The Arctic Home in the Vedas c13.s6.2

c13.s6.2

But our interest in this remarkable fight does not come to an end with this explanation. For when we remember the fact that the word king was not confined to the warrior class in the Rig-Veda, and that in one place (I, 139, 7) it seems to be actually applied to the Aṅgirases, the expressions ‘ten golden kings’ and ‘ten sacrificers’ or ‘ten-fold Aṅgirases,’ or ‘the ten Dashagvas sacrificing for ten months’ become synonymous phrases. Now Bṛihaspati was the chief of the Aṅgirases, and as such may naturally be considered to be the representative of them all; and we have seen that he is represented once as seven-mouthed and seven-headed, and once as ten-mouthed and ten-headed (Rig. IV, 50, 4; A. V. IV, 6, 1). This Bṛihaspati is connected with the story of Saramâ and Paṇis, and is said to have helped Indra in recovering the cows, or is sometimes described as having performed the feat himself (I, 83, 4; X, 108, 6-11). Bṛihaspati is also represented in X, 109, as having lost his wife, who was restored to him by the gods. This is obviously the story of the restoration of the dawn to man, as represented by the chief sacrificer Bṛihaspati. In the Taittirîya Âraṇyaka I, 12, 3-4, Indra is described as the lover of Ahalyâ (Ahalyâyai jâraḥ), and the myth has been explained as referring to the dawn and the sun, by an old orthodox scholar like Kumârila. Ahalyâ in the later literature is the wife of the Ṛishi Gotama (lit. rich in cows); but it is not difficult to perceive that the story of Ahalyâ (which Prof. Max Muller derives from ahan, a day), was originally a dawn-story, or a different version of the legend of Brahmajâyâ narrated in X, 109.