressed every half month, which is characterized by the [property] belonging to the ancestors, the seed has come forth. As such, you sent me into the man who does [your] work. From this man . . . you pour me into my mother. . . . Of this I am certain. . . . Therefore, lead me to immortality.

Jaiminīya-Brāhmana : I 50 gives interlinear explanations of this, the first of which reads: ‘That [the season (-gatekeepers)] there [above] sacrifice the . . . king Soma—that is what is [meant] by this’. The Soma cycle begins in heaven when a sacrifice is performed, and it encompasses the circulation⁸⁸ of man—or more precisely, the ‘seed’ of man—between heaven and earth. There are conceptions in Zoroastrianism that can support one important aspect of the previous: The Frauuas: ̌is (counterparts of the pitarah; : see p. 59) guard Lake Vouru.kas: ̌a, which contains the semen of Zarathustra (Yt. 13.59/62); and from this semen—as apparently already thought in ancient times⁸⁹—future saviours (Saošiiant) : are born at various temporal intervals to virgins who become pregnant by bathing in this lake.⁹⁰ This parallels the Pañcāgnividyā in that the semen, from which new birth follows, comes from Lake Vouru.kas: ̌a, the ‘celestial sea’ (see pp. 65–6). The fact that Haoma originates in Lake Vouru.kas: ̌a (see p. 62), moreover, is another element of connection. It is easy to see how the conception of a life after death through a close family bond could lead to the development of a belief in reincarnation, where it is no longer the family that goes through the cycle of rebirth, but the individual.⁹¹ And the Pañcāgnividyā outlines a ‘theory’ of reincarnation that draws on apparently very ancient conceptions. In the Jaiminīya-Brāhmana : version, the ‘five-fire doctrine’ is still centred on the idea that Soma conveys the principle which ʻtravels ⁸⁸ The cyclical nature of these processes is an essential element of the Pañcāgnividyā. ⁸⁹ See L, Die Religion Zarathustras, Tübingen 1930, 205–15. ⁹⁰ In Avestan eschatology, however, it is Lake Kąsaoiia from which future saviors are born (Yt. 19.92–96, Vīdēvdād 19.5). Most likely, however, this is a secondary development (see H, Der Zamyād-Yašt, Wiesbaden 1994, 42). ⁹¹ This individualisation of the birth cycle may be related to the fact that as societies became [500] more complex, kinship—once the structural basis of social relationships—lost a measure of its importance.

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    . 

through the chain of [re]births’. But even there, the positive [331] value of maintaining continuity of the lineage⁹² had already been replaced by the horrible vision of an individual’s endless imprisonment in the cycle of rebirth. And the idea—also apparently once seen as quite positive—that man lives more than once and his ritual activities enable him to move between heavenly and earthly existence, had become a trauma of perpetually returning to an existence now perceived as burdensome and unpleasant. This shift was intensified by the fact that the concept of rebirth had come to include the possibility of returning not as a human, but in the form of a bird or other animal, or even, in some cases, a plant. (These were initially seen as merely intermediate stages that a person might pass through in the reincarnation process.) Moreover, man had become responsible for his own fate in an entirely new way. Now it was determined largely by his own actions, which the recently emerged concept of karma(n)⁹³ linked closely with his future condition. Previously, the nature of his post-mortal existence in heaven had been determined by the assiduity of his ritual activities, but now the principles of ethical-moral behaviour had emerged as an additional factor. And with the gradual devaluation of ritual,⁹⁴ behaviour soon became the element that determined both one’s fate in the afterlife and the form in which one returned to this world: Karma now supplemented and modified the old automatism of the alternation between earthly and heavenly existence.

8.4 The concept of souls in the Rgveda : In the foregoing, Rgvedic ideas concerning souls were touched upon repeatedly : without using the term as such. As this implies the question of whether and in what form the concept of a soul, and of multiple souls, had been developed in Rgvedic times is indeed not easy to answer. The following attempt is preceded by a : brief [332] discussion of the general elemental conditions for the formation of such a concept. The term soul, which comes from the Western Christian concept wherein it designates the incorporeal essence of a human being which does not ⁹² Again, this continuity of the line is granted by Soma, because it ‘conveys’ family members through the cycle of rebirth by preparing the semen from which the deceased is reborn in his descendants—or rather: because it is this semen. On Soma’s correlation to semen, which many more passages of the Brāhmanas : show (cf. e.g. Jaiminīya-Brāhmana : I 316), see p. 225 fn. 153. ⁹³ The notion of a ‘fruit of works’ independent of the will and power of the gods (Kaus: ītakiBrāhmana : XXVI 3) became almost inseparable from the belief in reincarnation, once the latter had taken firm hold. And it is said already in the Śatapatha-Brāhmana: : ‘Man is born into the world he has made for himself ’ (VI 2,2.27). ⁹⁴ The ‘ritualists’ reacted to this development by fashioning the Agnicayana ritual, in which an altar was stacked in the shape of a bird (on which the sacrificer flies up to heaven), into a kind of counter-belief as against the ‘new’ concepts of salvation, such as asceticism and meditation. Like those, their argument goes, this ritual of ‘stacking the fire altar’ couldn’t prevent death—but it could vanquish ‘re-death’ (see p. 288 fn. 59). And that makes it the most effective means of all for attaining an agreeable afterlife.

.         

295

succumb to death, is used here as a collective term for conceptions pertaining to personality and life functions. Particularly in liminal and transitional situations, man is faced with a need for self-interpretation, here in varying degrees of acuity. Possible answers to the question of what remains when the human being ‘dies’—whether in fact or in a ‘ritual’ death (e.g. as part of an initiation ceremony)—are the notions of I, self, and soul. In the case of actual death, the perspective is that of the other; the interest of the bereaved dominates and the basic concepts of a continued existence after death are aligned with their needs. These concepts are not (or not primarily) an individual’s projection of his own post-mortem existence, but rather serve to unburden him as the one left behind; the survivor. Naturally, the idea that the deceased would simply continue to exist was too easily falsifiable to remain the sole answer to the question of what remains. Alongside models that continue elementary social contact with the deceased, there emerged those that delineate a cœnaesthesis that continues beyond the grave. The fact that identity, at least in a basic form, seems to be primarily based on the body—that is, that person and corporeity are extremely closely linked—led to the idea that man himself, the ‘I’, was in fact the body, which was therefore due special attention even after death, for example washing, dressing or embalming.⁹⁵ In light of the rapid decay of the body, however, this concept was comparatively unattractive, and this view of man was soon replaced. Other components of life [333] now served preferentially as the means of interpreting ‘I’ and ‘self ’: blood and bone, and particularly those that are visibly lost in death, such as breath and colour. Another interpretive model of personhood had developed as well, one that assumes a principle of guaranteed constancy and identity regardless of physical changes, and is distinguishable and separable from the body. At first, these two models were mutually complementary—in addition to his ‘body souls’, man possesses (or: is) also a ‘free soul’—but with increasing social complexity, the significance of ‘body souls’ was drastically reduced, and the alternative model of interpretation gained in prominence. This development culminated in a unification of notions about souls⁹⁶ within the conception of ‘one soul’ as opposed to a belief in multiple souls. Once it had been received, this concept represented a highly specific instrument of interpretation, especially when the individual soul was thought of as being inside the human being⁹⁷ and consisting of the same substance as the ‘world(-soul)’. ⁹⁵ Concerning the Indo-Iranian realm, Herodotus’ histories attest that the Persians covered the body of the deceased with wax before it was buried (1.140, cf. 6.29–30). ⁹⁶ This apparently did not occur until the Upanis: adian period. Thus it can be assumed this development took place under very specific conditions on the Indian side as well, interestingly at about the same time as in the history of Greek religion. ⁹⁷ G pointed out in Urmensch und Spätkultur that ‘the self is fundamentally determined by something Other, . . . not only through a determinative other person, but also in a certain “external support”. These can be concrete things like the breath, the shadow, the animal—especially [501] the

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    . 

Death, according to the Rgveda, although the inevitable fate of every human : being,⁹⁸ does not mean total annihilation⁹⁹ but only the end of the current life. This gives rise to the question of how and in what form that text conceives of postmortem existence. What is clear is that in the Rgveda, too, the fact that person: hood is to a great extent bound to corporeity means a man is—at least in essence— identical with his body (and vice versa). And so the concern for integrity of the body post mortem¹⁰⁰ is more than the subject of an urgent plea addressed to the cremating fire—‘Don’t burn him, don’t scorch him, don’t let his skin, his body burn! When you, O Jātavedas, have cooked him, then may you place him among the fathers’ (RV 10.16.1). ¹⁰¹ It is also the reason for clothing the deceased in an ‘armour of cows’ and ‘satiating’ Agni with a goat (see p. 259).¹⁰² Though the body takes part in the afterlife, it is a body that has none of the imperfections of the earthly body—it is free of disease, suffering, and infirmity [334] (RV 10.14.8, Atharvaveda III 28,5, VI 120,3). Since at death various ‘bodily factors’ are separated from the physical body—first and foremost the powers of breath and sight, which go into the wind and the sun, respectively (cf. RV 10.16.3)¹⁰³—and since the ʻsongs of the deadʼ include an appeal that the ‘deceased’ may unite with his body (RV 10.14.8, 16.5), there was clearly a belief that ‘bodily factors’ (see following) reunite with the ‘body’ in the hereafter. And this body—as may be concluded from the ritual disposition of the bones of the dead (see pp. 260–1)¹⁰⁴—was clearly

bird—but also the image, the name; and finally, the genius. The extreme case of these ideas lies in an inversion of the relationships: Man is not (only) represented by those ʻexternal supportsʼ, but is dependent on them in one way or another: The life of the primary ego depends on the life of the alter ego; when the doppelgänger becomes visible, death is near; damage to the tree of life leads to destruction; loss or sale of the shadow . . . has serious negative consequences’ (G, ‘Tiefe der Seele’ und ‘inner space’, in A (ed.), Die Erfindung des inneren Menschen, Gütersloh 1993, 123). The (Rg)Vedic conception of the soul also included such ‘external supports’, for example fire, shadow, : mirror image, man in the eye, and soul animal, especially the bird (see O, Religion, 527 fn. 2, 564, 581–2). ⁹⁸ For man is, by his very nature, ‘mortal’ (see p. 33). ⁹⁹ It should be noted, however, that there are various references to the deceased falling victim to complete annihilation (nír:rti) (see p. 155). ¹⁰⁰ So it is also said Atharvaveda XVIII 2,24: ‘May there be nothing of your mánas, nothing of your ásu, nothing of your limbs, nothing of your sap, nothing of your body, lost’ (on mánas and ásu, see pp. 297–8). But the concern for physical integrity is expressed particularly clearly in RV 1.162—where, of course, it is a horse that is sacrificed (compare especially stanzas 9 to 11). And if rujā́nah: (RV 1.32.6) does in fact mean ‘faceless through shattering’, the idea would presumably be perceptible here that mutilation of the corpse renders the continuation of life beyond death impossible. ¹⁰¹ The fire is even said to heal any injuries to the corpse (RV 10.16.6). ¹⁰² And one characteristic of burial—presumably the older custom—is that it leaves the corporeity of the dead untouched. ¹⁰³ Similarly it is said in Atharvaveda VIII 2,3 (= Paippalāda XVI 3,3): ‘From the wind I have acquired your breath, from the sun your eye’. And in a prayer at an animal sacrifice is heard: ‘To the sun shall the [sacrificial slaughterer] make the eye of the [sacrificial animal] go. To the wind he shall release his breath, [502] to the air his asu, to the realms of the world his ear, to the earth his bones’ (AitareyaBrāhmana : II 6,13). On the corresponding decomposition of Purus: a, see p. 195 with fn. 175. ¹⁰⁴ Atharvaveda XVIII 2,26 contains an appeal to the fathers to set right any of the bones that have fallen into an incorrect position.

.         

