Zoological Mythology Volume I Part 4

[118] Na?ami? na pari v?i?akti ?amim; _?igv._ i. 124, 6.

[119] Vyur?vati divo antan abodhy apa svasara? sanutar yuyoti praminati ma.n.u.shya yugani yosha ?arasya cakshasa vi bhati; _?igv._ i.

92, 11.

[120] Svasa svasre ?yayasyai yonim araik; _?igv._ i. 124, 8.

[121] Narir apasa?; _?igv._ i. 92, 3.

[122] cucaya? pavakah; _?igv._ iv. 51, 2.

[123] Yosha ?arasya cakshasa vibhati; _?igv._ quoted above, i. 92, 11.

[124] Yatamana racmibhi? suryasya; _?igv._ i. 123, 12.--Vyuchanti racmibhi? suryasya; _?igv._ i. 124, 8.

[125] Ritasya yosha na minati dhama; _?igv._ i. 123, 9.

[126] Susa?kaca mat?im?ish?eva yoshavis tanva? kri?ushe d?ice kam; _?igv._ i. 123, 11.

[127] Esha cubhra na tanvo vidanordhveva snati d?icaye no asthat; _?igv._ v. 80, 5.

[128] Adhi peca?si vapate n?itur ivapor?ute vaksha usreva bar?aham; _?igv._ i. 92, 4.

[129] Bhadra vastra tanvate; _?igv._ i. 134, 4.

[130] Smayate vibhati supratika; _?igv._ i. 92, 6.

[131] Prakramisham ushasam agriyeva; _?igv._ x. 95, 2.

SECTION II.

THE WORs.h.i.+P OF THE BULL AND OF THE COW IN INDIA, AND THE BRaHMANIC LEGENDS RELATING TO IT.

SUMMARY.

The princes called bulls.--The bull the symbol of the G.o.d civas.--The cow was not to be killed.--Exchange of the bull and the cow for other animals; the bull and the cow, considered as the greatest reward desired by the legislating priests of India.--The cow's hide in nuptial usages a symbol of abundance; its elasticity and power of extension; the cow and its hide during the pregnancy of women an augury of happy birth, and in funeral ceremonies an augury of resurrection.--Cows sent to pasture with auguries.--Cows seen by night in a dream are a sinister omen; meaning of this Hindoo superst.i.tion.--The black cow which produces white milk in the Vedic hymns.--The reins of the cow or black goat sacrificed in funerals given as a viatic.u.m or provision to the dead man, that they may contribute to his resurrection.--The variegated cow comes again in a brahma?am, and is interpreted as a cloud.--The coming out of the cow-dawns feasted.--The cornucopia.--The milk of the cows is the serpent's poison.--The salutary herb.--The enchanted gem, the ring of recognition.--The moon, as a female, a good fairy who works for the aurora, and who entertains and guides the hero.--The moon, as a male, a white bull.--The city of the moon.--Indras consoles and nourishes the unhappy Sita.--Ramas a.s.similated to Indras.--The coadjutors of Ramas are those of Indras.--The bull Ramas.--The names of the monsters and the names of the heroes in the Ramaya?am.--Ramas, the Hindoo Xerxes, chastises the sea.--The celestial ocean; the cloud-mountains carried by the heroes; the bridge across the sea made of these mountains; while the bridge is being made, it rains.--The battle of Ramas is a winter and a nocturnal one, in a cloudy sky.--The monster barrel again; the monster trunk with a cavity; Kabandhas.--The dying monster thanks the hero, who delivers him from an ancient malediction, and becomes again a handsome luminous youth.--The dawn Sita sacrificed in the fire.--Sita daughter of the sun.--The Buddhist legend of Ramas and Sita.--Sita predestined as the reward of valour.--An indiscretion of the husband Ramas causes him to lose his wife Sita.--The story of Urvaci again, the first of the auroras; the wife flees because her husband has revealed her secret, because her husband has looked at another woman, because he has let himself be seen naked; the fugitive wife hides herself in a plant.--The wife stays with her husband as long as he says nothing displeasing to her.--The wife kills her sons; the husband complains and the wife flees.--The contrary.--The story of cuna?cepas again.--The G.o.d Varu?as, who binds; the son sacrificed to the monster against his will by his father.--The hero-hunter.--The middle son sold, the son of the cow.--The cow herself, Aditi, or cabala, or Kamadhuk, wife of Vasish?as, sacrificed instead of the son of Vicvamitras.--Indras delivers the bound hero, _i.e._, he delivers himself. The aurora, or the daughter of the black one, liberates cuna?cepas, bound by the black one, that is, she delivers the sun her husband.--The fetters of Varu?as and of A?igartas are equivalent to the bridle of the horse and to the collar of the dog sold to the demon in European fairy tales.--The golden palace of Varu?as on the western mountain.--Monstrous fathers.--Identification of Hariccandras, A?igartas, and Vicvamitras.--The contention of Vicvamitras and Vasish?as for the possession of the cow cabala.--Demoniacal character of Vicvamitras.--The sister of the monster-lover or seducer of the hero.--The cloud drum.--The cloudy monster Dundubhis, in the form of a buffalo with sharpened horns, destroyed by the son of Indras.--The buffalo a monster, the bull a hero.--K?ish?as the monster becomes a G.o.d.--The G.o.d Indras fallen for having killed a brahman monster.--The three heads of the monster cut off at a blow.--The three brothers in the palace of Lanka; the eldest brother has the royal dignity; the second, the strong one, sleeps, and only wakens to eat and prove his strength; the third is good and is victorious.--The three brothers Pa?davas, sons of Yamas, Vayus and Indras in the Mahabharatam; the first is wise, the second is strong, the third is handsome and victorious; he is the best.--Again the three working brothers entertained by a king.--The three disciples of Dhaumyas.--The blind one who falls into the well.--The voyage of Utankas to h.e.l.l.--He meets a bull.--The excrement of the bull, ambrosia.--The stone uplifted with the help of the lever, of the thunderbolt of Indras.--The earrings of the queen carried off; their mythical meaning.--Indras and K?ish?as also search for the earrings.--The three Buddhist brothers.--The eldest brother frees the younger ones by his knowledge in questions and riddles.--The hero and the monster ill or vulnerable in their feet.--The two rival sisters.--The good sister thrown into the well by the wicked one.--The prince comes to deliver her.--The wicked sister takes the place of the good one.--The three brothers again.--The sons make their father and mother recognise each other.--The third brother, Purus, the only good one, a.s.sists his aged father Yayatis, by taking his old age upon himself.--The old blind man, Dirghatamas, thrown into the water by his sons.--Yayatis and Dirghatamas, Hindoo King Lears.--The queen Sudeshna makes her maid or foster-sister take her place; a Hindoo form of Queen Berta.--The blind and the crooked or lame, or hunchbacked, again with the three-breasted princess.--They cure each other.--The bride disputed by the brothers.--The aurora and the sun flee from each other.--The beautiful girl, the daughter of the sun, flees after having seen the prince upon the mountain.--The prince cannot overtake her; the third time, at last, the prince marries the daughter of the sun.--The marvellous cow of Vasish?has.--The hero Vasish?has wishes to kill himself, but cannot; he is immortal; he throws himself down from the mountain and does not hurt himself; he goes through fire and is not burnt; he throws himself into the water and does not drown; mythical signification of these prodigies.--The wind runs after women.--Conclusion of the study of the myth and of the legends which refer to the bull and the cow of India.

