The Antiquities of Orissa v1.c11.73.2

v1.c11.73.2

The Tantras are much more recent than the Vedas and the Brāhmaṇas, and this fact at once shows that the new role of Rudra was an after-thought, adopted at a time when his original charater had lost its vividness by age, and had become susceptible of modification, or amplification, without causing any shock to the feelings of the people. When this was first attempted, it is impossible now to determine. The influence of the phallic idea on the religious systems of the Semitic and the Turanian races was predominant from a very early age. In the cults of the ancient Egyptians, Assyrians, and Babylonians, it was all-pervading, and it seems to have passed from some one of them to Europe, and found a footing among the early Aryan races of that continent. The myth of Rudra got currency among them some little time after, and its trace still exists in the names of various places, such as Rhoden, Rhodenacher, Rodenburg, Rottenfel, Rhode, Rolte, and Rathburg, in Germany, Rutland and Ruthwel, and Ruthin, in England; Rot, Rotholet, and Rotnoe, in Norway. The Colossus of Rhodes was probably no other than a gigantic figure of that Rudra.²⁹ As in India, so in Scandinavia, Rudra is the chief of storms; but here he drives a swift-moving car through mid-air, while in Europe he rides “a furious horse flying across the sky, with a grand cortege behind him”.