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thought of as being formed anew from the buried bones:¹⁰⁵ ‘Clothed in life-force, the remains (= the bones) shall turn thither [to that which has gone to the hereafter]. O Jātavedas, with the body they (= the bones) shall unite’ (RV 10.16.5). It was assumed that the ‘whole person’ reaches the afterworld, but in the form of a shadowy essence. According to the Rgvedic view, a person consists of a material body (bones, : flesh, organs, tendons, ‘fluids’, hair, nails)¹⁰⁶ and various ‘factors’ that animate it— the ‘body souls’.¹⁰⁷ The latter are responsible for certain physical and mental functions, such as breathing, thinking, emotions, speech, sensation, and movement:¹⁰⁸ The prāná, : which in microcosm-macrocosm analogy corresponds to the wind (vāyú, vā́ta) (RV 10.90.13, Atharvaveda V 9.7), is man’s breathing—a similar function seems to have been attributed to the (ā)tmán;¹⁰⁹ the mánas—which corresponds with the moon (RV 10.90.12)—regulates thought processes;¹¹⁰ the manyú, the emotions; the “eye” (cáks: us)—associated with the sun (RV 10.16.3, ¹⁰⁵ Possibly reminiscent of Ovid, Met. I 383 ff: From the stones—the bones of the great mother, the earth—which Deucalion and Pyrrha throw behind them, a new human race is born. ¹⁰⁶ Hair and nail growth signify growth and vigour. And yet the hair and nails are considered dead matter, as the Kāt:haka (XXII 13: 69.6–7) states. When the deceased is shaved bald, and his fingernails and toenails are cut—disposal of the cuttings being the subject of special precepts—it represents the removal of the old and unclean to allow the growth of something new. ¹⁰⁷ This term, coined by E A (see p. 298 fn. 112), is defined by B with reference to the Homeric epics as follows: Following the widely accepted terminology developed by . . . Ernst Arbman . . . , we can distinguish . . . two types of soul. On the one hand, there is the free soul, or psuchē, an unencumbered soul representing the individual personality. This soul is unactive (and unmentioned) when the body is active; it is located in an unspecified part of the body. Its presence is the precondition for the continuation of life, but it has no connections with the physical or psychological aspects of the body. Psuchē manifests itself only during swoons or at death, when it leaves the body never to return again. On the other hand, there are a number of body-souls, which endow the body with life and consciousness. The most frequently occurring form of the body-soul in Homer’s epics is thumos. It is the soul that both urges people on and is the seat of emotions. There is also menos, which is a more momentary impulse directed at specific activities. . . . A word emphasizing the intellect more than thumos and menos is nous, which is the mind or an act of mind, a thought or a purpose. In addition, there are a number of organs, such as the heart and the [503] lungs, which have both physical and psychological attributes. In Homer, then, the soul of the living does not yet constitute a unity. (Soul, Greek and hellenistic concepts, The Encyclopedia of Religion, Vol. 13, New York 1985, col. 434–5) ¹⁰⁸ Already in ancient times these were enumerated as an established set of five: thought, speech, breath, sight, and hearing. ¹⁰⁹ According to RV 10.16.3, the latter goes into the wind upon the ‘dissolution’ of the deceased, and according to RV 10.168.4 the wind (-god) Vāta is the ātmán of the gods (cf. also RV 7.87.2: ‘Your ātmán roars loudly as a wind in the space [between heaven and earth] . . .’). The conflation of food and ātmán (RV 8.3.24, 10.107.7) also points to a subtle ‘life force’ rather than an immaterial soul. Does RV 1.162.20, with its juxtaposition of ātmán and tan, show the first steps in this direction? ¹¹⁰ The activity of the mánas, located in the heart (RV 8.100.5), occurs with great rapidity; apparently the ‘wandering’ of thought. Likely through this property, it can also—in certain situations—leave the body and return to it (cf. O, Religion, 526–7). Thus the faculty of thought, which ‘during the sacrifice for the dead got into the community of those who have gone’

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    . 

90.13; Atharvaveda V 9,7, 10.8)—enables sight; and the voice (vāć ), speech.¹¹¹ These ‘factors’ work independently of a ‘soul’ that is superordinate to them.¹¹² That the body thus composed actually lives is owing to the life-force, called ásu, the existence of which is also the conditio sine qua non for consciousness.¹¹³ In the Rgveda, this life-force is mentioned primarily in connection [335] with awakening : from sleep; illness; and dying—states and processes in which the body was, is, or becomes (or can become) unconscious: ‘For he was held in an embrace by the long-maned unmarried ones, already dead they have risen again . . . . Taking away their age, he comes roaring loudly, creating felicitous life-force, unconquerable life’ (RV 1.140.8).¹¹⁴ Passages in the text indicate that the ásu can leave the body for a while without the body dying. Only its prolonged absence leads to death. Upon death it leaves the body forever¹¹⁵ and goes into the beyond, preceded by the ‘remains’ of the person:¹¹⁶ ‘The fathers shall raise themselves, who . . . have gone to their life-force’¹¹⁷ (RV 10.15.1), ‘Mr: tyu was Yama’s messenger. He, the wise, made the life-forces go to the fathers’ (Atharvaveda XVIII 2,27). This life-force forms the continuum between life in this world and that in the beyond, and clearly shows characteristics of a ‘free soul’.¹¹⁸ Subsequently, the old (or ancient) notion

(O, Religion, 554 fn. 5), must be called back (see C, Altindischer Ahnencult, Leiden 1893, 11–12 and 178–9). And the same happens when ‘thinking’ has quit the unconscious sick person: ‘Your mind that has gone to Yama . . . far away, that we bring back to dwell here, to life’ (RV 10.58.1). ¹¹¹ Strikingly, the only mention of the ‘ear’ in the Rgveda in the context under discussion is in the : Purus: asūkta, where it is related to the cardinal directions (i.e. space; RV 10.90.14, Atharvaveda V 10,8). ¹¹² In a critical examination of T, who claimed the Rgveda lacks not only a belief in a unified : soul that can exist separately from the body but any belief in souls at all (see T, Forestillingen om Sjælen i Rigveda: Med nogle bemærkinger om sjæleforestillings udformning i de ældste upanis: ader, Kgl. Danske Videnskabernes Selskab, Hist.-filol. Meddelelser II,4, København 1910), A, Tod und Unsterblichkeit im vedischen Glauben, [504] Archiv für Religionswissenschaft 25 (1927) 339–87 and 26 (1928) 187–240, distinguished between the ‘free soul’—the psychē (purus:a)—and a number of ‘body souls’ (including prāna, : ātman, asu, manas). See p. 297 fn. 107. ¹¹³ Another such life-force is the jīvá. It is notable that RV 1.113.16 and 140.8 (see O, Religion, 526) identify the ásu as jīvá, ‘invigorating’. And the ásu is also in competition with ‘thinking’ (see p. 297 fn. 110), in a way (see O, Religion, 525–30). ¹¹⁴ Numerous passages from the Atharvaveda are furnished by O, Religion, 528 with fn. 1. Jaiminīya-Brāhmana : III 168–9 also tells of two sorcerers robbing the sleeping Subandha of his ásu, whereupon he does not awake. He awakes only after his ásu has re-entered his body. ¹¹⁵ According to B:rhadāranyaka-Upani s: ad IV 4,3, it is the Ātman that leaves the body upon death. : ¹¹⁶ That the same does not happen to the survivors present at the cremation is the subject of a plea expressed on this occasion: ‘Do not allow their life-forces to go to Yama’ (Atharvaveda XVIII 3,62). ¹¹⁷ To ‘go into his ásu’ means ‘to come to new life’ (see O, Religion, 44–5 with fn. 3), as shown by RV 10.12.1 (svám ásum : yán) which speaks of the fire being revived from the glowing embers. ¹¹⁸ The question of the relationship between the soul of one who has died, on the one hand, and life principles on the other arises ‘in sharp focus in the detailed definition of the “principle” cycling through, probably only when the pre- and post-existence of an “individual” soul are formulated’ (G, Naturae deus humanae mortalis: Zur sozialen Konstruktion des Todes in römischer Zeit, Leben und Tod in den Religionen, Darmstadt 1980, 133). And the answer often lay in the notion of the ‘free soul’: ‘The Greeks, like many other peoples, considered the soul of the dead to be a continuation of the free soul of the living’ (B, The Early Greek Concept of Soul, Princeton 1983, 123).

.         

299

of ásu—originating in Indo-Iranian times—could not assert itself against the strong ‘competition’, and the ásu no longer plays a role in the microcosmicmacrocosmic analogies of even the late Rgveda. : Hence, the concept of a single soul was not known in the Rgveda. Man : was believed to have a plurality of ‘souls’ which, together with the physical ‘material’, constitute the person, who ultimately cannot be reduced to any essential element.¹¹⁹ And this ‘whole person’ lives on—after the ‘decomposition’ that takes place during the funerary ritual and his subsequent ‘recomposition’—in the hereafter (see p. 195 fn. 175) [335].¹²⁰

¹¹⁹ The connection between the conception of the actual essence of man and conceptions of salvation are well known: the soul is held prisoner by the body and must be ‘liberated’. ¹²⁰ See O, Religion, 529–30.

Bibliography With the translation of this book from German into English, quotations from German reference material were also translated into English.

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Index Locorum Note: Subscript numbers indicate endnotes.

1. ‘Rgveda’ : 1.1.2 93 1.2.1 and 5 201 1.6.4 185 1.7.10 50₁₈ 1.13.1 and 4 199 1.13.12 224 1.15.1–5 211 1.15.4 219 1.16.9 31 1.17.2 202 1.23.22 116₂₀₅, 268 1.24.7 192 1.24.10 173 1.24.14 268 1.25.11 51₂₄ 1.28 231₁₉₂ 1.29.5 272 1.32 167–168, 206 1.32.1 30, 159 1.32.2 80 1.32.6 296₁₀₀ 1.32.14 83 1.35.2 33, 134 1.35.6 283 1.36.4 94 1.47.10 30 1.50.7 17₅₉ 1.50.12 272 1.51.5 170₄₃ 1.51.13 9173,77 1.54.9 198 1.55.5 83 1.58.6 100 1.62.2 169 1.63.1/3 202 1.63.6 14 1.63.7 202 1.64.1 199 1.64.2 199, 205 1.65.9 101 1.72.4 283₂₈ 1.73.3 110 1.73.8 202

1.81.3 25 1.82.5 203 1.83.5 188 1.84.17 83 1.89.8 270₄₄₅ 1.93.6 100, 161 1.93.8 171 1.94.4 265 1.94.16 148₃₈₂ 1.95.7 134 1.96.2 185, 187 1.97.1 270 1.100.17 203 1.102.1 267₄₂₇ 1.103.2 180 1.103.5 83₄₁ 1.109.3 232₁₉₄ 1.114.4 31 1.115.1 35₁₂ 1.120.9 112 1.121.7 17₆₀ 1.121.10 181 1.123.8 113 1.127.8 8₂₉ 1.128.2 100 1.131.1 126 1.132.1 10 1.133.3 275 1.134.6 215 1.140.8 298 1.141.4 101 1.141.10 109 1.148.1 100 1.148.2 92 1.154.5–6 285 1.155.3 193 1.59.1 141 1.160.3 193 1.160.4 191 1.161.8 131₂₈₇ 1.161.14 114 1.162.12 243 1.162.17 268₄₃₃ 1.162.21 241

312

 

1.162.22 241, 243 1.163.2 90₆₉, 143₃₅₅ 1.164.20–22 162 1.164.33 141₃₄₅, 194 1.164.38 104₁₃₈ 1.164.43 247 1.164.44 249₃₀₂ 1.164.46 194 1.164.51 102 1.170.4 217₁₀₃ 1.173.1 229 1.177.2 30, 199 1.185.1 194 1.181.8 217₁₀₂ 1.182.5 183 1.185.8 268 1.185.11 141₃₄₄ 1.191 274₄₆₆ 1.191.10 274 2.1.4 112₁₉₁ 2.6.7 94 2.11.1 199 2.11.14 215₉₂ 2.11.15 201 2.12.2 192 2.12.7 8 2.12.12 180₉₇ 2.13.7 112₁₉₄ 3.15.2 182 2.16.1 31, 199₁₀ 2.19.3 80 2.23.17 1344, 52 2.24.13–14 12–13 2.26.1 4₇ 2.27.1 30 2.27.16 267₄₃₂ 2.28.5 31 2.28.10 273 2.35.6 / 14 102 2.36.1 14 2.41.18 199₁₀ 2.42.1–3 273 2.42.2 272 3.2.2 / 6 93 3.5.3 112 3.8.1 221₁₃₀ 3.8.3 220 3.8.4 249₃₀₁ 3.8.11 221 3.12.3 50₁₈ 3.15.1 93 3.17.4 93 3.22.3 66 3.27 219₁₁₉

3.27.3 31, 202 3.27.7–8 / 10–12 220 3.28 206₄₆, 237₂₂₇ 3.28.1 237 3.29.4–5 219 3.29.7 93 3.32.1 / 3 235–236 3.35.4 30 3.35.6 201 3.36.5 109 3.38.3 192 3.38.7 194 3.48.2 122 3.53.3 201, 228 3.53.10 211₇₁ 3.54.8 195 3.59.1 111 3.59.2 207 3.59.5 96 3.61.7 111 4.1.4 9, 94 4.1.5 9, 268 4.1.13–17 170 4.1.17 143 4.2.8 265 4.3.5 94 4.4.4 93 4.5.4 110₁₈₀, 111 4.6.4–5 221 4.6.7 111 4.7.1 94 4.8.5 31 4.12.4 95 4.13.5 192₁₆₃ 4.15.1 244₂₇₀ 4.15.2 221 4.16.10 51 4.17.2 122 4.18.1–2 121–122 4.18.2 55₄₂ 4.18.5 121 4.18.11 138 4.18.12 81 4.18.13 122, 160 4.19.1 7 4.19.2 7, 182 4.20.1 200₁₇ 4.24.4 6 4.24.5 18–19 4.24.10 76₁₃, 208₅₃ 4.26.4 207 4.27.1–4 160 4.30.24 203 4.32.20 202

  4.33.10 82, 110 4.33.11 205 4.35.7 235–236 4.39.5 90 4.40.2 90 4.42.3 7 4.42.8 90₆₆ 4.46.1 215 4.53.3/6 133 4.56.3 142, 191 4.56.7 112 4.57 266 4.57.1 110₁₈₂ 4.57.8 130 4.58.1 231₁₈₇ 5.2.7 94–95 5.3.1 96 5.3.2 96, 108₁₆₇, 255 5.3.7 270 5.6.4 102, 265–266 5.6.10 30₃₂, 202 5.12.2 31 5.29.7 122, 160, 239 5.29.8 160, 239 5.29.10 4 5.30.1 14 5.30.3 212 5.31.1 13 5.31.4 204 5.31.6–8 202 5.31.12 218 5.32.11 7, 212 5.37.1–2 230–231 5.37.4 18 5.41.18 31 5.42.13 123₂₃₉, 176 5.43.3 216 5.43.4 233–234 5.43.11 63–64 5.43.14 218₁₁₅ 5.45.2 192 5.51.8 201 5.54.12 192₁₆₄ 5.55.5 66₁₀₅ 5.58.7 126–127 5.63.1 55, 110₁₈₀, 114 5.63.3 78, 114 5.63.7 78 5.67.2 85 5.72.1–3 201 5.72.2 85 5.73.1 200 5.75.9 227 5.78.7 275₄₈₂