Just as the importance of the cattle to primitive and pastoral Aryan life explains the propensity of the Aryan mind to conceive of the mobile phenomena of the heavens, at first considered living beings, as bulls and cows, so the consecration of these animals, a.s.sociated and identified with the celestial phenomena and the G.o.ds, naturally gave rise to the superst.i.tious wors.h.i.+p of the bull and the cow, common to all the Aryan nations, but particularly, through the intervention of the brahmanic priests, to the Hindoos.

It is a remarkable fact that the words _v?ishas_, _v?ishabhas_, and _?ishabhas_, which mean the bull as the one who pours out, the _f?cundator_, is often used in Sanscrit to denote the best, the first, the prince; and hence the bull, that is to say, the best _f?cundator_, is in India the most sacred symbol of royalty. For this reason the phallic and destroying G.o.d, the royal _civas_, who inhabits _Gokar?as_ (a word which properly means cow's ear), has both for his steed and his emblem a brahmanic bull, _i.e._, a bull with a hunch on its back; the _nandin_, or joyful attribute, being given to civas himself, inasmuch as, being the _Deus phallicus_, he is the G.o.d of joyfulness and beat.i.tude.[132]

Still more honour is paid to the cow (like the Vedic dawn _anavadya_, innocent or inculpable[133]), which therefore it was a crime to kill.[134] An interesting chapter of the _aitareya-brahma?am_,[135] on the sacrifice of animals, shows us how, next to man, the horse was the supreme sacrifice offered to the G.o.ds; how the cow afterwards took the place of the horse; the sheep, of the cow; the goat, of the sheep; and, at last, vegetable products were subst.i.tuted for animals;--a subst.i.tution or cheating of the G.o.ds in the sacrifice, which, perhaps, serves to explain even more the fraud of which, in popular stories, the simpleton is always the victim; the simpleton here being the G.o.d himself, and the cheater man, who changes, under a sacred pretext, the n.o.blest and most valued animals for common and less valuable ones, and finally for vegetables apparently of no value whatever. In the Hindoo codes of law we have the same fraudulent subst.i.tution of animals under a legal pretext. "The killer of a cow," says the code attributed to _Ya?navalkyas_,[136] "must stay a month in penitence, drinking the _pancagavyam_ (_i.e._, the five good productions of the cow, which, according to Ma.n.u.s,[137] are milk, curds, b.u.t.ter, urine, and dung), sleeping in a stable and following the cows; and he must purify himself by the gift of another cow." Thus, according to _Ya?navalkya_,[138] the killer of a parrot is purified by giving a two-year-old calf; the killer of a crane by giving a calf three years old; the killer of an a.s.s, a goat, or a sheep, by the gift of a bull; the killer of an elephant by the gift of five black bulls (_nilav?ishap_). And one need not be astonished to find these contracts (which remind one of that between Jacob and Laban) in the Hindoo codes of law, when, in the Vedic hymns themselves, a poet offers to sell to whoever will buy it, an Indras of his, that is to say, a bull, for ten cows.[139] Another interesting verse of _Ya?navalkyas_[140] tells us they die pure who are killed by lightning or in battle for the sake of the cows or the brahmans. The cow was often the object heroes fought for in heaven; the Brahman wished to be the object heroes should fight for upon earth.

