Myth, Ritual And Religion Volume II Part 15

**** Ibid., iv. 18,1.

***** Cf. "Egyptian Divine Myths"

In verse 5 his mother exposes Indra, as Maui and the youngest son of Aditi were exposed. Indra soon after, as precocious as Heitsi Eibib, immediately on his birth kills his father.* He also kills Vritra, as Apollo when new-born slew the Python. In iii. 48, 2, 3, he takes early to soma-drinking. In x. 153, 1, women cradle him as the nymphs nursed Zeus in the Cretan cave.

In the third cla.s.s we have the odd myth,** "while an immature boy, he mounted the new waggon and roasted for father and mother a fierce bull ".

In the fourth cla.s.s a speculative person tries to account for the statement that Indra was born from a horse, "or the verse means that Agni was a horse's son". Finally, Sayana**** explains nothing, but happens to mention that the G.o.ddess Aditi _swallowed_ her rival Nisti, a very primitive performance, and much like the feat of Cronos when he dined on his family, or of Zeus when he swallowed his wife.

* Why do Indra and his family behave in this bloodthirsty way? Hillebrandt says that the father is the heaven which Indra "kills" by covering it with clouds. But, again, Indra kills his father by concealing the sun. He is abandoned by his mother when the clear sky, from which he is born, disappears behind the veil of cloud. Is the father sun or heaven? is the mother clear sky, or, as elsewhere, the imperishability of the daylight? (Perry, op. cit., p. 149).

** Rig- Veda, viii. 68, 15.

*** Ibid., x. 73, 10.

**** Ibid., x. 101, 12. For Sayana, see Mr. Perry's Essay, Journal A. 0. S. 1882, p. 180.

Thus a fixed tradition of Indra's birth is lacking in the Veda, and the fluctuating traditions are not very creditable to the purity of the Aryan fancy. In personal appearance Indra was handsome and ruddy as the sun, but, like Odin and Heitsi Eibib and other G.o.ds and wizards, he could a.s.sume any shape at will. He was a great charioteer, and wielded the thunderbolt forged for him by Tvashtri, the Indian Hephaestus. His love of the intoxicating soma juice was notorious, and with sacrifices of this liquor his adorers were accustomed to inspire and invigorate him. He is even said to have drunk at one draught thirty bowls of soma.

Dr. Haug has tasted it, but could only manage one teaspoonful. Indra's belly is compared by his admirers to a lake, and there seems to be no doubt that they believed the G.o.d really drank their soma, as Heitsi Eibib really enjoys the honey left by the Hottentots on his grave. "I have verily resolved to bestow cows and horses. I have quaffed the soma. The draughts which I have drunk impel me as violent blasts. I have quaffed the soma. I surpa.s.s in greatness the heaven and the vast earth.

I have quaffed the soma. I am majestic, elevated to the heavens. I have quaffed the soma."* So sings the drunken and bemused Indra, in the manner of the Cyclops in Euripides, after receiving the wine, the treacherous gift of Odysseus.

According to the old commentator Sayana, Indra got at the soma which inspired him with his drinking-song by a.s.suming the shape of a quail.

The great feats of Indra, which are constantly referred to, are his slaughter of the serpent Vritra, who had taken possession of all the waters, and his recovery of the sun, which had also been stolen.**

* Rig- Veda, x. 119.

** Ibid., 139, 4; iii. 39, 6; viii. 85, 7.

These myths are usually regarded as allegorical ways of stating that the lightning opens the dark thundercloud, and makes it disgorge the rain and reveal the sun. Whether this theory be correct or not, it is important for our purpose to show that the feats thus attributed to Indra are really identical in idea with, though more elevated in conception and style, than certain Australian, Iroquois and Thlinkeet legends. In the Iroquois myth, as in the Australian,* a great frog swallowed all the waters, and was destroyed by Ioskeha or some other animal. In Thlinkeet legends, Yehl, the raven-G.o.d, carried off to men the hidden sun and the waters. Among these lower races the water-stealer was thought of as a real reptile of some sort, and it is probable that a similar theory once prevailed among the ancestors of the Aryans. Vritra and Ahi, the mysterious foes whom Indra slays when he recovers the sun and the waters, were probably once as real to the early fancy as the Australian or Iroquois frog. The extraordinary myth of the origin of Vritra, only found in the Brahmanas, indicates the wild imagination of an earlier period. Indra murdered a Brahman, a three-headed one, it is true, but still a Brahman. For this he was excluded from the banquet and was deprived of his favourite soma. He stole a cup of it, and the dregs, thrown into the fire with a magical imprecation, became Vritra, whom Indra had such difficulty in killing. Before attacking Vritra, Indra supplied himself with Dutch courage. "A copious draught of soma provided him with the necessary courage and strength." The terror of the other G.o.ds was abject.** After slaying him, he so lost self-possession that in his flight he behaved like Odin when he flew off in terror with the head of Suttung.***

* Brinton, Myths of New World, pp. 184, 185. See also chapter i.