5.82.9 134 5.85.5 78–79 6.8.3 111 6.9.5 86 6.16.35 194₁₆₈, 288–289 6.16.38 92 6.16.41 220 6.17.7 170 6.17.8 170₄₃ 6.19.12 5 6.23.5 204 6.24.5 79 6.24.6 11₃₇ 6.26.1 199 6.26.5–6 180 6.27.1–2 79 6.27.8 203 6.31.4 180 6.32.1 30 6.38.4 69, 204 6.39.5 271₄₅₆ 6.40.5 200 6.44.16 212 6.44.22 81, 122234, 205 6.47.17 9 6.47.20 5 6.50.10 199 6.61.11–12 63–64 6.64.4–5 199 6.67.10 83₃₉, 228–229 6.71.5 134 6.73.3 169 6.74.2–3 272 7.1.1 93 7.1.6 265 7.4.7 256, 289₆₇ 7.6.6 92 7.7.6 30 7.8.4 97 7.11.5 222 7.19.1 85 7.21.2 218 7.21.7 78 7.26.1 197–198 7.28.1 199 7.32.14 17 7.33.2–3 182 7.34.2 193 7.34.16 89 7.35.4 269₄₃₉ 7.41.6 90 7.46.2 33 7.49.1 66 7.49.3 114

313

314

 

7.50 271₄₅₂ 7.52.2 269 7.53.1 141 7.55.5 275 7.59.12 76₁₄, 225₁₅₆, 289₆₄ 7.63.3 134 7.65.2 77 7.68.2 199 7.77.3 90₇₁ 7.79.2 6 7.82.4–5 82 7.83.9 83, 113 7.84.2 83₃₉ 7.85.3 84 7.86 268₄₃₆ 7.86.3 268 7.86.4 87, 268 7.86.5 269 7.86.6 267 7.87.2 297₁₀₉ 7.88.3 25 7.88.7 113 7.95.2 64, 149 7.96.2 244₂₇₉ 7.97.4 202 7.99.3 192 7.100.3–5 137 7.101.3 130₂₇₄ 7.101.6 130 7.103.1 248 7.103.3/5 24₁₁ 7.103.7 238₂₃₃, 248 7.103.8 248 7.103.9 16₅₄, 248, 251 7.104.2 270 7.104.3 284₃₄ 7.104.8 116₂₀₅ 7.104.15 115 7.104.22 275, 277 8.1.11 117–118 8.1.22 205 8.2.2–3 230 8.2.18 18 8.3.21–22 203 8.8.1 201 8.12.22 7₁₉ 8.12.33 216 8.16.5 9 8.16.6 11 8.17.6 201 8.19.36 203 8.25.4 77 8.26.18 148₃₈₆ 8.31.14 110₁₈₂

8.32.1–2 180₉₈ 8.33.7 9 8.34.2 233 8.36 235 8.37 235 8.37.6 9–10 8.40.12 31–32 8.41.10 190₁₅₅, 192 8.44.23 202 8.47.14–15 / 18 270–271 8.51.10 32 8.52.10 205₄₃ 8.58.2 98, 194 8.59.4 2 8.59.6 189₁₄₉ 8.60.19 8, 92 8.60.20 87 8.61.2 125 8.61.16 269 8.63.7 5 8.64.7 9–10, 14 8.65.1 200 8.67.13 85 8.68.17 203 8.71.1 202 8.72.1 / 4 237₂₂₉ 8.78.1 237 8.79.2 272 8.94.6 216 8.96.6 109₁₇₄, 111 8.96.9 81 8.97.4–5 200 8.100.3–4 11 8.100.12 40, 137, 138 8.101.15–16 147–148 8.102.12 111 8.103.6 214₈₉ 9.7.1 31 9.10.9 233 9.11.5 233 9.64.30 233 9.65.25 233 9.68.1 218 9.68.4 233 9.69.8 144 9.70.9 286₄₅ 9.72.3 146₃₇₄ 9.78.3 150 9.86.43 231₁₈₈ 9.92.4 77 9.96.20 234 9.97.30 109₁₇₄ 9.97.55 108₁₇₀ 9.106.8 45₅₇, 223

  9.112.1 272₄₅₇ 9.113 285 9.113.2 291 9.113.3 118 9.113.8–9 283 10.5.1 95 10.8.8–9 123, 135, 176 10.10.1 289 10.10.4 51–52, 119, 151 10.10.5 112₁₉₂, 186 10.10.6 125₁₂₄ 10.12.1 298₁₁₇ 10.12.5 268 10.13.4 186–187, 188₁₄₂ 10.14.1 67, 283 10.14.2 67₁₁₂, 185, 282, 285 10.14.3 224, 283₃₀ 10.14.7–12 258–259₃₅₇ 10.14.8–9 283 10.14.10 282, 284₃₂, 286 10.14.16 286₅₀ 10.15.3 285₃₈ 10.15.9 287₅₃ 10.15.11 290 10.15.14 282, 285₄₂, 287 10.16.1 296 10.16.5 297 10.16.8 258–259, 261 10.17.1 104, 177, 185, 255₃₃₂ 10.17.2 104, 177, 185, 186₁₃₁ 10.17.3–6 130, 259₃₅₇, 282 10.17.4 134₃₀₅ 10.17.10 260₃₆₈ 10.18.2 259–260₃₆₇ 10.18.3 260 10.18.4 259–260₃₆₇ 10.18.9 261 10.18.13 260–261₃₇₆ 10.21.5 188 10.27.2 208₅₂ 10.30.3–4 103 10.34.12 8₂₆ 10.35.3 270 10.35.7 151 10.36.4 233 10.37.1 35₁₂, 142 10.37.12 269 10.40.5 256, 274₄₆₈ 10.42.4 18 10.42.10 3₄ 10.44.8 192 10.45.9 237₂₂₅ 10.51.3–6 99

10.53.4 77 10.56 243₂₆₇ 10.56.6 289 10.57 264₄₁₄ 10.57.2 289₆₆ 10.60.12 269₄₄₀, 274 10.61.2 217 10.61.6–7 140₃₄₀ 10.61.7 140 10.68.2 255₃₃₇ 10.68.4 171 10.68.5 192 10.68.8–9 171 10.68.10 169–170 10.68.11 67, 144 10.69.1 / 9 / 11 97 10.70.2 31, 129 10.72.2 79, 189, 196 10.72.3 79, 172 10.72.4–5 189 10.72.8 77, 113, 187 10.72.9 77, 113, 186–187 10.81.4 190–191 10.83.1 5 10.85.13 225₃₂₉ 10.85.19 144 10.85.20(–26) 255, 256 10.85.23 107–108, 254₃₂₆ 10.85.24 84₄₄ 10.85.31 271₄₅₂ 10.85.33 273 10.85.44 145₄₂₅, 252, 256₃₃₉ 10.85.47 255–256 10.86 179, 256₃₃₈ 10.87.7 277 10.87.15 278 10.87.20–21 275 10.88.2 266 10.88.6 102, 266 10.88.17 10–11 10.89.4 192 10.89.5 225 10.89.8–9 110₁₈₀ 10.90.6–14 195 10.91.2 97 10.94.2 216 10.94.5 233 10.94.12 232₁₉₃ 10.95.18 281–282 10.97.6 / 9–10 271–272 10.97.16 268, 278 10.98 276 10.98.7 216₁₀₀

315

316

 

10.100.4 110₁₈₂ 10.101 231₁₉₂ 10.101.10 234 10.101.12 206 10.103.12 269 10.107.2 282 10.108.11 205 10.109.2 252₃₁₁ 10.112.1 234₂₀₉ 10.121.1 193 10.124.4 80 10.124.5 79, 101 10.124.6 79, 81, 284 10.124.8 6 10.125.3–4 154 10.125.5–6 12₄₂ 10.129.1 79, 196 10.129.3 79, 193 10.129.5 194 10.129.6–7 191 10.130.3 235 10.131 245 10.131.4 244 10.132.4–5 115 10.135.1 162₂₄, 283 10.137.3 / 6 271 10.138.6 144 10.145.2 276 10.145.4 276 10.145.6 275₄₈₂ 10.147.2 10 10.154 261₃₈₃ 10.154.1 285₄₀ 10.155.5 273 10.157.4 77 10.161 272 10.161.1 274–275 10.163 275₄₇₃ 10.163.1 275 10.164.1 273 10.164.2 270₄₄₅ 10.164.3 267 10.164.5 269–270 10.165. 1 / 3–5 272–273 10.165.2 272 10.165.4 283 10.166 11₃₅ 10.166. 2–3 / 5 11 10.166.3 154₄₂₃ 10.169.2 214₈₆ 10.175.3 233 10176.2 220 10.179.2–3 236 10.181.3 247 10.182.1 270

10.184 153, 257 10.191 11₃₅

2. Other Vedic Texts Aitareya-Brāhman: a I 14 6₁₈ II 6,13 296₁₀₃ II 25,1–4 214–215 III 15 212 III 33 72, 132₂₉₅ IV 7 14₄₆ VIII 12 7 VIII 24,1–2 117 Atharvaveda (Śaunaka) II 7,5 278 III 10,12 15 III 29,1 282₂₀ IV 16,2–3 114 VI 115,3 267–268 VII 79,3 265₄₁₇ VII 80,2 265₄₁₇ VII 115,3 273₄₆₃ VIII 2,3 296₁₀₃ X 2,17 289 XIII 1,10 265₄₁₉ XVIII 2,22 285₃₇ XVIII 2,24 258, 296₁₀₀ XVIII 2,48 282₁₅ XVIII 3,13 185, 282 XVIII 3,62 298₁₁₆ XIX 57,3 271 Atharvaveda Paippalāda II 70,1 35₁₁ V 36,3–4 116 Br: had-Āran: yaka-Upanis:ad VI 2,2 292 Jaminīya-Brāhman: a I 18 293 I 45–46 291 I 50 293 Kāt:haka VII 15: 78,20 12₄₁ VII 15: 79,5–6 15–16₅₃ IX 14: 116,7 9₃₁ IX 17: 120,20 245₂₈₂ XI 3: 146,9–12 18₆₄ XII 7: 169,20–22 267 XII 10: 172,21–22 245₂₈₂ XIII 3: 182,22–183,2 15₄₉ XIX 7: 8,10 3₅ XXII 13: 69,6–7 297₁₀₆ XXVI 7: 130,2 239–240 XXIX 2: 169,8–9 222₁₃₈

  Maitrāyan: ī Samhitā : I 11,7: 168,18–19 / 169,12 13 III 1,5: 6,17–20 62₈₆ III 8,6: 102,6–7 218₁₁₂ Pañcavimśa-Brāhma n: a : XIV 6,8 223₁₄₅ Śatapatha-Brāhman: a I 1,1.8 215₉₀ I 1,4.4 88 I 3,1.25 292 I 3,1.26 209 I 4,1.14 5₁₂ II 3,3.8 288₅₉ III 3,4.18–20 91 IV 5,8.11 273–274 X 4,6.1 88 XI 4,1.2 12₄₀ XIV 1,1.33 250–251 Taittirīya-Āran: yaka V 8,12 213 Taittirīya-Samhitā : II 1,3.3–4 17–18 IV 3,11.3 14–15 Vādhūla-Anvākhyāna IV 68 211

3. Avesta Yasna (Y) 9,3 61₇₆ 9,4 61₇₆, 67₁₁₀, 282₁₆ 9,5 67₁₁₀, 68₁₁₄ 9,8 57 9,10–11 36 9,16 282₁₆ 9,19 282₁₆ 9,24 19, 62₈₃ 10,5 31 10,8 27 10,10 162₂₉ 10,10–11 62₈₄ 10,11 62 12,1–3 49–50 12,2 50₁₈ 13,2–3 65 28,3 199₁₂, 32₃₄ 28,6 31, 202 28,10 31 29,4 34, 49₁₃, 51₂₄ 29,7 30 29,9 50₁₇ 29,10 48₆ 30,1 30, 201₂₄ 30,3 48 30,4 167₃₃

30,6 49 30,9 31, 49 31,15 50₁₉ 31,22 31 32,2 50₁₈ 32,3 50₁₈ 32,10 56 32,12 49 32,14 69 33,12 69 34,3 31 43,9 70 44,18–19 203 44,20 49 45,1 30, 200₁₇, 201₂₄ 45,2 48 45,8 50, 69₁₂₀ 45,10 69 45,11 28 46,3–4 56 46,8 25₁₄ 46,14 31 48,5 48₅ 48,10 49₁₄ 50,7 30 50,8 70 51,1 49 51,13 31 57,6 217₁₀₆ Yasna Haptaŋha¯ iti (YH) 36,1 94₉₂ 36,2 31 36,3 70 38,3 39 40,4 50₁₈ 41,1 204 Yašt (Yt.) 5,34 57 5,90 63 8,25 204–205 10,2 55₄₂ 10,6 28 10,7 55₄₀ 10,13 286₅₂ 10,83 31 12,9–35 200₁₇ 13,3 67₁₀₉ 13,15 189–190₁₅₂, 290₇₁ 13,28 31 13,87 60₇₀ 14,19–20 62₈₄ 19,35 62₈₅ Aogəmadaēcā 41 34 Haδōxt Nask 2.9 68₁₁₄