We learn from the domestic ceremonies referred to by _G?ihyasutrani_ with how much respect the bull and the cow were treated as the symbols of abundance in a family. In _acvalayanas_,[141] we find the bull's hide stretched out near the nuptial hearth, the wife seated upon it, and the husband, touching his wife, saying, "May the lord of all creatures allow us to have children;"--words taken from the Vedic nuptial hymn.[142] We have seen above how the ?ibhavas, from the hide of a dead cow, formed a new and beautiful one, or, in other words, how, from the dusk of evening, by stretching it in the night, they formed the dawn of morning. This cow's hide plays also an important _role_ in the popular faith; an extraordinary elasticity is attributed to it, a power of endless expansibility, and for this reason it is adopted as a symbol of fecundity, upon which the wife must place herself in order to become a mother of children. The cow's hide (_gocarman_), in the _Mahabharatam_,[143] is the garment of the G.o.d Vish?us; and the gocarman divided into thongs, and afterwards fastened to each other, served formerly in India to measure the circ.u.mference of a piece of ground;[144] hence the cow's hide suggested the idea of a species of infinity. Further on we shall find it put to extraordinary uses in western legend; we find it even in the hymns of the Vedic age used to cover the body of a dead man, the fire being invoked not to consume it, almost as if the cow's hide had the virtue of resuscitating the dead.[145]

The cow, being the symbol of fruitfulness, was also the companion of the wife during pregnancy. _acvalaya?as_[146] tells us how, in the third month, the husband was to give his wife to drink of the sour milk of a cow that has a calf like itself, and in it two beans and a grain of barley; the husband was then to ask his wife three times, "What drinkest thou?" and she was to answer three times: "The generation of males." In the fourth month, the wife, according to _acvalaya?as_, was to put herself again upon the bull's hide, near the fire of sacrifice, when they again invoked the G.o.d _Pra?apatis_, lord of all creatures, or of procreation; the moon, like a celestial bull and cow, was invited to be present at the generation of men;[147] and a bull, during the Vedic period, was the gift which sufficed for the priest. In the Vedic antiquity, neither bulls nor cows were allowed to go to pasture without some special augury, which, in the domestic ceremonials of _acvalaya?as_,[148] has been also handed down to us; the cows were to give milk and honey, for the strength and increase of whoever possessed them. Here we have again the cows not only as the beneficent, but as the strong ones, they who help the hero or the heroine who takes them to pasture.

But although beautiful cows, when seen by day, are a sign of good luck, seen in dreams they are of evil omen; for in that case they are of course the black cows, the shadows of night, or the gloomy waters of the nocturnal ocean. Already in the _?igvedas_, the dawn, or the luminous cow, comes to deliver the fore-mentioned solar hero, Tritas Aptyas, from the evil sleep which he sleeps amidst the cows[149] of night. _acvalaya?as_, in his turn, recommends us when we have an evil dream, to invoke the sun, to hasten the approach of the morning, or, better still, to recite the hymn of five verses to the dawn which we have already referred to, and which begins with the words, "And like an evil dream amidst the cows." Here the belief is not yet an entirely superst.i.tious one; and we understand what is meant by the cows who envelop us in the sleep of night, when we are told to invoke the sun and the dawn to come and deliver us from them.

A cow (probably a black one), often a black goat, was sometimes also sacrificed in the funeral ceremonies of the Hindoos, as if to augur that, just as the black cow, night, produces the milky humours of the aurora, or is fruitful, so will he who has pa.s.sed through the kingdom of darkness rise again in the world of light. We have already seen the black night as the mother of the white and luminous aurora; I quote below yet another Vedic sentence, in which a poet ingenuously wonders why the cows of Indras, the black ones as well as the light-coloured (the black clouds, as well as the white and red ones), should both yield white milk.[150] And even the gloomy nocturnal kingdom of Yamas, the G.o.d of the dead, has its cows of black appearance, which are nevertheless milk-yielding; and thus the black cow of the funeral sacrifices comes to forebode resurrection.

In the same way the viatic.u.m, or provision of food for his journey, given to the dead man is a symbol of his resurrection. The journey being considered as a short one, the provision of food which is to sustain the traveller to the kingdom of the dead is limited, and each dead hero carries it with him, generally not so much for himself, as to ensure a pa.s.sage into the kingdom of the dead. For this reason we read, even in the domestic ceremonials of _acvalaya?as_, that it is recommended to put into the hands of the dead man,[151] what is the greatest symbol of strength, the reins of the animal killed in the funeral sacrifice (or, in default of an animal victim, at least two cakes of rice or of flour), in order that the dead man may throw them down the throats of the two Cerberi, the two sons of the b.i.t.c.h _Sarama_, so that they may let the deceased enter scatheless into the death-kingdom, the mysterious kingdom of Yamas; and here we find the monster of the popular tales, into whose house the hero, having pa.s.sed through many dangers, enters, by the advice of a good fairy or of a good old man, giving something to appease the hunger of the two dogs who guard its gate.

They who return from the funeral must touch the stone of Priapus, a fire, the excrement of a cow,[152] a grain of barley, a grain of sesame and water,--all symbols of that fecundity which the contact with a corpse might have destroyed.

The Vedic hymns have shown us the princ.i.p.al mythical aspects and functions of the cow and the bull; we have also seen how the brahmanic codes confirmed, by the sanction of law, the wors.h.i.+p of these animals, and how jealously the domestic tradition of the Hindoos has guarded it. Let us now see from the _aitareya-brahma?am_, how the Brahmans themselves, those of the era immediately following that of the Vedas, interpreted the myth of the cow.