** Perry, op. cit., p. 137; Rig-Veda, v. 29, 3, 7; iii.

43, 7; iv. 18, 11; viii. 85, 7.

*** Rig-Veda, i. 32,14, tells of a flight as headlong as that of Apollo after killing the Python. Mr. Perry explains the flight as the rapid journey of the thunderstorm.

If our opinion be correct, the elemental myths which abound in the Veda are not myths "in the making," as is usually held, but rather myths gradually dissolving into poetry and metaphor. As an example of the persistence in civilised myth of the old direct savage theory that animals of a semi-supernatural sort really cause the heavenly phenomena, we may quote Mr. Darmesteter's remark, in the introduction to the _Zendavesta_: "The storm floods that cleanse the sky of the dark fiends in it were described in a cla.s.s of myths as the urine of a gigantic animal in the heavens".* A more savage and theriomorphic hypothesis it would be hard to discover among Bushmen or Nootkas.** Probably the serpent Vritra is another beast out of the same menagerie.

If our theory of the evolution of G.o.ds is correct, we may expect to find in the myths of Indra traces of a theriomorphic character. As the point in the ear of man is thought or fabled to be a relic of his arboreal ancestry, so in the shape of Indra there should, if G.o.ds were developed out of divine beasts, be traces of fur and feather. They are not very numerous nor very distinct, but we give them for what they may be worth.

The myth of Yehl, the Thlinkeet raven-G.o.d, will not have been forgotten.

In his raven gear Yehl stole the sacred water, as Odin, also in bird form, stole the mead of Suttung. We find a similar feat connected with Indra. Gubernatis says:***

* Sacred Books of the East, vol. iv. p. lx.x.xviii.

** The etymology of Vritra is usually derived from vn, to "cover," "hinder," "restrain," then "what is to be hindered," then "enemy," "fiend".

*** Zoological Mythology, ii. 182.

"In the _Rig-Veda_ Indra often appears as a hawk. While the hawk carries the ambrosia through the air, he trembles for fear of the archer Krica.n.u.s, who, in fact, shot off one of his claws, of which the hedgehog was born, according to the _Aitareya Brahmana_, and according to the Vedic hymn, one of his feathers, which, falling on the earth, afterwards became a tree."* Indra's very peculiar relations with rams are also referred to by Gubernatis.** They resemble a certain repulsive myth of Zeus, Demeter and the ram referred to by the early Christian fathers. In the _Satapatha Brahmana_*** Indra is called "ram of Medhat.i.thi," wife of Vrishanasva. Indra, like Loki, had taken the part of a woman.**** In the shape of a ram he carried off Medhat.i.thi, an exploit like that of Zeus with Ganymede.*****

In the Vedas, however, all the pa.s.sages which connect Indra with animals will doubtless be explained away as metaphorical, though it is admitted that, like Zeus, he could a.s.sume whatever form he pleased.****** Vedic poets, probably of a late period, made Indra as anthropomorphic as the Homeric Zeus. His domestic life in the society of his consort Indrani is described.******* When he is starting for the war, Indrani calls him back, and gives him a stirrup-cup of soma. He and she quarrel very naturally about his pet monkey.********

In this brief sketch, which is not even a summary, we have shown how much of the irrational element, how much, too, of the humorous element, there is in the myths about Indra. He is a drunkard, who gulps down cask, spigot and all.*********

* Compare Rig-Veda, iv. 271.