317

Index of Names and Subjects abhijñú 71₁₃₃, 217₁₀₆ Ādāra 225₁₅₄ additional sacrifice (upayáj) 241₂₅₁ Adharārani : 218; see also ! fire, fire drill Adhimanthana 218 adhis:ávanam : cárman 232 adhis:avana : / adhis: avanyā : ` ! “under-boards” Adhrigu formula 241₂₅₈ Adhvaryu (priest) 95, 209, 228, 230, 235₂₁₃, 237, 237₂₂₉, 242₂₅₉, 248 and the Aśvins 210, 210₆₈, 211₇₄ presses the Soma 209, 231₁₈₈, 233 Aditi 60₇₁, 63₉₂, 77, 89₆₀, 107₁₆₁, 108, 147 and Daks: a 147, 189 and Pastyā 152₄₀₉ cow 147, 125₂₅₆ earth 125₂₅₆, 147₃₈₀, 148, 148₃₈₃ mother of the Ādityas 77, 107₁₆₁, 108, 113, 147₃₇₉ of the sun 143₃₅₉ of Indra 147₃₈₀ “womb of ~” 148, 148₃₈₄, 217 Āditya religion 84–86, 97 Ādityas 7₂₁, 77, 85, 85₄₇, 89₅₇ and the Amәša Spәntas 50–51, 50₂₂, 85 : carved the paths for the sun 143 guardians of the world order (r: tá) 107, 108, 110, 110₁₈₄ (immortal) brothers of Mārtān: da : 187 six/seven/eight in number 113, 187, 107₁₆₁ Æsir 189–190, 163–164 affirmation rituals 112 afterworld 61, 279–294; see also ! heavenly afterworld, ! death, ! life after death and funeral methods 279–280 entrance 286 location of the ~ 279–280 path to the ~ 282, 285, 67₁₁₂ (discovered by Yama 282) the ~ being a mirror image 192, 279₂ Agastya 21₂, 39₃₃, 178 age cohorts 127 Agni 69₁₂₅, 70₁₂₈, 92–102; see also ! funeral ritual, ! Daks: ināgni, ! fire, ! Jātavedas fire, ! : Kravyād fire, ! Paryagnikarana, : ! Soma, offering, ! Vaiśvānara fire, ! viśpáti

and Agnidh 210 and Apām : Napāt 102, 101₁₂₅, 102₁₂₉ and Aryaman 95–96 and Asura Dyaus 100–101 and Bhaga 108₁₇₁ and Indra 73, 86, 99, 120₂₃₀ and Pūs: an 131₂₈₃ and Rudra 133₂₉₉ and Soma 86 and Vāc 95₁₀₀ and Varuna : / Mitra 94–97, 111–112, 268, 70₁₂₈, 109₁₇₃, 112₁₉₁ and the r: tá 53, 70 appearance 98 birth 93, 101, 184, 218, 98₁₁₂, 102₁₂₉ contrast to other gods 95–96 dangerousness 92–93 designations / names 91, 97 enclosed in the Vala rock 171, 135₃₁₄ excluded from partaking of the Soma 96, 235, 222₁₄₁.₁₄₃, 235₂₁₁ fighting god 73 (against the Panis : 73, 99, against Vr: tra 73) Jātavedas 76, 95, 219, 259₃₆₄ Kravyād 76, 93₈₈, 259₃₆₄ (sacrifice of a billy goat as share in the funeral ritual 259) messenger 8, 93, 101 (of the gods 180₁₀₄) mythology 98–101 Narāśamsa 219 : removes illnesses 271 rests in Idāʼs : footprints 150 share of sacrificial cakes in the Soma ritual 237–238 sits on the sacrificial site / the Vedi 217 Tanūnapāt 129, 219 theft of the fire 100–101, 171–172 third consort of the (mortal) bride 252 Vaiśvānara 76, 95, 219 Agnicayana 294₉₄ Agnidh (priest) 209–210 Agnihotra 224–225, 265 Āgnimārutaśastra ! Śastra Agnipranayana 220, 219₁₁₉, 220₁₂₆ : Agnipratis: t:hāpana 219₁₁₉ Agnīs: omīya(paśubandha) 239 Agnis: t:oma 14, 226–229, 264

     Agni Tanūnapāt 129 Agohya 131 Āgrayana, : sacrifice of the first crops 267 agriculture 2–3 Āhāva formula 228 Āhavanīya fire 219–220 Ahi Budhnya 89–90, 103, 142, 155 Ahura Mazdā 48–51, 53–54, 47₁ and Varuna : 51, 51₂₄, 70₁₂₈ creator of the ox 49 his eye is the sun 35₁₂ name 78₂₂ shows himself in the fire 50, 70 sky is his mantle 67₁₀₉ Ahurānīs 39 ! Old Iranian religion Ai:la, name of Purūravas 150₃₉₉ Airiiaman 55 Aja Ekapad 89–90, 103, 142, 155 (kind of ) pillar that supports the sun 89 stands on Ahi Budhnya 89 Ājyaśastra ! Śastra ā ḱ hara 233₁₉₉ Ākhyāna hymns 21₂ “All Gods” ! Viśve Devāh: alliance ! contract All Souls festival 262 alternation of day and night 143, 172–173 ambrosia 162₂₃ ámhas (“hardship” [brought about by : enemies]) 5, 110 Amśa 113, 108₁₆₉ : amulet 140–141 anagram 201–202 (in the Avesta 201₂₀) ancestor, of mankind 60, 68, 94, 119, 124, 151, 113–114, 185–186, 283–284; see also ! Manu female ~ of mankind 150, 187 ancestors 59–60, 129, 189, 209, 262, 264₄₁₀, 289–290, 291₇₇ and Narāśamsa 129(272) : embodied by Brahmans 262, 291₇₇ involved in the procreation of offspring 59₆₄, 189–190₁₅₂, 254₃₂₁, 289–290 partake of the Gharma 249₃₀₄, 264₄₁₁ ancestor worship 262₃₉₀, 263, 279₁, 289 ancestral sacrifice 261–264 As: t:akās 262, 263₄₀₀ (three in number 262₃₉₁, among them the (!) Ekās: t:akā the most important 262, occasion 262₃₉₁, 263₃₉₅) Brahmans embody the ancestors 262, 291₇₇ in the Sautrāmanī : 245, 262₃₉₂ (Mahā-)Pitr: yajña 262–263, ₃₉₄ (a kind of All Souls festival and part of the Sākamedha 263, 264₄₀₇)

319

Pin: dapit r: yajña “Klößeväteropfer”) 262, : 262387–388, 262₃₉₄ Soma as offering 263–264 Śrāddha 262–263, 263₄₀₀ (ʻfeedingʼ of the deceased, embodied by Brahmans 262, a simplified Pin: dapit r: yajña 263) : ándhasī (RV VII 96,2) 244₂₇₉ androgynous creators 194 Aṅgiras 59, 184 ancestors 189, 283 birth 172 incestuous conception 123, 145, 172, 184 helpers of Indra in smashing the Vala rock 117, 122–123, 169 offspring of Agni 117₂₁₁, 184₁₁₈ perform the first sacrifice 94, 189 sons of Us: as 145 animals 3, 26, 39, 40, 49, 54, 56, 87, 89, 91, 105, 121, 133, 135, 136, 150, 159, 190, 202, 221, 240, 242, 272, 273, 276, 292 sacrifice 69, 71, 112, 113, 198, 210, 217, 221, 222, 223, 233 239–244; see also ! cow, slaughtering ! sacrifice, sacrificial animal, ! billy goat, sacrifice añjahsava ! Quick pressing of the Soma : Antaryāma 234₂₀₈ anthropogony 61, 185–190; see also ! ancestors, ! Yama (and Yamī) anthropomorphically conceived deities 34, 74, 88, 141, 153 ant 91, 181₁₀₇ Anumati 153 anuyājá ! post-offerings Āpah: ! water(s) Apālā 209₅₅ Apām Napāt 42, 43₅₂, 102–103 Apąm Napāt 55 Apaoša 54, 64 Apollo 44, 127, 127₂₆₅, 133₃₀₁ apologies 268 Aponaptrīya ritual 42, 231₁₈₆ Āprī songs 140, 241 Apsaras 150–151, 39₃₃ Aptoryāma 105₁₅₃, 106₁₅₄, 228₁₆₉, 238 Āptya ! Trita Āptya Aramati 69₁₂₃, 155 Arani : ! Adharārani, : ! fire, fire drill, ! Uttarārani : Aranyā : nī : 147₃₇₆ Arәduuī Sūrā Anāhitā 63–65 aretalogy 72, 201–202, 228₁₇₄ Argha ritual 255(331) Ārjuna 225₁₅₄ arms of Savitr: 134

320

    

Aryaman 55, 84–85, 96₁₀₅, 107–108, 113; see also ! bridegroom ́ a 4 ā ŕ yam nā m Āryas 4–6, 4₈.₉, 18–19, 107 as:̌a 51–53 ásat (ʻprimordial chaosʼ) 15, 79–81, 85–86, 125–126, 171–172, 196–197, 284 Ai 60₆₉ Asidhārāvrata (“sword-blade vow”) 252₃₁₃ Asiknī 148₃₈₆ assistants of the hero 36₁₇, 137–138, 176₇₃; see also ! Aṅgiras As: t:akās ! ancestral sacrifice ásu (“life-force” of mortals) 298(117) Asura Dyaus ! Dyaus Asuras 15, 49, 50, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 99, 101, 114, 115, 123, 146, 156, 160, 163, 171, 172, 191 Aśvattha 162 Aśvamedha 45, 90, 90₆₆.₆₇, 241–244 Āśvinaśāstra 104₁₃₇ Aśvin myths see ! Gharma ritual, ! myth Aśvins 36, 36₂₀, 38, 90₆₅, 103–106 and Soma 105–106 Sūryā 38, 105 Us: as 105, 145(369) Yama and Yamī 186₁₃₂ and Adhvaryu 210, 211₇₄ bees 92, 106 gods of initiation 248–249 physicians 271–272 Ātar 99 Atharvan 188 Atharvaveda 26₁₉ Āθβiia 57, 136 Atirātra 238(233) Atithigva ! Divodāsa Atithigva (ā)tmán 297₁₀₉; see also ! breath Atri 22, 248 Avabhr: tha ! sacrifice, sacrificial bath Avāntaradīks: ā 127, 246 Avesta 23₇, 30, 33₁, 47–48 āvŕ̥t 223₁₄₈ axis mundi 192; see also ! world tree Āyu 119, 151, 185, 187 Aži Dahāka 20, 57, 135, 175 “back of heaven” ! sky Barhis ! sacrificial grass battle of the gods ! myth, battle of the gods “Battle of Ten Kings” 181 Badhild 123, 176 beauty of the gods 89, 105, 126₂₆₀ bees 92, 106

betrothal 252 Bhaga 85, 108–109, 113 and Agni 108₁₇₁ Puramdhi 152 : Pūs: an 108, 131 Savitr: 108₁₇₁ Soma 108₁₇₀ Bharatas 149, 181 Bhāratī 76, 149, 241 Bheda 182 Bhr: gu 292 Bhr: gus 94, 100 Bhujyu 118₂₁₉ billy goat 240, 244 sacrifice 239, 240 (see also ! animals, sacrifice: Agnīs: omīyapaśubandha) biomorphic interpretation ! interpretation models bird 19, 20, 45, 91, 159, 207, 294 birth 15, 37, 40, 60, 61, 63, 79, 83, 89, 90, 92, 93, 100, 101, 104, 117, 120, 121, 122, 128, 151, 153, 157, 165, 177, 183, 184, 185, 190, 193, 199, 225, 239, 257, 287, 288, 293 birth legend of gods 199 bisexual beings 194 blamelessness 147 blood relationship 151₄₀₅ BMAC (“Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex) 1–2 body 295–297 body souls 295–297; see also ! microcosmmacrocosm analogies bones 258, 260, 261, 296, 297 Brahmacārin 248 Brāhma marriage 253 Brahman (priest) 12, 13, 209 and Indra 210 Brahman murder 246 Brāhmanāccha msin 210 : : Brahmanaspati 12₄₄, 13, 52, 116, 116₂₁₀; : see also ! Br: haspati Brahmodya 1239–44 breath 145, 295, 296 Br: haspati 11, 116–117; see also ! Brahmanaspati : and Indra 116 Vala 169–170 bride 39, 96, 107, 118, 119, 130, 147, 152, 252, 253, 254, 255, 256 bride-price 253 capture 253 courtship 38, 105, 252, 254 bridegroom 107, 146, 252, 254, 255 bringing down of the fire ! myth