We have recognised in the Vedic heavens, as reflected in the hymns of the _?igvedas_, three cows--the cow-cloud, the cow-moon, and the cow-aurora. These three cows, and especially the first and the third, are also quite distinct from one another in the _aitareya-brahma?am_.

It tells us how the _gauh p?icnih_, the variegated cow, or spotted cow, of the _?igvedas_, must be celebrated to make the earth fruitful[153] (or that one must sing to the cloud that it may fertilise the pastures and fields with rain), and how one must sacrifice a bull to _Vicvakarman_ (or the one that does all), who is transformed into the G.o.d Indras when killing the demon V?itras,[154]

or the monster who keeps the rain in the cloud.

It shows us the full moon, _Raka_, joined to the aurora, as a source of abundance,[155] and the aurora with the cow.[156] It tells us explicitly that the characteristic form of the aurora is the red cow, because she moves with the red cows.[157] The G.o.ds, after having discovered the cows in the cavern, open the cavern with the third libation of the morning;[158] when the cows come out, the G.o.ds, the _adityas_, also come out; hence the coming forth of the G.o.ds (_adityanam ayanam_) is equivalent to the coming forth of the cows (_gavam ayanam_). The cows come out when they have their horns, and adorn themselves.[159]

The aurora is a cow; this cow has horns; her horns are radiant and golden. When the cow aurora comes forth, all that falls from her horns brings good luck; hence in the _Mahabharatam_,[160] the benefits received from a holy hermit, called Matangas, are compared to those of a _gavam ayanam_, _i.e._, a coming out of cows. To understand this simile, besides a reference to the Vedic texts, it is necessary to compare it with the modern usages of India, in which, in celebration of the new solar year, or the birth of the pastoral G.o.d K?ish?as (the G.o.d who is black during the night, but who becomes luminous in the morning among the cows of the dawning, or among the female cowherds), it is customary, towards the end of December, to give cows to the Brahmans, exchange presents of cows and calves, besprinkle one another with milk, to adorn a beautiful milch cow, crown her with flowers, gild her horns, or paint them various colours, to deck her to overloading with flowers, fruit, and little cakes, and then hunt her from the village to the sound of drums and trumpets, in order that, full of terror, she may flee away with distraction and impetuosity.

The cow loses her ornaments in her flight, and these, being estimated as propitious treasures, are eagerly picked up by the faithful, and preserved as sacred relics.[161]

In the _aitareya-brahma?am_,[162] the sun is born of the cows (_go?a_), is the son of the cow aurora; as the sun's mother she naturally nourishes him with her milk; hence the same _aitareya_[163]

tells us that the G.o.ds Mitras and Varu?as, by means of the curdled milk, took from the drink of the G.o.ds the inebriating poison which the long-tongued witch (_Dirgha?ihvi_) had poured into it. This curdled milk is the same milky sea, with health-giving herbs scattered in it, and which the G.o.ds agitate to form ambrosia, in the _Ramaya?am_, the _Mahabharatam_, and the Puranic legends; a sea and herbs which we find already spoken of together in a Vedic hymn.[164] But in the sky, where the ambrosial milk and the health-giving herbs are produced, there are G.o.ds and demons; and the milk, which is at one time the rain, at another ambrosia, is now in the cloud, now in the moon (called also _Oshadhipatis_, or lord of herbs), now round the dawn. Hanumant, who, in the _Ramaya?am_, goes in quest of the health-giving gra.s.s to restore their souls to the half-dead heroes, looks for it now between the mountain bull (_?ishabhas_) and the heavenly mountain _Kailasas_, now between the Mount Lunus (_candras_) and the mountain cup (_Dro?as_); and the mountain which possesses the herb for which Hanumant is searching is itself called herb (_oshadhis_), or the one that causes to rejoice with perfumes (_Gandhamadanas_[165]), which two words are used synonymously. Here the milky, ambrosial, and healthful humour is supposed to be produced, not by a cow, but by an herb. And the G.o.ds and demons contend in heaven for the possession of this herb, as well as for the ambrosia; the only difference being that the G.o.ds enjoy both one and the other without corrupting them, whilst the demons poison them as they drink them; that is to say, they spread darkness over the light, they move about in the darkness, in the gloomy waters, in the black humour which comes out of the herb itself, which, in contact with them, becomes poisonous, so that they in turn suck the poison. On the other hand, the _Gandharvas_,[166] an amphibious race, in whom at one time the nature of the G.o.ds predominates, at another that of the demons, and who consequently take now the side of the G.o.ds, now that of the demons, are simply guards who, as against theft, keep watch and ward over the perfumes and healthful herbs, which are their own property, and the healthful or ambrosial waters, the ambrosia which belongs to their wives, the nymphs; they are, in a word, the earliest representatives of the enjoying and jealous proprietor. We have already heard, in the _?igvedas_, the demoniacal monsters call on each other to suck the poison of the celestial cows; and we have seen that the _aitareya-brahma?am_ accuses a witch of being the poisoner of the divine ambrosia; we have, moreover, noticed that a Vedic hymn already a.s.sociates together the ambrosial milk and the healthful herb, and that, in the brahmanic cosmogony, the milk and the herb which produces it are manifested together, which herb or gra.s.s is beneficent or the reverse according as the G.o.ds or the demons enjoy it; from all which it will be easy to understand this interesting Hindoo proverb, "The gra.s.s gives the milk to the cows, and the milk gives the poison to the serpents."[167] It is indeed the milk of the cow of the dawn and of the cow of the moon which destroys the serpents of darkness, the demoniacal shadows of night.

