The Antiquities of Orissa v1.c11.103

v1.c11.103

It may be reasonably argued that if Viṣṇu be the sun, why should he appear as distinct from Āditya, Mitra, and Pūṣan? If the different gods are the same, why are they not at once said to be so? Why are they described with different attributes under different names? The replies to these questions occur in the fact that such has been the nature of mythology in all countries. The Greek Pantheon, no less than the Hindu, was peopled by a small number of gods, increased manifold by a variety of names and attributes. Each set of attributes constituted a separate divinity, though essentially the individual intended was the same with another, or several others. According to the ancient Indian theory there were only three gods, Agni, Vāyu and Sûrya, and as often as they got separate designations and separate attributes, so often they became separate, multiplying to thirty-three at first, and to as many millions afterwards. Again, in course of time and by changes in the feeling or modes of thinking of the worshippers, some names got greater prominence than others, and the backward ones got gradually neglected, and ultimately forgotten. Pūṣan and Mitra in this way have now become quite obsolete, though it is undeniable that they were among the foremost of gods in early times, both among the Indo-Aryans and the Iranians, and then they were well-known to be forms of Sūrya. It is evident that Viṣṇu has had great advantage in this respect, and that from being at one time the name of one of the personages of the earliest, or Vedic, trinity of Agni, Vāyu and Sûrya, he became in the Brāhmaṇic period one of the later trinity of Brahmā, Viṣṇu, and Śiva, in which his attributeof protection, which at first he enjoyed in common with several others, was made his special distinctive characteristic, and subsequently in the *Itihāsa* epoch rose to the dignity of the supreme divinity, which he now claims, and has done for several centuries among a large number of votaries. In this we have only an instance of the peculiarity of mythology which has manifested itself times without number in connexion with the history of religion, and not a fact that need at all raise any doubt as to the true character of Viṣṇu in Vedic times. It is in the nature of mythological religion to develope or rehabilitate old ideas, to change names, give prominence to particular attributes, and cast others into oblivion, and this is exactly what we find in the new triad. The three were not new gods, but the old ones under new names: Brahmā is no other than Agni, with the special attribute of creation; Viṣṇu is Sūrya, with the role of protection; and Śiva is Vāyu, with that of destruction. Vāyu, first changed to Indra, then to Rudra and lastly to Śiva,—first, the god of wind, then that of the firmament or master of storms and clouds, then that of all that is terrible, and lastly that of universal destruction.