     “building sacrifice” 37, 68₁₁₆, 139₃₃₈ bull 56, 91, 193, 223, 240, 244 burial 258, 260, 279, 281, 296₁₀₂; see also ! funeral ritual Cacus 124₂₄₇, 135 calamity 93, 115, 270, 273 calendar 15–16, 76, 225–226 Camū 234 capture of women 253₃₁₈ cardinal points 190₁₅₇ “carpentering of words” 30 cars:aní : (“tribe”) 5 cas:āla (wooden collar of the sacrificial post) 221 castaways (rescued by the Aśvins) 36₂₀, 105₁₄₅ Cāturmāsya sacrifice 76₁₄, 225; see also ! Sākamedha celestial ocean 57, 62, 63, 63₉₀, 66₁₀₅; see also ! celestial river celestial river 63, 66, 66₁₀₄; see also ! Arәduuī Sūrā Anāhitā, ! celestial ocean, ! celestial waters celestial waters 101–102; see also ! celestial ocean celibate life 254₃₂₀ centaurs 117, 117₂₁₅, 119₂₂₁ Cerberus 282₂₀, 284₃₂ change of form 19–20, 90, 91 chanted songs 23, 224, 229 chaos, primordial ! ásat chariot 3, 10, 13, 14, 33, 51, 53, 56, 59, 99, 104, 132, 134, 136, 137, 142, 143, 145, 178, 180, 183, 255, 256 ʻChariot-Shaft Litanyʼ ! Praügaśastra mounting a chariot 256 race 13, 14, 20, 38, 105, 256 Charon 282₂₀ Cinuuat ̰ bridge 48 circling with firebrand 221, 221135–136 (cf. 243) circumambulation of the fire in the wedding ritual 255 Cistā 56 commensality of the participants of the cult 213, 224, 243 conception 60, 63, 104, 121, 123, 153, 157, 257 concubine 254₃₂₀ conflicts of gods 178 consecration (dīks: ā) 7, 70, 208, 246, 248 contests 3, 9–13 contract 35, 55, 96, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, 115, 116, 143, 254, 255 breach of contract 54, 109, 115 contract terminology, Indo-Iranian 55₄₂, 109₁₇₉

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cosmic contract 111 cosmic and societal order 52, 85, 110, 113 cosmogony 79, 111, 120, 170, 175, 182, 182₁₁₅, 190–196; see also ! ásat, ! sát cosmography 64 cosmos 14, 15, 65, 85, 102, 111, 113, 265 interlinked through Agni 98 thriving 85 cow 50, 52, 56, 64, 70, 125, 128, 132, 144, 147, 149, 150, 154, 168, 178, 184, 214, 232, 239, 247, 249, 255, 258, 259, 261 cowhide of the Soma press (gó, tvác) 232, 234; see also ! Soma press slaughtering 249, 255, 261 creation of mankind ! anthropogony creation of the world ! cosmogony creator of heaven and earth 141–142, 190–191 (Agni 191, Indra 191, 194, Soma 191, Tvas: t:r: 142, 191, gods 194) creator of the world 154, 190–196 cremation 258–261, 263, 279–280; see also ! funeral ritual cult 10, 14, 23, 45–46, 49, 52–53, 60, 68–71, 74, 85, 86, 95, 137, 154, 158, 197–278 cult images 14, 208, 208₅₃ cult of the gods 264, 274 cultural hero 58 Cumuri 180, 180₁₀₀ curse 115, 277–278 Cyavāna 104₁₄₂, 106₁₅₇, 183 cycle of rebirths ! reincarnation Dabhīti 180₁₀₀ Dadhigharma 229, 236 Dadhikrā(van) 89, 90 Dadhyañc 106, 178 Daēnā 56 Daēuuas 50 Daiva marriage ! Brāhma marriage Daks: a 113, 147, 183 Daks: inā : 145, 146, 170, 190, 203, 213 Daks: ināgni (called Narāśamsa : : / Tanūnapāt in the Rgvedic ritual) 219 : Daks: ināyana 16 : Dānastuti 26, 203 Dānavas 81 Dānu 167, 168 darkness, primordial 15, 79–80, 146, 284 Darvi 223₁₄₄ Dāsa 4, 120, 180–181 Dasyu 4, 120, 159 dawn ! Us: as day sky 143–144, 172 dead ! deceased

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death 257–258; see also ! afterworld, ! life after death death ritual 257–261; see also ! ancestral sacrifice debt 12₄₄; see also ! ʻevilʼ deceased 61, 242, 245, 252, 254, 258–264, 279–283, 286, 288–297, (see also ! “Path of the Celestials”, ! Pitr: , ! Preta) come to Varuna : 283 drink Soma 285–286 enjoy the yield of their sacrifices in the afterworld 287 enter the womb of the earth 260, 279 food and sustenance 262 incorporated into the cycle of rebirths 288–290 individual ~ and anonymous ~ 289 (see also ! family) potentially dangerous 262 punishment beyond death 279 whereabouts after death 279–281 Dema Deities 187₁₃₈ demiurge ! creator demons 81–82, 87, 156 repelling 87, 197 Devāpi 276 Devas 77–82; see also ! Asuras, ! gods devayā ń a ! “Path of the Celestials” Dhartr: 139 Dhātr: 139 Dhis: anā : 151–152, 192, 232 Dhuni 180₁₀₀ ʻdice gameʼ 10 Dīks: ā ! consecration Dionysos 123, 125, 176 Dioscuri 36–37₂₀, 38 distribution (see also ! distribution of loot) distribution of loot, ritual 253 divination 273–274; see also ! signs, ominous, and their interpretation divine couple 73, 99, 113 divine image 76 divine immortality 44–45, 94, 286, 288 divine name ! name divine potion of the gods ! intoxicating drink divine twins ! twins divine women connection with a mortal 151 wives of the gods (gnā )́ 123, 154–155, 176, 210 Divodāsa Atithigva 120, 149, 181–182 ʻdoctrine of the two-waysʼ 292 dogs of Yama / Yima ! Saramā, ! Yama, ! Yima domain god 74–77, 88, 98, 126, 140

dome of the heavens 67 donkey, ominous animal 272 dove 155, 272 dragon 35–36, 54₃₉ dragon slayer 35–36, 57–58, 62, 118 Dravinodas (in the Rtuyāja) 211₇₂, 235₂₁₄ : : dreams nightmares 136, 145, 270 ominous 273 dualities 111 Dvādaśāha 239₂₄₀ dwarves 39–40, 138, 161 Dyaus 80–81, 100, 122–126, 141–145, 167, 171–174, 184; see also ! sky ! sky god dying ! death ear (śrótra), corresponds to the cardinal directions in microcosm-macrocosm analogy 296₁₀₃, 298₁₁₁ early morning litany of the Soma ritual 103–104, 227 earth (see also ! sky) anchoring 175, 182, 192 floating on water 65–66, 103 shape 193 middle of the ~ 144 wife of the sky god 34, 124–125 “womb of Aditi” 147 east, cardinal direction of the gods 218 egg, hatching in water to become the world 193 ekadhanā water 102 for pressing the Soma 230 Ekās: t:akā ! ancestral sacrifice ekās:t:akā night 15, 16₅₆, 264 night of Indraʼs birth 15(49), 213₈₃ Ekoddis: t:aśrāddha ! ancestral sacrifice ʻelectionʼ of Indra 9–11, 97 of the Hotr: 216 of the Viśpati 9–11 through contests 9–13, 264 elves 131₂₈₅ embryo and Vis: nu : 153₄₁₆ born after ten months 257 made by the Aśvins 257 by Sarasvatī and Sinīvālī 153 protected by Agni 257 Emūs: a 180₉₈ environment and ethical behaviour 108 Eos 38 ephebia 127₂₆₅, 128₂₆₈ epiclesis 207 epiphany, ritual 14–15, 75, 85, 211–212

     epithets 51, 64, 67, 116, 149, 167, 178, 199; see also ! name Erichthonios, son of Hephaistos 123–124 Etaśa 178 euphemism for the killing of an animal 241 for the killing of Soma 233–234 in the interpretation of ominous signs 273 kavyavāhana 283₃₀ ʻevilʼ consequence of conscious but also of unconscious misdeeds 267–270 imagined as a substance 269 precautions against affixation with ~ 270 removed through fire, plants and water 268, 270 evil dreams ! dreams evil eye 270 evocatio 115 exculpation rituals 267–274 “existent” ! sát expiatory sacrifice to Agni 111 “extended thread” 289 “external supports” of the soul 295₉₇ eye, corresponds to the sun in microcosmmacrocosm analogy 297–298 eye of the gods / of the sky god ! sun faculty of thought (mánas) 297₁₁₀ falcon 54, 62, 90–91, 122, 126, 160–162, 168, 172 family 262, 288–289 Family Books of the Rgveda 22–23, 26–27, : 155, 281 family religions 5–6, 74 farewell to the gods in ritual 198, 203 ʻfather Asuraʼ / ʻfather skyʼ 34, 124–125, 171 of Indra 122 of the Aśvins 104 of Yama and Yamī 177 “fathers”, ! Pitr: feeding of guests ! sacrifice fertility goddesses of ~ 153 of heaven and earth 141 of the land 108, 110, 114 rituals 266–267 field deities 266 fig (píppala) 162 fire (see also ! Agni, ! sacrifice, sacrificial fire) emblem of power and command 97 firebrand, passed three times around the sacrificial animal 221 fire cult, in Zoroastrianism 69 fire drill (arani) : 218

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fireplace 70, 100, 150, 219 first setting of ~ 100, 186, 188 in the waters 193 removes the ʻevilʼ of guilt 268 unification of many ~s into one 97 witness in conclusion of a contract 111 first age before the gods 189 first man ! Manu first sacrifice (see also ! Soma, sacrifice) bestows a share of divine immortality 188 first sacrificer of Soma (see also ! Old Iranian religion: first sacrifice) 188 myth 187–188 performed by the Aṅgiras 94, 189 Atharvan 188 Manu 186 the Sādhyas 155 Vivasvant 185–189, 284 sacrifice of Purus: a 189 Sūrya arises from the ~ 188 unites gods and mortals 189 first to die ! Yama fission and fusion 6, 97 Five Peoples 5, 181 Flood myth 68, 150, 187₁₃₉ “footprint of Idā” : ! Idā : foreign words in the Rgveda 26 : “(former) fathers” ! Aṅgiras foster-fatherhood 81, 126, 177 Frauuašis 293 ʻfree soulʼ 295, 298 friendship between gods and mortals 198 ʻfrog songʼ (of the Rgveda) 248–251 functional god 74–75 funeral meal 261 funeral ritual 257–261 burial 258 burial object (Soma bowl) 261 cremation 258–261 function of Agni 95 sacrifice of a billy goat (portion for Agni Kravyād) 259 furrow, deified 140, 266 Gaiia Marәtan 60 Gandarəβa 57, 62, 118 : Gandharva 117–119 (see also ! Viśvāvasu) chariot journey of the wedding ritual 256 fertility 119 quarantine 118 resides near the sun / in the celestial waters 118, 151 second husband of the (mortal) bride 252 and Soma 57, 118–119

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Gaokәrәna tree 162 Gārhapatya fire 219–220 Gavāmayana 16 Gayōmart ! Gaiia Marәtan generations of gods 77–78, 163–167 Geryon 57, 135, 173, 175 gesture of prayer 71 Gharma (name of the milk mixture and the pot that is used to heat it) 183, 246 Gharma ritual 46, 236, 246–248; see also ! Avāntaradīks: ā, ! Pravargya Ghos: ā 183, 256 ghr: tá (“ghee”) 103, 150, 218, 220, 222–223, 230–231, 234, 247 giant, cosmic ! Purus: a giants of Germanic mythology 163 gift 208 Godāna ritual 127₂₆₄, 249₃₀₃ goddess of poetry and speech 153–154 goddess of reproduction 153, see also ! Prajāpati, ! Savitr: , ! Visnu : god of contracts ! Mitra god of death 283 (see also ! Yama) god of rain 129–130 god of storms, develops into a god of war 137 god of war 137 (see also ! Indra, ! Maruts, ! Vāyu) god son 125 goddesses ! divine women, wives of the gods (gnā )́ gods; see also ! myth, ! theriomorphic conceptions, ! change of form appearance 89 dependent on the sacrifices performed by mortals 197–198 immortality 134, 286, 288 Indo-European family of ~ 34, 81–82, 125 language of the gods 88 mortal gods 131, 185 press Soma 135, 137–138 two groups 77–82, 163 Gopitr: yajña ! ancestral sacrifice great personal god 74–76 groats (karambhá) for Pūs: an 223 (sacrificial cake in the Soma ritual together with ~) 237 gr: há (“house”) 6 Gr: hapati (“lord of the house”) 8, 209 Guṅgū 153₄₁₇ harvest 4, 140, 245, 267 hair 98, 224, 297 cutting of hair and beard 127, 249, 258 hand ! right hand