But the idea of the healthful herb is incorporated in another image, very familiar to the popular Indo-European legends, and which is contained even in the Vedic hymns. The cow produces the sun and the moon; the circular shape, the disc of sun and moon, suggests variously the idea of a ring, a gem, and a pearl; and the sun, _Savitar_, he who gives the juice, and the generator, is introduced in a Vedic hymn, as the one who has immortal juice, who gives the pearl.[168] The humours of the cow have pa.s.sed to the herb, and from the herb to the pearl; and the naturalness of this figure recommends itself to our modern conception, for when we would describe a diamond or other gem as of the purest quality, we say it is a diamond or gem of the first water. Even the pearl-moon and the pearl-sun, from their ambrosial humours, have a fine water. In the _Ramaya?am_,[169] at the moment of production of ambrosia from the stirring up of the milky sea, we see, near the healthful herb, the gem _Kaustubhas_, the same which we afterwards find on the breast of the sun-G.o.d Vish?us, and which is sometimes his navel; whence Vish?us, in the _Mahabharatam_,[170] is saluted by the name of _ratnanabhas_--that is to say, he who has a pearl for his navel; as the sun is in like manner saluted by the name of _Ma??c?ingas_--_i.e._, who has horns of pearls.[171] In the _Ramaya?am_,[172] the bright-s.h.i.+ning gra.s.s and the solar disc appear together on the summit of the mountain Gandhamadanas; no sooner does he smell its odour than the solar hero _Lakshma?as_, delivered from the iron that oppressed him, lifts himself up from the ground; _i.e._, scarcely has the sun formed his disc, and begun to s.h.i.+ne like a celestial gem, than the sun-hero, whom the monsters had vanquished during the night, rises in victory. And it is on the summit of the mountain that, with a mountain metal of a colour similar to that of the young sun,[173] the sun _Ramas_ imprints a dazzling mark on the forehead of the dawn Sita, as if to be able to recognise her--that is to say, he places himself upon the forehead of the aurora or dawn. When the sun Ramas is separated from the dawn Sita, he sends her in recognition, as a symbol of his disc, his own ring, which appears again in the famous ring given by King _Dushmantas_ to the beautiful _cakuntala_, the daughter of the nymph, and by means of which alone the lost bride can be recognised by the young and forgetful king; and Sita sends back to Ramas, by the hands of Hanumant, as a sign of recognition, the dazzling ornament which Ramas had one day placed upon her forehead in an idyllic scene among the mountains known to them alone. This ring of recognition, this magic pearl, often turns up in the Hindoo legends. It is enough for me to indicate here the two most famous examples.

The aurora who possesses the pearl becomes she who is rich in pearls, and herself a source of pearls; but the pearl, as we have already seen, is not only the sun, it is also the moon. The moon is the friend of the aurora; she comforts her in the evening under her persecutions; she loads her with presents during the night, accompanies and guides her, and helps her to find her husband.

In the _Ramaya?am_, I frequently find the moon as a beneficent fairy, who succours the dawn Sita; for the moon, as _raganikaras_ (she who gives light to the night), a.s.sumes a benignant aspect. We have already said that the moon is generally a male in India; but as full moon and new moon it a.s.sumes, even in the Vedic texts, a feminine name. In a Vedic hymn, _Raka_, the full moon is exhorted to sew the work with a needle that cannot be broken.[174] Here we have the moon personified as a marvellous workwoman, a fairy with golden fingers, a good fairy; and in this character we find her again in the _Ramaya?am_, under the form of the old _Anasuya_, who anoints the darkened Sita (for Sita, like the Vedic girl, is dark and ugly during the night, or winter, when she is hidden) in the wood, with a divine unguent; gives her a garland, various ornaments, and two beauteous garments, which are always pure (as, _i.e._, they do not touch the earth, like the cows of the Vedic dawn, who do not cover themselves with dust), and similar in colour to the young sun;[175] in all which the fairy moon appears as working during the night for the aurora, preparing her luminous garments--the two garments, of which the one is for the evening and the other for the morning, one lunar and of silver, the other solar and of gold--in order that she may please her husband Ramas, or the sun Vish?us, who is glad when he sees her thus adorned. In the _Svayamprabha_, too, we meet with the moon as a good fairy, who, from the golden palace which she reserves for her friend Hema (the golden one), is during a month the guide, in the vast cavern, of Hanumant and his companions, who have lost their way in the search of the dawn Sita. To come out of this cavern, it is necessary to shut the eyes, in order not to see its entrance; all Hanumant's companions are come out, but Taras, who s.h.i.+nes like the moon,[176] would wish to return. The same moon can be recognised in the benignant fairies _Tri?ata_, _Surama_, and _Sarama_, who announce to Sita that her husband will soon arrive, and that she will soon see him. The first, while the arrival of Ramas is imminent, dreams that the monsters, dressed in yellow, are playing in a lake of cow's milk;[177] at the time when Surama announces to Sita the approach of Ramas, Sita s.h.i.+nes by her own beauty, like the opening dawn;[178] finally, Sarama (who seems to be the same as Surama), whom Sita calls her twin-sister (_sahodara_), penetrating underground, like the moon Proserpine, also announces to Sita her approaching deliverance at the hands of Ramas.[179] As to Tri?a?a, it is not difficult to recognise in her the moon, when we remember that Tr?ia?as is a name which is frequently given to the evening sun, or rising moon, _civas_, who is represented with the moon for a diadem, whence his other name of _candracu?as_ (having the moon for his diadem). Surama I believe to be, not a mythical, but only an orthographical variation, and more incorrect one, of Sarama, whose relation to the moon we shall see in detail when we come to the chapter which treats of the mythical dog.

