The Arctic Home in the Vedas c12.38

Language: English

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It is impossible to grasp the real meaning of the Vṛitra legend, without first realising the true nature and importance of the movements of the aerial waters as conceived by the ancestors of the Indo-Iranian people. As observed by Darmesteter, celestial waters and light were believed to flow from the same spring or source, and they both ran a parallel course. It was these aerial waters that made the heavenly bodies move in the sky, just as a boat or any other object is carried down by the current of a stream or river. If the waters, therefore, ceased to flow, the consequences were serious; for the sun, the moon, the stars, would then all cease to rise, and the world would be plunged in darkness. We can now fully understand the magnitude of the mischief worked by Vṛitra by stopping the flow of these waters. In his hidden home, at the bottom of rajas, that is, in the lower hemisphere, he encompassed the waters in such a way as to stop their flow upwards through the mountain, and Indra’s victory over Vṛitra meant that he released these waters from the clutches of Vṛitra and made them flow up again. When the waters were thus released, they naturally brought with them, the dawn, the sun and the cows, i.e., either days or the rays of the morning; and the victory was thus naturally described as four-fold in character. Now we can also understand the part played by parvatas, or mountains, in the legend. It was the mountain Albûrz, or Hara Berezaiti;

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and as Vṛitra, by stretching his body across, closed all the apertures in this mountainous range, through which the sun and the waters came up, Indra had to uncover or open these passages by killing Vṛitra. Thus the Bundahish (V, 5) mentions 180 apertures in the east and 180 in the west through Albûrz; and the sun is said to come and go through them every day, and all the movements of the moon, the constellations and the planets are also said to be closely connected with these apertures. The same idea is also expressed in the later Sanskrit literature when the sun is said to rise above the mountain in the east and set below the mountain in the west. The mountain on which Indra is said to have found Shambara (II, 12, 11), and the rock of Vala wherein the cows were said to have been imprisoned by the demon (IV, 3, 11; I, 71, 2) and which was burst open by Angirases, also represent the same mountainous range, which separated the upper from the lower celestial hemisphere, or the bright from the dark ocean. This explanation of the Vritra legend may sound strange to many scholars, but it should be borne in mind that the co-relation between the flow of water and the rising of the dawn and the sun, here described, is not speculative. If the Vedic works do not express it in unambiguous terms, the deficiency is fully made up by the Parsi scriptures.

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Thus in Khorshed Yasht (VI, 2 and 3,) we are told that "When the sun rises up, then the earth becomes clean, the running waters become clean. ... ... ... Should the sun not rise up, then the Daevas would destroy all the things that are in the seven Karshvares." The passages in the Farvardîn Yasht are still more explicit. This Yasht is devoted to the praise of the Fravashis, which correspond to the Pitris of the Rig-Veda. These ancient fathers are often described, even in the Rig-Veda, as taking part, along with the gods, in the production of the cosmical phenomena. Thus the Pitris are said to have adorned the sky with stars, and placed darkness in the night and light in the day (X, 68, 11), or to have found the hidden light and generated the dawn (VII, 76, 4; X, 107, 1). The Fravashis in the Parsi scriptures are said to have achieved the same or similar exploits. They are described (Yt. XIII, 53 and 54) as having "shown the beautiful paths to the waters, which had stood before for a long time in the same place, without flowing"; and the waters are then said to have commenced to flow "along the path made by Mazda, along the way made by the gods, the watery way appointed to them." Immediately after (Yt.

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XIII, 57), the Fravashis are said to have similarly showed " the paths to the stars, the moon, the sun and the endless lights, that had stood before, for a long time, in the same place, without moving forward, through the oppression of the Daevas and the assaults of the Daevas." Here we have the co-relation between the flowing of waters and the moving forward of the sun distinctly enunciated. It was the Fravashis, who caused to move onwards the waters and the sun, both of which " had stood still for a long time in the same place." Prof. Darmesteter adds a note saying that it was 'in winter' that this cessation of motion occurred, (Cf. Vend. V, 10-12; VIII, 4-10, cited and discussed infra). The Fravashis are further described (Yt. XIII, 78) as "destroying the malice of the fiend Angra Mainyu (the Avestic representative of Vritra), so that the waters did not stop flowing, nor did the plants stop growing." In Yasna LXV (Sp. LXIV), 6, the Fravashis, who had "borne the waters up stream from the nearest ones," are invoked to come to the worshipper; and a little further on the waters are asked to "rest still within their places while the Zaota (Sans. Hotâ) shall offer," evidently meaning that it is the sacrifice offered by the invoking priest that eventually secures the release or the flow of waters. There are other references to the flowing of waters (Yt. X, 61) in the Parsi scriptures, but those cited above are sufficient to prove our point.

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The main difficulty in the rational explanation of the Vritra legend was to connect the flow of waters with the rising of the dawn, and the passages from the Farvardîn Yasht quoted above furnish us with a clue by which this connection can be satisfactorily established.