Haoma 19–20, 26, 42, 48–49, 57, 63, 65, 68–69, 136, 293 Harā 65101–103; see also ! Hukairiia Hāridrava 272₄₅₉ harming of plants and animals 140, 221 Havirdhāna chariot 230 havís (“bloodles sacrifice”) 244 Havis: kr: t 237₂₂₉ healing 149, 181, 244, 271 health 109 heart 95 heaven ! sky heavenly afterworld 280–281, 285–287 entrance 286 inhabition dependent on Soma 288 in the highest heaven 281–282 location of the Soma spring Svarnara 285 : path to the ~ 385–386 heifer 125, 223, 239 Helen 37–38, 147 hell 281 henotheism 73 Hephaistos 123–124, 176 Heracles 36, 173, 175 Hermes 41 hero, ritual honouring 45–46 heroic vita 121, 160 hierarchy, and order in which the offerings are shared 215–216, 224 Hiranyagarbha 193₁₆₅ : Hōm, white 162 honey, falls as dew from heaven 106₁₅₉ honouring of guests, ritual (see also ! Agni, ! Aryaman) horse 3 dun horses 132, 178, 236 “harnessing of songs as horses” 30, 69 term for Agni 91 worshipped in ritual 90 horse sacrifice, Indo-European 45; see also ! Aśvamedha Hotr: (priest) 8, 13–14, 70, 93–95, 99–100, 134, 204, 209–211, 214–216, 227–231, 235, 241, 276 first drink 214–216 Hotraka, assistants 209 in Indo-Iranian time 70 Praśāstr: , main assistant 209 seven ~ 209 Viśpati acts as ~ 8, 100, 216 hospitality 55, 107 householder ! Gr: hapati house of the world 191 Hukairiia, peak of the Harā 63, 65

     human form 246, 260–261 human sacrifice 223 husband 256, 258, 270, 290 husbandry 2–3 husbands, divine, of the (mortal) bride 119, 252 Hymir 161, 167; see also ! Týr hymns 72–73, 92, 129, 141–142, 198–207 carry the gods to the sacrifice 11, 30, 69, 198–201, 204 hymn as literary genre 72–73 ritual use 72–73, 198–205 Idā : 149–150; see also ! myth: footprint of Idā : ancestor of mankind 150, 187 cow 150 daughter of Manu 70, 150, 187 footprint 150, 218 mother of all animals 150 sacrifice 150, 241 idāhvāna (“Summoning of Idā”) 150, 214 : : identity of priest and god 211 illness 87, 132–133, 271 images, use in magic rituals 276–277 immortality 44–45, 94, 186, 223, 283, 286, 288 impregnations 183–184 impurity, of the mother after giving birth 257 inability of the husband to sire progeny ! husband incest Dyaus and Us: as 139–140, 145, 172, 184 punished by Rudra 140, 184 Pūs: an and his mother 184 Tvas: t:r: and his daughter 176–177, 184 twins 60, 177, 186 Yama and Yamī 60, 119, 151, 177, 184, 186 Indo-European poetic language 28–30, 56 Indo-Iranian poetic language 28–30, 173, 202 Indra 83–84, 120–123 anchors the swaying earth 175, 182 and Brahman 210 and the falcon 91 and Hotr: 210 and other gods 86 (Agni 73–74, Aśvins 105–106, 178, Br: haspati 116–117, Maruts 126–127, 178, Pūs: an 41, Rbhus 131–132, Sūrya 178, Trita 135–136, : 176, Us: as 145, 178, Vāyu 137, Vis: nu : 40, 137, Varuna : 82–83, 113) beheads Dadhyañc 178 bestills the mountains 175, 182 birth 14–15, 17, 79, 83, 121, 160, 172, 184 born in the Ekās: t:akā night 15(49), 213₈₃ breaks the Vala 169–172 club 176, 181–182

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dependent on the sacrifices performed by mortals 197–198 digs courses for the rivers 182 ʻdisappearanceʼ of ~ 7, 83 doubts concerning his existence 9–10, 83 drinks the Soma stolen from Tvas: t:r: 177 election of ʻIndraʼ 9–11, 14–15 epiphany 211–213 falcon steals the Soma for him 160 fastens the sun and other lights in the sky 174–175, 182 fathers of Indra 122 fertility rituals 266 fights in person of the chieftain 9 first of the Aṅgiras, who help him destroy the Vala 169, 172 food 122 functions 83–84 Gharma offering 247 ʻhangoverʼ through excessive indulgence (in Sura¯ ma) 149, 181, 244–245 holds up the sky 84, 174–175, 182 ʻhumanʼ Indra 9, 14 Indo-European / Indo-Iranian ʻDragon Slayerʼ 35–36, 54, 120 in history 182 kills his father Dyaus, the stone sky (god) / Vala 80–81, 122, 124, 126, 167 kills Viśvarūpa together with the help of Trita 135, 176 kills Vr: tra 167–169 places him as moon into the sky 144, 169₃₇ kingship 6, 83–84 manifests himself in the victor of battles and contests 9–10, 14–15 marital quarrel with Indrānī : 179 martial feats 179–182 against Asuras 163 Cumuri / Dhuni 180₁₀₀ Gandharva 118, 120 Makha 181₁₀₇ Namuci 181 Rauhina : 180 Śus: na : 51, 180 Viśvarūpa 120 metamorphoses 54, 90–91, 122 mother (earth / Aditi) 122, 124–126 (the Indra) myth 126 offering of Soma at all three pressings 234–238 plucks out the wheel of the sun 181 protégés 180–181 (Atithigva 120, Dabhīti 180₁₀₀, Divodāsa 180–181, Kutsa 51, 120, 181, Namī Sāpya 181, Rjiśvan 120, Sudās 181) :

326

    

Indra (cont.) raised by Tvas: t:r: 106, 122, 176 separates heaven and earth 83–84, 182, 192 “son of the sky” 106 vomits Soma 177 warrior and poet 11 wins the light 174–175 Indrānī : 154–155, 179 quarrel between ~ and her husband Indra 179 Indra religion / Indra-Marut religion 82–84, 97 (Indra) Sutrāman 244–245 initiates compared to croaking frogs and bleating cows or goats 248₃₀₀ Maruts as divine counterparts 128, 251 “rain sorcerers”, bring about the monsoon 247–250, 276 relation to the sun 249 sacrifice the Gharma drink to the Aśvins and Indra 249 initiation 127; see also ! Upanayana Aśvins, gods of initiation 183, 248–249 ritual 127, 225, 247–251 intermediate beings 104 intermediate realms 105 interpretation models 190 biomorphic 193–196 sociomorphic 74, 190 technomorphic 190–192 intoxicating drink, divine 62–63; see also ! Soma invitation to the sacrifice 200 is: t:āpurtá 287 Jalās: a, Rudraʼs remedy 271 jána (“tribe”) 5 Jarūtha 87₅₄ Jātavedas fire 76, 95, 219, 259–260 jīvá (“life-force” of mortals) 298₁₁₃ kanyā` (“unmarried virgin”) 96₁₀₃, 255₃₃₄ Kārīrīs: t:i 250 karman 294(93) Kavyas 283₃₀ Kāvya Uśanas 180–181 Kərəsāni 19, 62 Kərəsāspa 36, 57 Keśin 132₂₉₄ Khara 219 Kimīdin 87 kingship 6–9, 84, 97, 115–116 “kingship in heaven” 165 kinship 17, 86 187–190; see also ! Sapin: da : relation

“knoll of the earth” 219 Kośa 234 Kratu ! Prātaranuvāka Kravyād ! Agni Kravyād fire 76 Kravyavāhana fire 93₈₈ Kronos 164–167 Kr: śānu, guardian of the Soma 62, 160 kr: s:t:í (“tribe”) 5 Kr: ttikās, wives of the “Seven Seers” 144₃₆₆ ks:éma (“settling”) 4–6, 82–85, 110, 113 Ks: etrasya Pati 140 ks:ití (“tribe”) 5 Kuhū 153 Kumarbi 165 Kun: dapāyya 228₁₆₉ : Kuru, tribe 21 Kutsa 51, 120, 178, 180–181 Kuyava 181₁₀₈ Kvasir 160–161 language 4, 21, 24–26, 30, 72–73, 88, 153–154, 208 language of the gods 88 law 8–9, 109–110, 113 leader of a Vedic tribe 6–9, 12, 17, 97 left (inauspicious side) 273 “leftover Soma” ! Soma, átirikta sóma legitimation of rulership ! rulership levirate 255 libation, form of sacrifice 112, 150, 214, 222, 229–230, 238, 255, 265 life after death 281–291, 296–297; see also ! death, ! reincarnation, ! ʻdoctrine of the two-waysʼ “life-force” (ásu / jīvá) of mortals 298–299 lifespan of mortals 270, 272 light, won by Indra 174 lighting of the sacrificial fire 93–94, 218–220, 265–266 lightning bolts, weapon of the sky god 35₁₁, 130₂₇₆ limping smith ! smith, divine litanies ! Śastra livestock, protected by Pūs: an 130–131 local deities 76, 149–150 “lord of the forest” (designation of a specific sacrificial post) 140, 220 máda 212₇₈, 229₁₇₆ madness 119, 151 magic ! sorcery Mahānāmnī ! Śakvarī song Mahā-Pitr: yajña ! ancestral sacrifice Mahāvīra pot (see also ! Pravargya)

     Mahāvrata-day 16 Mahendragraha 10₃₃, 213₈₁, 215₉₃ mahī,́ epithet of Sarasvatī 149₃₉₂ Makha 181₁₀₇ malediction 277–278 mánas ! faculty of thought Mannus 61, 187 Manu; see also ! Yama, ! twins father of Idā : 70, 150, 187 first man 60–61, 185–187, 284 first sacrifice 189 Flood myth 187₁₃₉ name 177, 185 son of Vivasvant and the image of Saranyū 177, 185–189 : twin brother of Yama 177, 185–188, 284 manyú, responsible for emotions in human beings 297 marriage (see also ! bride, ! wedding ritual) contract 254–255 custom 179 with a supernatural bride (“Mahrtenehe”) 151 Mārtān: da : 77, 113, 186–188 Maruts 5, 126–29 and Indra 126, 167, 178 appearance 126, 128–129 divine images of the initiates 128, 251 offering of Soma 235 poets 128, 251 Marutvatīyaśastra ! Śastra Mātalī and the Kavyas 283₃₀ Mātariśvan 100–101 māyā ́ 78, 114 mead 44, 62, 105, 125 mead of poetry 160–161 meat 3, 70, 122, 216, 223–224, 239–242, 261, 270 messenger (of the gods), Agni 93–94 between men and gods 8, 59–60, 93–95, 101, 129 Narāśamsa 59–60 : (of death), Yamaʼs dogs 283–284 of Vivasvant 188 Pūs: an 40, 130–131 metamorphoses ! change of form metonymy 91, 150 metre 23–24, 28, 204, 206–207, 223 Tris: t:ubh 28, 204 microcosm-macrocosm analogies 297 midday pressing of the Soma ! Soma, pressing middle of earth and sky 144 Midgard Serpent 36, 163 midspace between heaven and earth 66, 79–80, 89, 174, 182, 192, 284

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milk 3, 52, 64, 70, 87, 223, 234, 236, 244–247, 265 mirror image of heaven 192 Mitanni 1 Miθra 54–55, 59 Mitra 55, 83–84, 109–113 and Agni 94–96, 111–112 and Varuna : 53, 77, 86, 90, 113 (and Praśāstr: 210) Asura 115 eats and drinks Ghee 112 functions 109 ks: éma and yóga 110 punishes breach of contract 55, 109–110, 112 relationship to the sun 109, 111, 143 mixing of the Soma ! Soma model concepts ! interpretation models mole of Rudra 44, 133₂₉₈ monsoon 3, 127–128, 247, 250–251, 277 moon 38, 144; see also ! myth bridegroom of Sūryā 146–147 cow of Tvas: t:r: in the house of the moon gives Soma as milk 178 home of the departed souls 144 origin 144 Vr: tra killed by Indra and his body placed into the sky 144 moon goddesses 153 morning and evening star (Hesperus / Lucifer) 36, 104 morning deities 90, 104 morning pressing of the Soma ! Soma, pressing morning twilight 146 mortal gods 131, 185–186, 293 mortality, characteristic feature of human beings 33 mortals (see also ! ancestors, ! anthropogony, ! Manu) and gods 33–34, 86–87 (exchange of gifts 223, commensality 213, 224) body, body souls and free soul constitute a person 296–297 (the latter lives on in the afterworld 298) “life-force” (ásu) 298 protected by Agni 92 related to the gods 187–189 Soma 287, 292 mountain as home of the intoxicating drink 62, 161 mountain range, encircling the earth 65–66 mountains 134–135, 161, 175, 182, 192 Mudgalānī, race of 256₃₄₀ Mūjavant 161 mūŕ adeva 87₅₁