Thus far we have a moon fairy; but we find the moon designated at other times in the _Ramaya?am_ by its common masculine name. The guardian of the forest of honey, _Dadhimukhas_, in which forest, with its honey, the heroes who accompany Sita enjoy themselves, is said to be generated by the G.o.d Lunus.[180] And the moon, who a.s.sists Hanumant in his search of Sita, is said to s.h.i.+ne like a white bull with a sharpened horn, with a full horn;[181] in which we come back to the moon as a horned animal, and to the cornucopia. Moreover, we find the same lunar horn again in the city of _c?ingaveram_, where first the solar hero Ramas, and afterwards his brother Bharatas, are hospitably received when the sun is darkened,[182] by _Guhas_, king of the black _Wishadas_, who also is of the colour of a black cloud;[183] and Ramas and Bharatas take their departure in the morning from Guhas, who is said to wander always in the forests.[184] Now, this Guhas, who, though always hidden, yet wishes to entertain the solar hero during the night with presents of the town of c?ingaveram, appears to me to be just another form of the solar hero himself, who enters and hides himself in the night, hospitably received in the lunar habitation, another form of the G.o.d Indras, whom we have seen in the _?igvedas_ united during the night to Indus or Somas--that is, to the moon--and who, in the _Ramaya?am_[185], when Sita is in the power of the monster, comes down during the night to console her, lulls her keepers to sleep, and nourishes her with the ambrosial milk (with Soma, the moon, the same moon which, in the _?igvedas_, the dawn, the girl beloved of Indras, and whom therefore he does good to, brings him as a present), encouraging her with the prospect of the near advent of Ramas, the deliverer.

But it remains to us to adduce clearer evidence to show that in the _Ramaya?am_ Ramas is the sun, and Sita the dawn, or aurora.

Without taking into account that Ramas is the most popular personification of Vish?us, and that Vish?us is often the solar hero (although he is not seldom identified with the moon), let us see how Ramas manifests himself, and what he does in the _Ramaya?am_ to vindicate especially his solar nature.

It is my opinion that the best way to prove this is to show how Ramas performs the very same miracles that Indras does. Ramas, like Indras, gives, while still young, extraordinary proofs of his strength; Ramas, like Indras, achieves his greatest enterprises while he is himself hidden; Ramas, like Indras, vanquishes the monster, reconquers Sita, and enjoys of right the company of his wife. Till Ramas goes into the forests, as Indras into the clouds and shadows, his great epopee does not begin. Indras has for a.s.sistants the winds (the Marutas); Ramas has for his greatest help Hanumant, the son of the wind (_Marutatmagah_);[186] Hanumant amuses himself with the monsters, as the wind with the archer-clouds of the thousand-eyed Indras;[187] and it is said that Ramas gets on Hanumant's back, as Indras does on the elephant _airavatas_. The elephant with a proboscis is not unfrequently subst.i.tuted, in the brahmanic tradition, for the horned bull of the Vedas.[188] But the bull Indras is reproduced in the bull Ramas, and the monkeys who a.s.sist Ramas have kept at least the tail of the Vedic cows, the helpers of Indras, whence their generic name of _golangulas_ (who have cows' tails).[189] The bow with which Ramas shoots the monsters is made of a horn, whence his name of _carngadhanvant_ (he who shoots with the horn);[190] Ramas receives the shower of hostile darts, as a bull upon its horns the abundant rains of autumn.[191] Sita herself calls both her Ramas and his brother Lakshma?as by the name of _si?harshabhau_,[192] or the lion and the bull, which are conjoined so frequently in the mythology, on account of equal strength; hence the terror of the lion when he hears the bull bellow in the first book of the _Pancatantram_, and in all the numerous Eastern and Western variations of that book. Indras has his conflicts in the cloudy, rainy, and gloomy sky; these are also the battle-fields of Ramas. The names of the monsters of the _Ramaya?am_, as, for instance, _Vidyu??ivas_ (he who lives upon thunderbolts), _Va?rodari_ (she who has thunderbolts in her stomach), _Indra?it_ (who vanquishes Indras with magical arts), _Meghanadas_ (thundering cloud),[193] and others, show us the nature of the battle. In the battle-field of Ramas, instead, the a.s.sisting hero is now a bull (_?ishabhas_), now an ox's eye (_gavakshas_), now _gavayas_ (_bos gav?us_), and beings of similar appellations, which remind us of the Vedic deities. Indras strikes with lightning the celestial ocean; Ramas, an Indian Xerxes, chastises the sea with burning arrows.[194]

Indras, in the _?igvedas_, crosses the sea and pa.s.ses ninety-nine rivers; Ramas crosses the ocean upon a bridge of mountains, in carrying which Hanumant, the son of the wind, shows himself peculiarly skilful; the winds carry the clouds, which we have seen, in the language of the Vedas, represented as mountains. And that clouds, and not real mountains, are here spoken of, we deduce from observing, as we read, that while the animal army of Ramas carries the bridge on to the ocean, or the winds carry the clouds into the sky, the sun cannot burn the weary monkey-workers, because that clouds arise and cover it, rain falls, and the wind expires.[195] The field of this epic battle is evidently the same as that of the mythical battle of Indras. And in the _Ramaya?am_ we find at every step the similarity of the combatants to the dark clouds, the bellowing clouds, the clouds carried by the wind.

