The Arctic Home in the Vedas c12.9

c12.9

The Storm theory was originally put forward by the Indian Nairuktas as a supplement to the Dawn theory, in order to account for myths to which the latter was obviously inapplicable. The chief legend explained on this theory is that of Indra and Vṛitra, and the explanation has been accepted almost without reserve by all Western scholars. The word Indra is said to be derived from the same root which yielded indu, that is, the rain drop; and Vṛitra is one, who covers or encompasses (vṛi, to cover) the waters of the rain-cloud. The two names being thus explained, everything else was made to harmonise with the Storm theory by distorting the phrases, if the same could not be naturally interpreted in conformity therewith. Thus when Indra strikes parvata (i. e., a mountain) and delivers the rivers therefrom, the Nairuktas understood parvata to be a storm-cloud and the rivers to be the streams of rain. Indra's wielding the thunderbolt has been similarly interpreted to mean that he was the god of the thunderstorm, and thunderstorm implied rain as a matter of course. If the Maruts helped Indra in the battle, it was easily explained by the Storm theory, because a thunderstorm or rain was always accompanied by stormy weather. But a more difficult point in the legend, which required explanation, was the hemming in or the captivating of the waters by Vritra or Ahi. In the case of waters in the clouds it was easy to imagine that they were kept captive in the cloud by the demon of drought. But the Rig-Veda often speaks of sindhus or streams being released by the slaughter of Vritra; and if the streams or rivers really represented, as conceived by the advocates of this theory, the rivers of the Panjaub, it was rather difficult to understand how they could be described as being hemmed in or kept captive by Vritra. But the ingenuity of Vedic scholars was quite equal to the occasion, and it was suggested that, as the rivers in India often entirely dried up in summer, the god of the rainy season, who called them back to life, could be rightly described as releasing them from the grasp of Vritra. The Indian Nairuktas do not appear to have extended the theory any further. But in the hands of German mythologians the Storm theory became almost a rival to the Dawn theory; and stories, like that of Saranyu, have been explained by them as referring to the movements of dark storm-clouds hovering in the sky. “Clouds, storms, rains, lightning and thunder,” observes Prof. Kuhn, “were the spectacles that above all others impressed the imagination of the early Aryans and busied it most in finding terrestrial objects to compare with their ever-varying aspects. The beholders were at home on the earth, and the things on the earth were comparitively familiar to them; even the coming and going of the celestial luminaries might often be regarded by them with more composure, because of their regularity; but they could never surcease to feel the liveliest interest in those wonderful meteoric changes, so lawless and mysterious in their visitations, which wrought such immediate and palpable effects for good or ill upon the lives and fortunes of the beholders.”¹ For this reason Prof. Kuhn thinks that these meteorological phenomena are the principal ground-work of all Indo-European mythologies and superstitions; and in accordance with this creed Prof. Roth explains Saranyu as the dark storm-cloud soaring in the space in the beginning of all things and takes Vivasvat as representing the light of heavens.