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myth (definition 157, methods of explanation 158–159) battle of the gods (Devas against Asuras) and succession of rulership 77, 81, 159, 163–167 (connection with the Soma theft and the killing of Vala and Vr: tra 172) bringing down of the fire 100 courtship / winning of a bride by the divine twins 38–39, 105 cow of Tvas: t:r: gives Soma as milk 64, 144 disappearance / flight of Agni 98–100 first appearance of Agni on earth 99–101 foot prints of Idā : 70, 150 impregnations 183–184 origin of the moon 144 rescue deeds of the Aśvins 183 rescue of the cows 169–170 release of the waters 36, 59, 64, 167–170 ʻritualisationʼ of a myth 103 separation of heaven and earth 80, 83–84, 111, 170, 182 succession of rulership after battle 79, 163–167 theft / abduction, of bride 37–38, 105 of cattle 169, 171 of fire 100 of Soma 18, 45, 79, 81, 120–121, 150–163, 172, 174 Tvas: t:r: brings up Indra and crafts a club for him 123 Vala 3, 14, 59, 91, 116–117, 169–175 components of the myth 170 interlinked with the morning pressing of the Soma 213 connection between the Vala and the Vr: tra myths 80, 170 precursors of this myth 172–173 and Daks: inā : 213 Viśvarūpa 57, 120 fights with Indra and Trita 175–177 (connected with the myth of Somaʼs ʻhangoverʼ of Indra 245) Vr: tra 35–36, 54, 159, 167–169 components of the myth 170 interlinked with the midday pressing of the Soma 213₈₁ connection between the Vala and the Vr: tra myth 80, 170 variations 159, 180–181 winged mountains 134, 182, 192 winning of the light 174 ʻmythlessʼ gods 183 Nairiiō.saŋha 59–60 name 199; see also ! epithets, ! secret name

name-giving on the tenth day after birth 257 naming magic 170, 275–276 Namuci 181, 245–246 Narāśamsa 59–60, 129, 219–220, 264 : Nārāśamsa : bowls 264 Navagnas ! Aṅgiras “navel of the earth / the world / the sacrifice” 100, 219 Nes: t:r: (priest) 123, 154–155, 209–210 Netr: 139 new and full moon sacrifice 225, 265 “new songs” 31 New Year 10, 15–17, 146, 213, 225, 247, 263–264, ! Ekās: t:akā night 103–104, 133–134, 143–144, 250 nightmare ! dreams night sky 67, 81, 143–144, 172–173 nigrābhyā water 231₁₈₆ Nirr: ti 136₃₂₁, 155, 272 Nirūdhapaśubandha 223₂₄₁ : Nis: kevalyaśastra ! Śastra Nivid 212, 223, 228–229 “non- existent” ! ásat Nr: śamsa 129 : nymphs 39–40, 151 oath 35, 84, 107, 111–116, 141, 143–144 false oath 115 oath-breaking 111–112, 115₂₀₂ oath gods 35₁₄, 111–112, 116 Odin 160–164 older generation of gods 78, 172; see also ! Asuras, ! Sādhyas Olympian food sacrifice 242 omen ! signs, ominous omentum of the sacrificial animal 239 omina and portenta 272–273; see also ! signs, ominous omniscience 34–35, 51 ordeal 84, 114 order (r: tá) 51–53, 107, 110, 113, 143, 172–173, 195; see also ! cosmic and societal order, ! environment and ethical behaviour order in which the offerings are distributed 213–216 origin of mankind ! anthropogony Ouranos 164, 166–167 owl, ominous animal 275 Paidva 90₆₅ Pan 41 Pañcāgnividyā (“five-fire doctrine”) 291–294 páñca jánāh: (“Five Peoples”) 5 Panis : 73, 99, 169, 189

     pantheon 76–82, 86 paradoxes 98, 191, 194, 196 Pārendi : 60 Paridhānīyā 227 Pariks: it, king 21 Parivāpa 238₂₃₂ Parjanya 91, 118, 129–130, 145, 250 Parus: nī : 181 Paryagnikarana : 221, 243–244, see also ! circling with firebrand pā ŕ ye diví 16–17 Pastyā 152 Paśubandha ! animals, sacrifice pater familias ! gr: hápati “Path of the Celestials” (devayā ń a) 16, 216, 282, 285–286, 292 “Path of the Fathers” (pitr: yā ń a) 16, 292 paths ! roads and pathways Pathyā 152, 155 Pathyā Svasti 152 “pati gods” 139 patron of the sacrifice ! sacrifice, sacrificer ʻpeacetime kingʼ 7–9 Pedu 90₆₅ person ! mortals Phālguna 225₁₅₄ physician 271–272 Pin: dapit r: yajña ! ancestral sacrifice : Pipru 120 Piśācas 87 Piśācī 87₅₄ Pitr: (“pacified dead”, “father”) 262₃₉₀, 279; see also ! Preta Pitr: yajña ! ancestral sacrifice Pitr: yāna ! “path of the fathers” plants 268, 271, 278 plea formulas 30–32, 202–201 Pleiades ! Kr: ttikās plough 140, 266 “Plough” (Ursa Maior) / “Great Bear” 144 poetic language ! Indo-European poetic language, ! Indo-Iranian poetic language poets 145, 154, 201–204, 208 poison, rendering harmless of ~ 274 polytheism 74–76, 88 postmortality ! life after death post-offerings (anuyājá) 241 Potr: (priest) 209–210 “pouring of songs” 30, 199₁₀, 204₄₀ power ! rulership Prais: a 210 Prajāpati 78, 134, 153, 139, 184, 193–194 prāná : ! breath Pranayana ! Agnipranayana : :

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Praśāstr: (priest) 209–210 Prāśitra 214₈₇ Prasthitahoma 210–211 Prastotr: 209₅₉ Prātaranuvāka 227 Pratigara 228 Pratihartr: (priest) 209₅₉ Praügaśastra ! Śastra Pravargya 127, 183, 225, 244, 246–251, 277; see also ! Avāntaradīks: ā, ! Gharma ritual prayājá ! pre-offerings prayer songs ! hymns pregnancy 257 pre-offerings (prayājá) 241 pressing of the Soma ! Soma, pressing pressing slab ! Soma, pressing slab Preta (“unpacified dead”) 258₃₄₉, 262₃₉₀; see also ! Pitr: priests 9, 70, 116–117, 208–213; see also ! Adhvaryu, ! Agnidh, ! Brahman, ! Hotr: , ! Nes: t:r: , ! Potr: , ! Praśāstr: , ! Prastotr: , ! Pratihartr: , ! Upavaktr: ancient clans 100, 209 list 70, 209 priestly office / functions 14, 209–210 progenitor of mankind ! ancestor of mankind progeny birth of a son through the involvement of the ancestors 289–290 granted by Bhaga 108₁₇₁ by Sinīvālī 153 illegitimate offspring 255 makes immortality impossible 186, 283 siring ~ is a manʼs obligation 289 Prometheus 101 Pr: śni 126, 184 psychopomp 40–41, 130 punarmr: tyú (“repeated death”) 288 Puramdhi 60, 152–153 : Purodāś : / Puro:lāś ! sacrifice, offerings Purohita 117, 256 Puroʼnuvākyā 229, 236, 241 Purūravas 151, 187 Purus: a 156, 189, 194–195 Purus: amedha ! human sacrifice Pūs: an 40–41, 91, 108, 130–131, 152, 223, 237–238, 282 Pūtīka 225₁₅₄ quarantine of the Gandharva 118 raids 4, 128–129 rain 55, 62–66, 108–109, 114, 129–130, 163, 178, 193, 247, 250–251, 274, 276–277, 291–292

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rainbow 119 rainy season ! monsoon rā j́ (an) (“king”) 6–9 Rākā 153 ráks:as / raks: ás 87 Raks: as demons / Rāks: asas 197₂, 271₄₅₃ ram 91, 244 Raŋhā 65–66 Rasā 66, 169, 171, 282 Rašnu 162 Rauhina : 180 Rbhus 131–132 : Rebha 183, 248 “repeated death” (punarmr: tyú) 288 reincarnation 287–294 reintegration of warriors who have been ʻoutsideʼ 245–246 remainder (úcchis:t:a) of the offering 214 remedies 271–272 remotest distance 100, 136 ʻrequitingʼ sacrifice 208 rhetorical devices 205 right hand 112, 198, 255, 274–275 right side (auspicious side) 273 rite / ʻritemeʼ 224 ritual calendar 76, 225–226 rituals; see also ! cult, ! sacrifice, ! Soma, ritual central elements 208 consecration (dīks:ā )́ of the participants 208 goals 224 structured like a feast for guests 69–70, 198–204 rivers (see also ! saptá síndhavah) : courses dug out by Indra 182 migratory movements of the Vedic tribes centred around ~ 5 Sarasvatī, best of all ~ 148–149 set in motion by Savitr: 134 Rjiśvan 120 : Rjrāśva 183 : roads and pathways, protected by Pūs: an 156 roasted grains (dhānā )́ 237; see also ! sacrifice, offerings Romulus and Remus 37, 61, 187 royal consecration 7 r: tá 51–53, 171 Rtugraha ! Rtuyāja : : Rtuprai s: a 211₇₂ : Rtuyāja rite, part of the morning pressing 14, : 211, 235 Rtvigvara na : : 210–211 Rudra 44, 87, 126–127, 132–135, 140, 184, 197, 222, 271–272

rulership (see also ! fire, ! myth) concentration of power 6–8, 10, 97 institutions 6–9 legitimation 13, 17–19, 81, 177 succession of ~ after battle 77–81, 126, 163–167 śabála 284₃₂ Sabhā 11–12, 249 sabhéya 136₃₁₇ sacrifice 8, 59, 69–70, 197–198, 204, 208, 222–223, 287; see also ! first sacrificer, ! first sacrifice, ! cult offerings 30, 70, 93, 105, 129, 198, 213–214, 222–225, 230, 237–238, 244, 267 sacrificer (Yájamāna) 209 sacrificial animal (see also ! animals, sacrifice) 217–218, 220–221 sacrificial bath (avabhr: thá), at the end of rituals 208 sacrificial fire 69–70, 208, 217–222; see also ! Agnipranayana, ! Agnipratis: t:hāpana, : ! fire sacrificial formula 208, 213–214, 223–224, 228, 263 sacrificial grass (barhís) 71, 201, 217–218 sacrificial post 140, 217, 220, 241 sacrificial site 216–218, 220–221 sacrificial songs ! hymns sacrificial system, two-way 93, 221–222 sacrificial tent 217₁₀₂ sacrificial types 222 ʻsacrificing awayʼ 268 Sādhyas 155 Sākamedha ritual 263 Śakvarī song 250 Sāman 223–224, 229 Samāvartana ! Upanayana Sāmaveda 24₉ Śambara 120, 180 Sāmidhenī 219 Śamitr: (priest) 241 Sampradāna ritual 288₆₂ : Śamsa 129 : Samsava 212₇₇ : Samvāda 198₇ : Śāntikarman ! funeral ritual Salt tide193 Saošiiant : 293 Sapin: da : relationship 289₆₈ Sapin: dīkara na : ! ancestors, ancestor worship : saptá síndhavah: (“seven rivers”) 1, 26 Saptavadhri 183 Saramā 91, 169

     Saranyū, daughter of Tvas: t:r: 104, 124, 177, : 185–186 Sarasvant 148₃₈₇ Sarasvatī 63–64, 66, 76, 148–149, 153, 181, 235, 241, 244–245 animal sacrifice 241, 244 fertility 149, 153, 257 share of Soma 149, 235 Śaryanāvant 161 : Śastra 227–229, 235–238 Āgnimārutaśastra 228, 236 Ājyaśastra 228 Marutvatīyaśastra 228, 235 Nis: kevalyaśastra 228, 235 Praügaśastra (“Chariot-Shaft-Litany”) 155, 228, 235 Vaiśvadevaśastra 228–229, 236 sát (“the existent”) 79–81, 172, 189, 196 sátpati (“lord of the dwelling place”) 7 Sattra 228₁₆₉ satyá 51₂₄ Sautrāmanī : 244–246 Savarnā : 186₁₃₁ Sāvarni : 177 Śavasī 124–125 Savitr: 92, 103, 131, 133–135, 139, 236, 271 Sāvitrī 265₄₁₉ scapegoat 136, 271 sea under the earth 66 seasons 131 “seat of Vivasvant” ! sacrifice, sacrificial site second distribution of offerings ! sacrifice, offerings secret name 73, 170, 178, 200; see also ! name secret of the Soma 178 sedentariness 4–9; see also ! ks:éma self-curse 115 semen 123, 130, 137, 292–293 serpent 36, 41, 54, 57, 80, 84, 89, 123–124, 135, 142, 159, 163, 167–171, 175–177, 180 settlement, Vedic 4–8, 82–86 “seven Hotr: s” 209 “seven seers” (! Aṅgiras) 144, 189, 209 seven steps (in concluding a contract) 112 “seven voices” 204₃₇ sheep 3, 91, 244, 230, 234 signs, ominous, and their interpretation 272–274 sin ! transgressions singers 70, 209–210 singing (see also ! Sāman, ! Stotra) 204, 223–224, 229 Sinīvālī 153 śipivis:t:á 138₃₃₃ Sīra 266

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Sītā 140, 266 Sītāyajña 266 “site of the order” (r: tá) 53, 171 “site of the waters” 100 sky 66 abode of the gods 34, 280–281 and earth 34–35, 65, 80, 83–84, 111–112, 131, 141–142, 152, 170, 182, 190–193 “back of heaven” 160 (abode of Vāc 154) day sky 143–144, 172–173 form 193 gate 66, 286₄₇ made of metal 67 made of stone 66–67, 81, 126, 167, 171–172 night sky 67, 81, 143–144, 172–173 rests on the rim of the earth and the underworld 284 sees everything 35, 112 supported by Aja Ekapad 192₁₆₃ by Vis: nu : 137 by Indra 83, 182 third heaven 66, 162 sky daughter ! Us: as sky god; see also ! Dyaus daughter 34, 145, 172 father of the Aṅgiras 117₂₁₁, 184₁₂₁ of the divine twins 36–37, 104 of Indra 122 of Us: as 145 heraldic animal 54 incest with daughter 122, 139–140, 172, 184 lives on in Mitra and Varuna : 51, 113 sons 34–37 spouse 34, 125 sky son ! Indra sky tree, Soma trickling ! Soma tree sleep of the Rbhus 131 : even transgressions committed during ~ evoke evil 267 Śmaśāna ! funeral ritual smith, divine 123–124, 176; see also ! Hephaistos, ! Tvas: t:r: , ! Völundr, ! Wayland snake ! serpent Snātaka 127 societal circumstances and cosmic order (see also ! environment and ethical behaviour) 53, 110, 113 sociolects 25–26 sociomorphic interpretation ! interpretation models So 228₁₆₉ :  daśin solstices ! summer solstice, winter solstice

