Page:Vedic Mythology.djvu/24

12 III. RELIGION, WELTL. WISSENSCH. U. KUNST. I A. VEDIC MYTHOLOGY. after drought, has three principle applications in the RV. The first is tem- poral, as involving the idea of priority. One phenomenon preceding another is spoken of as its parent. Thus the dawns generate (jan) the sun and the morning sacrifice (7, 78³), while Dawn herself is born of Night (1, 1239). As the point of view is changed, contradictions with regard to such relation- ships naturally arise (cp. p. 48). When the rising of the dawn is ascribed to the sacrifice of the Fathers, the explanation is to be found in this notion of priority. Secondly, a local application frequently occurs. The space in which a thing is contained or produced is its father or mother. Illustrations of this are furnished by purely figurative statements. Thus the quiver is called the father of the arrows (6, 755) or the bright steeds of the sun are termed the daughters of his car (1, 50%). This idea of local parentage is especially connected with heaven and earth. Paternity is the characteristic feature in the personification of Dyaus (see S 11), and Dawn is constantly called the 'daughter of Heaven'. Similarly the Earth, who produces vegetation on her broad bosom (5, 84³), is a mother (1, 894 &c.). Heaven and earth are, however, more often found coupled as universal parents, a conception obvious enough from the fact that heaven fertilizes the earth by the-descent of moisture and light, and further developed by the observation that both supply nourishment to living beings, the one in the form of rain, the other in that of herbage. They are characteristically the parents of the gods ($ 44). As the latter are often said to have created heaven and earth, we thus arrive at the paradox of the Vedic poets that the children produced their own parents; Indra, for instance, being described as having begotten his father and mother from his own body (1, 1592; 10, 543). Again, the raincloud cow is the mother of the lightning calf, or the heavenly waters, as carrying the embryo of the aerial fire, are its mothers, for one of the forms of the fire-god is 'the son of waters' (S 24). 'Son of the steep' also appears to be a name of lightning in the AV. (1, 132 3; cp. 263 and RV. 10, 1422). Thirdly, the notion of parentage arises from a generic point of view: he who is the chief, the most prominent member of a group, becomes their parent. Thus Vayu, Wind, is father of the Storm-gods (1, 1344), Rudra, father of the Maruts or Rudras, Soma, father of plants, while Sarasvati is mother of rivers. I There are also two minor applications of the idea of paternity in the RV. As in the Semitic languages, an abstract quality is quite frequently em- ployed in a figurative sense (which is sometimes mythologically developed) to represent the parent of sons who possess or bestow that quality in an eminent degree. Thus the gods in general are sons (sūnavaḥ or putrāḥ) of immortality as well as sons of skill, dakṣa (8, 255; cp. S 19). Agni is the 'son of strength' or of 'force' ($ 35). Pūşan is the 'child of setting free 2. Indra is the 'son of truth' (8, 584), the 'child of cow-getting' (4, 3222), and the 'son of might' (savasaḥ, 4, 241; 8, 8114, his mother twice being called savasi, 8, 455. 662). Mitra-Varuna are the 'children of great might'. Another application is much less common. As a father transmits his qualities to his son, his name is also occasionally transferred, something like a modern sur- name. Thus visvarupa, an epithet of Tvaştr, becomes the proper name of his son. Analogously the name of Vivasvat is applied to his son Manu in the sense of the patronymic Vaivasvata (Vāl. 4'). A mythological account of the origin of the universe, involving neither manufacture nor generation, is given in one of the latest hymns of the RV., the well-known puruşa-sukta (10, 90). Though several details in this myth point to the most recent period of the RV., the main idea is very primitive,