Spiritual Authority and Temporal Power in the Indian Theory of Government c2.s1.113

c2.s1.113

That the marriage of the two Agnis, the former and the latter, "who hate one another," should be that of Mitra and Varuṇa is in perfect agreement with the common doctrine that Mitrāvaruṇau form a progenitive pair (*mithunam*), a syzygy of conjoint principles, in which Mitra is the male and Varuṇa the female partner, an "opposition" or "polarity" which is that of Day to Night, of Light to Darkness (TB. I. 7. 10. 1 *maitrám vá áhaḥ vāruṇī́ rátriḥ*, etc.). References to Mitrāvaruṇau as *prāṇāpānau* (or *prāṇodānau*) and as *brahmakṣatrau* are too many for separate citation. More explicitly in PB. XXV. 10. 10 and ŚB. II. 4. 4. 19 "Mitra inseminates (*rétaḥ siñcati*) Varuṇa," and in ŚB. XII. 9. 1. 17 Varuṇa is the womb (*yoni*), Indra the seed (*retas*), and Savitṛ the progenitor (*rétasaḥ prajanayitṛ́*), an obvious allusion to the Varuṇasava and the birth of Indra; Varuṇa, in other words, being Sāvitrī, and as such the mother of the solar Indra. In Mbh. XII. 319. 39 Mitra is *puruṣa* and Varuṇa *prakṛti*.²⁸ The same relations subsist when the names of Mitrāvaruṇau are replaced by the terms *apara* and *para brahma* (*mahad-brahma*, *brahma-yoni*) as in BG. VII. 5-6 and XIV. 3-4 where Kṛṣṇa sets the embryo (*garbham*) in the Great Brahman, his own Higher Nature (*prakṛtim parām*, i.e. "Natura Naturans, Creatrix Universalis, Deus"), the womb (*yoni*) of all and whence is the becoming of all things, saying also that "I am the father that bestows the seed" (*bījapradaḥ pitā*). It is accordingly quite in order that so many of the terms expressing the relations of *Mitrāvaruṇau*, should have a sexual connotation. *Abhigantṛ*, for example, like Latin *cognoscere* and Greek γιγνώσκω, Sanskrit *jñā* and English "know" ("Jacob knew his wife"), has an erotic value that is even more evident in ŚB. IV. 6. 7. 10 where what is uttered by Vāc is literally a "*conception*" fathered by Manas (*manasā abhigatam*). The invitation *úpa mávartasva sáṁsṛjāvahai* (ŚB. cited above) corresponds to the marital *mām anuvratā bhūtvā . . . sambhavāvahai* of JUB. I. 54. 6 and the marriage formula of AV. XIV. 2. 71, "I am He, thou art She; I am the Harmony, thou the Words; I am Sky, thou art Earth. Let us twain here become one; let us bring forth offspring" (*ámo 'hám asmi, sá tvám, sámā 'hám asmy' ṛ́k tvám, dyaúr ahám, pṛthivī́ tvám; tā́v ihá sám bhavāva, prajā́m ā́ janayāvahai*), echoed in that for the marriage of Sacerdotium and Regnum in AB. VIII. 27, discussed below. In the same way in ŚB. X. 4. 1. 8, in connection with the union of Sacerdotium and Regnum, here represented by Indrāgnī, *ékaṁ rū́pám abhavatām . . . prájanayataḥ* corresponds to *tau virāḍ bhūtvā prajanayatām* with reference to the union of the Two Worlds.