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Soma 62–63 átirikta sóma (“leftover Soma”) 105–106, 239, 105–106153–154 lake ! Śaryanāvant : marc (r: jīs:á) 227 mixture 150, 225, 234 mortar pressing 231₁₉₂ offering 90, 96, 135–137, 149, 154, 215, 226, 230, 234, 236, 238 press 218, 231–234; see also ! “under-boards” pressers 40, 135, 137–138, 291 pressing 40, 62, 131, 135–136, 155, 209–210, 213, 216–218, 227–228, 231, 233, 235–236 pressing slab (úpara) 231, 234 pressing stones (ádri, grā v́ an [see 233₂₀₁]), 231₁₉₂, 233–234 purification 230, 234 quick pressing (añjahsava) 231₁₉₂ : ritual 69, 72, 131, 164, 210–211, 214–215, 219, 222, 226–238, 287 rock 161, 171 somyá mádhu 105 songs 230 spilling of soma during the pressing 232 spring 66, 163, 224 ! Svarnara : substitutes 225 theft ! myth, theft of the Soma tiróahnya sóma (“Soma from the day before”) 105–106, 238 tree 162 unmixed ~ (śúci, śukrá) 136–137, 216, 234 vessels for mixing 234 sons ! progeny sorcerer 87, 115, 247, 274, 275, 277 sorcery 26, 87, 274–277 soul 294–299 space between heaven and earth ! midspace between heaven and earth speech (vā ć ) ! language spells ! sorcery spies (of the sky god and his descendants) 114 spirits ! demons spouse ! bride, ! husband Śrāddha ! ancestral sacrifice Śraus: at 229₁₇₉ Sruc 223₁₄₄, 265₄₂₁ stars 35, 52, 67–68, 79, 84, 113–114, 142–144, 170–172 Stotra 229–230 stranger 107 strata of society 195 strengthening of the gods through sacrifice 204 Subrahmanyā 91 : śúci ! Soma, unmixed

sūd́ a, additional ingredients to the Soma 234₂₀₇ Sudās 181 suitors 254–255 śukrá ! Soma, unmixed Sūkta 21, 204 Śūlagava ritual 242₂₆₀ summer solstice 225, 247 summoning the gods 200–201; see also ! farewell to the gods in ritual sun 142–143 all-seeing and all-knowing 143 ancestor of mankind 185 birthplace of the horse 90 brought through the night by the Aśvins 104, 251 chariot of the ~ 142, 181 “coloured stone” 142 daughter Sūryā 146–147 disputes with Indra 178–179, 181 eye of the sky god and his ʼdescendantsʼ 114, 142–143 form of Agni 102 “golden ornament of heaven” 142 guardian of truth 143 has two sides 143, 173 immortality 185, 188 “northern path” 16 origin 188 paths carved by the Ādityas 143 pillar for the ~ 89 race with Etaśa 178 rising and setting 36, 66, 111, 212, 265 “son of the sky” 142 “southern path” 16 strenghthened in the Gharma sacrifice 247 winning the ~ 5, 14, 16–17 worshipped in the Atirātra 238 Śuna 140, 266 Śunahśepa 223 : Śunāsīrīya 266 supplicatory offering 268 Surā 223, 244 ́ a, mixture of Surā and Soma 244 surā m Sūrya ! sun Sūryā 38, 105, 134, 146–147, 183, 252–253, 256 Sūryāsūkta ! “wedding song” Śus: na : 51, 120, 180 Sutrāman ! (Indra) Sutrāman Suttung 161 svadhā, sacrificial call to the ancestors 224 svāhā, sacrificial call to the gods 224 Svarbhānu 178–179 Svarnara 66, 285 : Svaru (“sacrificial post”) 220–221

     Svasti 152 Svayamvara 38, 253316–317 : Svis: t:akr: t ! Agni Tanūnapāt 129, 219–220 Tānūnaptra 18₆₄ Tārks: ya 90₆₄ technomorphic interpretation ! interpretation models temple 14, 208, 221 thank-offerings 208 theft of cattle 5, 180, 225, of the Soma ! myth, theft of the Soma theriomorphic forms of gods 89 “third heaven” 66, 162, 283, 285 thirst of the dead 287 thirteenth month 15₅₃ Thor 36, 161, 163, 167; see also ! Týr Θraētaona 57–58, 175–176 three-day period 118 (three nights of abstinence after the wedding 252₃₁₃, 256₃₃₈) three steps of Vis: nu : 137 Θrita 58, 136 time (see also ! night) 134 tiroʼhnya cake 238 Tištriia 54, 64 Tis: ya 64 Titans 78, 164–166 Titanomachy 165–166 transfer of good and evil deeds onto others 269 transgressions 267–269 Trasadasyu 7, 9, 90; see also ! Dadhikrā(van) Trātr: 139 Tr: ca 206 Trees 140, 221 “  tr: -gods” 139 tribe ! Vedic tribes Trikadruka 228₁₆₉ Trita Āptya 57–58, 135–136, 145, 270–271 Tritas 160 Tr: tsus 181 truth 51–53, 113, 182 Tryambaka stanza 108₁₆₇, 225₁₅₆, 289₆₄ Tuisto 61, 187 Tvas: t:r: 81, 104, 106, 122–124, 126, 132, 135, 142, 144, 153–154, 167, 176–177, 184–185, 191, 210, 241, 245; see also ! Nes: t:r: ancestor of mankind 124 and the wives of the gods 123, 154–155, 176 and the Rbhus 131 : and Savitr: 134 animal sacrifice for ~ 241 creator of the world 142, 191 father of Saranyū 104, 124, 177, 185 :

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of Viśvarūpa 123 of Yama and Yamī 177 fertility 153, 176 foster-father of Indra 81, 106, 122–124 grandfather of the Aśvins 178 incest (with his daughter Saranyū) 176–177, : 184–185 magic knowledge 124 sweet potion 177–178 twelve days of the winter solstice ! winter solstice twins anthropogonic myths 186–187 Aśvins 103–104 birth 37, 104 divine 34, 36–37, 46, 61, 103–104 founders of cities 37 killing (of one of the ~) 37, 61 myth 60–61, 177, 186 two fathers 104 Yama and Manu 177, 186–189, 284 Yama and Yamī 186 two-way sacrifice system 93–94 Týr 54, 161, 163, 167 Udgātr: (priest) 204 ukthá 228–229 unborn 77, 191, 194 “under-boards” (adhis: avanyā : `) of the ! Soma, press 231–232 underworld 38, 65–66, 80, 111, 114–115, 121, 138, 143, 145–146, 171, 280–282, 284, 286 entrance 286 place of punishment 281 realm of Varuna : 114 “unpacified dead” (preta) 258₃₄₉ Upāmśugraha 231₁₈₇, 234₂₀₈ : Upanayana 249, 251 úpara ! Soma, press Upasad festivities 246₂₈₆ Upavaktr: (priest) 134, 210₆₃.₆₅ upayáj ! additional sacrifice Urana : 180₉₈ urn 260–261 Urvaśī 39, 151 Ušah 55–57 Uśanas Kāvya ! Kāvya Uśanas Us: as 56–57, 87, 89–90, 92, 103, 105, 108, 126, 136, 143, 145–147, 152, 172, 178, 184, 227, 238; see also ! incest, ! myth abduction 37, 105 beauty 89 chariot 145, 178 cow 174 released from the Vala 146, 171

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    

Us.hindauua 63₉₁, 65 : Uśij 100 Uttarārani : 218; see also ! fire, fire drill Uttaravedi 217 Uttarāyana : 16 vā ć ! Stotra Vāc 153–154 Vācaspati 154₄₂₃ Vaiiu 59, 137 Vaiśvadevaśastra ! Śastra Vaiśvānara fire 76, 95, 219–220 Vāja 131 Vala 14, 59, 68, 79–81, 91, 116–117, 120, 122, 137, 146, 169–175, 180, 182, 213, 282, 284 Visnu 153 Destruction 80–81, 169–170, 284 is Indraʼs father Dyaus 80–81, 145–146, 170 rescue of the cows 169–170 of the waters 170 of the light 170 Vamr(ak)a, Vamrī 181₁₀₇ Vanaspati 139 Vandana 183, 248 Vanir 160–161 Vara 68 Varuna : 7, 9, 25, 39, 51, 53, 77–79, 82–92, 107, 112–116, 143–144, 173, 183, 210, 223, 235, 239, 268–271, 283 and Agni 94–96, 268 and Ahura Mazdā 53 and Aryaman 113 and Indra 82–83, 113 and Mitra 53, 77, 86, 90, 113 appearance 89 Asura 114–115 functions 84, 86–87 king 84–85 oath 115–116, 143 omniscient 114 order of the world 79, 84, 113, 173 punishing god 113, 268 sacrifice to ~ 268 Varunapraghāsa 268₄₃₄ : vaśā ́ 3 Vas: at: 229 Vasis: t:ha(s) 181, 183 Vāstos: pati 139–140 vāstuha 140₃₄₀ Vāta 129–130, 144–145 vatsá 3 Vāyu 59, 86, 136–137, 215–216, 234 Veda student ! Brahmacārin Vedavrata 248, 250

Vedi 217–218, 221 vehát 3 Vena 119 Venus 37₂₂ verbal contest 10–13; see also ! Brahmodya, ! contests Vərəθrγna 54 Vibhvan 131 victory prize ! contests Vidhātr: 139 Virāj 189 virgin 96, 121, 169, 293 víś (“settlement”) 5 Vis: nu : 40, 86, 135, 137–138, 145, 153, 223, 257, 285 Viśpalā 272₄₅₈ viśpáti (“lord of the settlement”) 6–9, 100, 216 Vīspo.biš 162 Vis: ūvant day 16, 247 Viśvakarman 191 Viśvarūpa 57, 120, 123, 126, 135, 175–177, 245–246 Viśvāvasu (see also ! Gandharva) 119, 252 Viśve Devāh: 89, 92, 155, 235–236 Vivasvant 68, 104, 131, 136, 177, 185–189, 217, 282–284 Vīuuahant : 61, 136 Volcanus 173 Völundr 123 Vouru.kaa lake 19, 42, 54, 57, 63–65, 162, 293 vratá (“vow, obligation”) 84–85 Vrātyas 8₂₆ Vrātyastoma 245₂₈₃ Vr: s: ākapi 179 Vr: s: anaśva 91 : Vr: tra 35, 54, 59, 80, 83–84, 99, 101, 120, 126, 137, 144, 151, 159, 167–172, 179–180, 182, 206, 243 war 4, 6–9, 59, 83–84, 110, 137, 147, 163–164, 166, 225 water(s) 148; see also ! celestial waters, ! salt tide abode of Agni 101 of the Apsaras 150 of Varuna : 114 atonement 148, 268 carry the earth 66, 103 celestial ~ 66, 114, 154 for preparing and mixing the Soma 42, 102–103, 234 ritual 148 underground ~ 65–66, 114

     water woman 119 Wayland 123, 176 wedding fire 255 wedding procession 119 wedding ritual 96, 107–108, 130, 152, 251–256; see also ! bride, ! betrothal “wedding song” (Sūryāsūkta) 139, 179, 252, 256 wife exchange 253 wife of the ʻhouselordʼ 210, 290 wind ! Vāta winged mountains ! mountains winning the sun 5 winter solstice 14–17, 131 witnesses 111–112, 141 wives of the gods ! divine women, wives of the gods (gnā )́ “womb of Aditi” 148, 217 “womb of Dhis: anā” : 152, 232₁₉₄ wooden staff, represents the Gandharva Viśvāvasu 252₃₁₃ word duel ! verbal contest world ! house of the world world egg 193 world order 52, 172–173 world parents 193–194 world pillar ! axis mundi world structure ! cosmography world tree 161, 192, 283; see also ! axis mundi

335

xvarәnah 19–20, 42, 65–67 Yajamāna ! sacrifice, sacrificer Yajus 223 Yājyā 229, 236, 238, 241 Yama 37, 68, 91, 119, 124, 131, 138, 151, 159, 177, 184–189, 268, 281–287 Aṅgiras form his retinue in the world beyond 189, 283 choice for progeny and mortality 186, 283 divine ancestor of mankind 119, 186 dogs 67, 91, 259, 282–284, 286 finds a path to heaven 282 first to die 61, 185, 282 sacrifice 37, 68 son of Vivasvant 67–68, 185, 188, 284 and of Saranyū 124, 177, 184, 284 : twin brother of Manu 177, 186, 188–189, 284 Yamī 119, 151, 159, 177, 184, 186, 284 Yātu 87 Yima 19, 37, 65, 68, 284 Ymir 37, 163 yóga (“yoking”) 4–6, 82, 85, 110 young bulls 56 Zarathustra 47–51, 53, 56, 69, 85, 202–203, 293 Zeus 39, 54, 122, 141, 164–167 Zoroastrianism 26, 30, 33, 48, 50, 54, 82, 293