The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v1.c11.s2.12

v1.c11.s2.12

A still more striking case of the difficulty of using comparative mythology is afforded by the cult of fire. Among the Greeks Hestia, among the Romans Vesta, though her worship has been asserted to be merely derived from Greece, and among the Lithuanians Ugnis Szventà, seem to have been the object of deep veneration as the goddess of the family hearth. Of this worship we have a parallel in India, where the fire is among other names called the household fire, and where its sanctity is great in the extreme. But the difference of sex shows that there is a long way between the two conceptions, and suggests that the worship of fire in Indo-European times was animatist rather than anthropomorphic. Similarly, while the worship of the earth is doubtless to be found in every Indo-European form of religion, there is nothing so characteristic of that worship to enable us to ascribe to it any special feature in Indo-European times, and the union of sky and earth is a world-wide myth, which we certainly need not suppose the Indo-Europeans had to borrow from any other source.¹ The worship of sun and moon may be assumed, and is probable enough, but it was perhaps of no very great moment. The waters also were objects of worship, and the wind god is found under the same name among the Lithuanians as in India, and that people has a celestial smith parallel to Tvaṣṭṛ. There are also cases in which identity of myth is of real importance: the Nāsatya of India occur among the Mitanni gods, they are undoubtedly parallel to the Dioskouroi and to the gods of a Lettish myth,² and they seem to have Germanic and Celtic parallels. Again, while the etymological equation of Erinys and the Vedic Saraṇyū is open to the gravest doubt, there can be little probability in denying any connexion between the legend of Saraṇyū’s wedding and her taking the shape of a mare, and the legend of the Tilphossian Erinys.³ Herakles or Hercules is not Indra, but the myth of the setting free of the cows from the control of the Paṇis has a clear parallel in the myths regarding Geryoneus and Cacus. If the verbal identification of Çabara and Kerberos is not above suspicion, still the mythical conception is parallel, and in a different case that of Kubera and the Kabeiroi Prof. Hopkins has sought, though probably without success,⁴ to prove original identity of character as well as similarity of name. Other cases in which etymological identity of name is still claimed with a possibility of accuracy, though without any certainty, include the equation of Varuṇa and Ouranos, which could both arise from Indo-European Uoruenos, the Maruts and Mars, the Ṛbhus and the Norse Alfr, German Alb, elf, and the Bhṛgus and Phlegyai. Even Prometheus, though the connexion with the late *pramantha*, ‘churning stick’, has long since been abandoned, has been identified by the high, though in this case not convincing, authority of Victor Henry⁵ with the Māthava who, according to the Çatapatha Brāhmaṇa⁶ played a prominent part in the advance of the Indian fire cult from the western to the eastern lands, and it is certain that the legend of the theft of fire has a claim to be Indo-European.⁷ In the case of Uṣas the parallelism with Eos and Aurora is wholly beyond doubt, but the actual worship of the goddess is clearly in large measure an Indian development. Vedic Druh, Avestan Druj, have parallels in Norse Draug and Old English Dreág, ‘malignant spirit’.