** Zool. Myth., i. 414.

*** ii. 81.

**** Rig- Veda, i. 51, 13.

***** Ibid., viii. 2, 40.

****** Ibid.,

****** Ibid., iii. 48, 4.

******* Ibid, 53, 4-6; vii. 18, 2.

******** Ibid., x. 86.

********* Ibid. 116.

He is an adulterer and a "shape-s.h.i.+fter," like all medicine-men and savage sorcerers. He is born along with the sheep from the breast of a vast non-natural being, like Ymir in Scandinavian myth; he metamorphoses himself into a ram or a woman; he rends asunder his father and mother, heaven and earth; he kills his father immediately after his birth, or he is mortal, but has attained heaven by dint of magic, by "austere fervour". Now our argument is that these and such as these incongruous and irrational parts of Indra's legend have no necessary or natural connection with the wors.h.i.+p of him as a nature-G.o.d, an elemental deity, a power of sky and storm, as civilised men conceive storm and sky. On the other hand, these legends, of which plenty of savage parallels have been adduced, are obviously enough survivals from the savage intellectual myths, in which sorcerers, with their absurd powers, are almost on a level with G.o.ds. And our theory is, that the irrational part of Indra's legend became attached to the figure of an elemental divinity, a nature-G.o.d, at the period when savage men mythically attributed to their G.o.ds the qualities which were claimed by the most ill.u.s.trious among themselves, by their sorcerers and chiefs. In the Vedas the nature-G.o.d has not quite disengaged himself from these old savage attributes, which to civilised men seem so irrational. "Trailing clouds of" anything but "glory" does Indra come "from heaven, which is his home." If the irrational element in the legend of Indra was neither a survival of, nor a loan from, savage fancy, why does it tally with the myths of savages?

The other Adityas, strictly so called (for most G.o.ds are styled Adityas now and then by way of compliment), need not detain us. We go on to consider the celebrated soma.

Soma is one of the most singular deities of the Indo-Aryans. Originally Soma is the intoxicating juice of a certain plant.* The wonderful personifying power of the early imagination can hardly be better ill.u.s.trated than by the deification of the soma juice. We are accustomed to hear in the _marchen_ or peasant myths of Scotch, Russian, Zulu and other races, of drops of blood or spittle which possess human faculties and intelligence, and which can reply, for example, to questions. The personification of the soma juice is an instance of the same exercise of fancy on a much grander scale. All the hymns in the ninth book of the _Rig- Veda_, and many others in other places, are addressed to the milk-like juice of this plant, which, when personified, holds a place almost as high as that of Indra in the Indo-Aryan Olympus. The sacred plant was brought to men from the sky or from a mountain by a hawk, or by Indra in guise of a hawk, just as fire was brought to other races by a benevolent bird, a raven or a cow. According to the _Aitareya Brahmana_ (ii. 59), the G.o.ds bought some from the Gandharvas in exchange for one of their own number, who was metamorphosed into a woman, "a big naked woman" of easy virtue. In the _Satapatha Brahmana_,** the G.o.ds, while still they lived on earth, desired to obtain soma, which was then in the sky.

* As to the true nature and home of the soma plant, see a discussion in the _Academy_, 1885.

** Muir, v. 263.

A Gandharva robbed the divine being who had flown up and seized the soma, and, as in the _Aitareya Brahmana_, the G.o.ds won the plant back by the aid of Vach, a woman-envoy to the amorous Gandharvas. The _Black Yajur Veda_ has some ridiculous legends about Soma (personified) and his thirty-three wives, their jealousies, and so forth. Soma, in the _Rig- Veda_, is not only the beverage that inspires Indra, but is also an anthropomorphic G.o.d who created and lighted up the sun,* and who drives about in a chariot. He is sometimes addressed as a kind of Atlas, who keeps heaven and earth asunder.** He is prayed to forgive the violations of his law.*** Soma, in short, as a personified power, wants little of the attributes of a supreme deity.****

Another, and to modern ideas much more poetical personified power, often mentioned in the Vedas, is Ushas, or the dawn. As among the Australians, the dawn is a woman, but a very different being from the immodest girl dressed in red kangaroo-skins of the Murri myth. She is an active maiden, who***** "advances, cheris.h.i.+ng all things; she hastens on, arousing footed creatures, and makes the birds fly aloft.... The flying birds no longer rest after thy dawning, O bringer of food (?). She has yoked her horses from the remote rising-place of the sun.... Resplendent on thy ma.s.sive car, hear our invocations." Ushas is "like a fair girl adorned by her mother.... She has been beheld like the bosom of a bright maiden...."

* Rig- Veda, vi. 44, 23.

** Ibid., 44, 24.

*** Ibid., viii. 48, 9.

**** Bergaigne, i. 216. To me it seems that the Ris.h.i.+s when hymning Soma simply gave him all the predicates of G.o.d that came into their heads. Cf. Bergaigne, i. 223.