The forest which Ramas goes through is compared to a group of clouds.[196] The name of wanderer by night (_ra?anicaras_), afterwards given frequently in the _Ramaya?am_, to the monster whom Ramas combats, implies, of course, that the battle is fought by night. The fact that, as we read, the witch _curpa?akha_ comes in winter to seduce Ramas whilst he is in the forest,[197] and the monster _k.u.mbhakar?as_ awakens after six months' sleep, like a rainy cloud which increases towards the end of summer (_tapante_),[198] shows us that the epic poem of Ramas embraces, besides the nightly battle of the sun over darkness, also the great annual battle of the sun in winter to recover and rejoin the spring. Anyhow, it is always a battle of the sun against the monster of darkness. Ramas, in the very beginning of the great poem, says to his brother Lakshma?as:--"See, O Lakshma?as, Maricas is come here with his followers, making a noise like thunder, and with him the wanderer by night Subahus; thou wilt see them to-day, like a ma.s.s of dark clouds, dispersed by me in a moment, like clouds by the wind."[199] Here we find almost the whole battle of Indras.

And similar battles in the clouds are found in several other episodes of the _Ramaya?am_. The dart of Ramas falls upon the monster _Kharas_ (the monster a.s.s), as upon a great tree falls the thunderbolt hurled by Indras.[200] Heroes and monsters combat with stones and rocks from the great mountain, and fall, overthrown on the earth, like mountains. The monster Rava?as carries off Sita with the magic of the wind and the tempest.[201] Heroes and monsters fight with trunks of trees from the great forest; moreover, the trunks themselves, having become monsters, join the fray, stretch out their strange arms, and devour the hero in their cavities. And here we come upon the interesting legend of _Kabandhas_, in which we find again the forests and trees combating, and the barrel of the Vedas carried by the divine bull. The _Danavas_ or demons also appear, in the _Mahabharatam_,[202] in the forms of sounding barrels. In the _Ramaya?am_, the highest of the demons (_danavottamah_) is called by the name of _Kabandhas_ (barrel and trunk), compared to a black thundering cloud, and represented as an enormous trunk, having one large yellowish eye, and an enormous devouring mouth in his chest.[203]

In Tuscany, we say of water that gushes copiously out of a reservoir, that it pours as from a barrel's mouth. The monster Kabandhas draws towards himself, with his long arms, the two brothers Ramas and Lakshma?as (compared several times in the _Ramaya?am_[204] to the two Acvinau, who resemble each other in everything). Ramas and Lakshma?as, _i.e._, the two Acvinau, the morning and evening, the spring and autumn suns, the two twilights, who, in a pa.s.sage of the _Ramaya?am_, are called the two ears of Ramas, cut off the two extremities, the two long arms, of the monster _Kabandhas_; upon which the trunk, able no longer to support itself, falls to the ground. The fallen monster then relates to the two brothers that he was once a beautiful demon; but that, by a malediction, Indras one day made his head and legs enter his body; his arms having been lacerated by the two brothers, the monster is disenchanted from this malediction, and having resumed his form of a splendid demon, he ascends to heaven in a luminous form. Here we have the all-radiant sun shut up in the cloud, he being the yellow eye, the burning mouth, of Kabandhas, and, in union with the cloud, forming a hideous monster; the hero comes to destroy his monstrous form, and the monster thanks him, for thus he becomes the glorious G.o.d, the splendid being, the handsome prince he was before. Ramas who delivers Kabandhas from his monstrous form by cutting off his two arms, is the sun Ramas coming forth from the gloomy forest, and uncovering the sky in the east and in the west. Ramas delivering Kabandhas is simply the sun delivering himself from the monster of gloom and cloud that envelops him. And, indeed, the greater part of the myths have their origin in the plurality of appellations given to the same phenomenon. Each appellation grows into a distinct personality, and the various personalities fight with each other. Hence the hero who delivers himself becomes the deliverer of the hero, viewed as a different person from the hero; the monstrous form which envelops the hero is often his own malediction; the hero who comes to kill this monstrous form is his benefactor.[205]

This theory of the monster who thanks the hero that kills him, agrees with what we find on several other occasions in the _Ramaya?am_, as in the case of the stag _Maricas_,[206] which, after being killed by Ramas, re-ascends to heaven in a luminous form; of the sea-monster, which Hanumant destroys, and restores to its primitive form, that of a celestial nymph; of the old cavari, who, after having seen Ramas, sacrifices herself in the fire, and re-ascends young and beautiful to heaven (the usual Vedic young girl, the dawn whom, ugly during the night, Indras, by taking off her ugly skin, restores to beauty in the morning); an episodical variation of what afterwards happens to Sita herself, who, having been ugly when in the power of the monster Rava?as, recovers her beauty by the sacrifice of fire, in order to prove her innocence to her husband Ramas, and s.h.i.+nes again a young girl, like the young sun, adorned with burning gold, and wearing a red dress;[207] and when Ramas comes near (like the young dawn, when she sees her husband), she resembles the first light (Prabha), the wife of the sun.[208] This Sita, daughter of ?anakas (the generator), whom the _Taittiriya Brahma?am_ calls Savitar[209] or the sun, seems to me to be no other than the dawn, the daughter of light, the daughter of Indras, the G.o.d of the Vedic texts. These, indeed, sometimes represent Surya, the daughter of the sun, as the lover of the moon (who is then masculine); but we find more frequently the loves of the dawn and the sun, of the beautiful heroine and the splendid solar hero, while the moon is generally the brother, or the pitying sister of the hero and the heroine, the beneficent old man, the foreseeing fairy, the good hostess, who aids them in their enterprises; although we also find the dawn as a sister of the sun and his succourer. In fact, the Buddhist tradition of the legend of Ramas, ill.u.s.trated by Weber,[210]

represents Sita to us as the sister of the two brothers Ramas and Lakshma?as, who go into banishment for twelve years to escape the persecutions of their cruel step-mother (of whom the _Kaikeyi_ of the _Ramaya?am_ offers a confused image), in the same way as the Vedic dawn is united to the twin Acvinau; and the same tradition makes Ramas, at the termination of his exile, end with marrying his own sister Sita, as the sun marries the dawn. And the fact of Sita being not born from the womb, but produced from the ground, a girl of heavenly beauty, destined to be the reward of valour,[211] not only does not exclude her relations.h.i.+p with the dawn, but confirms it; for we have seen the dawn rise from the mountain, as the daughter of light and the sun, whom the young sun wins for his bride, as a reward for his wonderful skill as an archer against the monsters of darkness; and we have seen that the dawn marries only her predestined husband, and her predestined husband is he who performs the greatest miracles, restores her lost gaiety, and most resembles her. We have just seen the old cavari and the ugly Sita, at the sight of the sun Ramas, deliver themselves in the fire from every mortal danger, and become beautiful and happy once more.

But the concord between the mythical husband and wife is not more steadfast than that of mortal couples. Ramas is very apt to be suspicious. Having returned to his kingdom of Ayodhya, he allows himself to brood upon what his subjects may say of him for having taken back his wife, after she had been in the hands of the monster (they were not present at the first fire-sacrifice of Sita); Ramas reveals his suspicions to Sita, and blames the evil-speaking of the citizens for originating them; she submits a second time to the trial by fire, but, offended by his continual suspicions, she flees from her husband, and on a car of light, drawn by serpents (_Pannagas_), goes down again underground (which appears to mean simply this--the dawn, or spring, marries the sun in the morning, or she stays all day, or all summer, in his kingdom, and in the evening, or in the autumn, goes down into the shades of night, or of winter).[212] It is an indiscretion of the husband which causes his wife to abandon him.

Thus, in the _?igvedas_, we have seen _Urvaci_, the first of the dawns, flee from the sun _Pururavas_. In _Somadevas_,[213] the king Pururavas loses his wife Urvaci, because he has let it be known in heaven that she was with him; in Kalidasas's drama of _Vikramorvaci_, the king Pururavas, having helped Indras in the fight, receives from him Urvaci to wife, with whom he engages to stay till a child is born to them; the king, shortly after having espoused Urvaci, looks at another nymph, Udakavati (the watery). Urvaci, offended, flees; she enters a wood to hide herself, and is transformed into a creeper. In the brahmanic tradition of the _Yagurvedas_, referred to at length by Professor Max Muller, in his "Oxford Essays," Pururavas loses sight of Urvaci, because he has let himself be seen by her without his regal dress, or even naked.

We find yet another similar legend in the _Mahabharatam_.[214] The wise and splendid canta.n.u.s goes to the chase on the banks of the Ganga, and there finds a beautiful nymph whom he becomes enamoured of.

The nymph responds to his suit, and consents to remain with him, on condition that he will never say anything displeasing to her, whatever she may do or meditate; and the enamoured king a.s.sents to the grave condition. They live together happily, for the king yields to the nymph in everything; but in the course of time, eight sons are born to them; the nymph has already thrown seven into the river, and the king, although inwardly full of grief, dares not say anything to her; but when she is about to throw the last one in, the king implores her not to do it, and challenges her to say who she is. The nymph then confesses to him that she is the Ganga itself personified, and that the eight sons born to their loves are human personifications of the eight divine Vasavas, who, by being thrown into the Ganga, are liberated from the curse of the human form: the only Vasus who is pleased to remain among men is Dyaus (the sky), in the form of the eunuch Bhishmas, whom canta.n.u.s would not allow to be thrown into the waters. The same curse falls upon the Vasavas for having ravished the cow of abundance from the penitent Apavas. We shall find a legendary subject a.n.a.logous to this one of canta.n.u.s in several of the popular tales of Europe, with this difference that, in European tradition, it is generally the husband who abandons his indiscreet partner. The Hindoo tradition, however, also offers us an example of the husband who abandons his wife, in the wise ?aratkarus, who marries the sister of the king of the serpents, on condition that she never does anything to displease him.[215] One day the wise man sleeps; evening comes on; he ought to be awakened in order to say his evening prayers; if he does not say them, he does not do his duty, and she would do wrong did she not warn him. If she awaken him, he will be enraged. What is to be done? She takes the latter course. The wise man awakes, becomes enraged, and abandons her, after she had given him a son.[216]