The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v1.c16.s6.11

v1.c16.s6.11

The power of the Açvins as the helpers in time of trouble is extraordinarily often extolled: no other gods are so steadfastly helpful as they are. They differ in essential features from Indra, who is also a present aid to his devotees. Indra is the warrior god who helps his followers in battle and who brings them in safety across the streams as they advance to attack their enemy. The Açvins appear not to do combat, but to save those who are in distress of any kind. They are the gods who are connected with the ocean, and they rescue from it in ship or ships. Bhujyu, son of Tugra, was alone in the midst of the ocean in the darkness, or was clinging to a plank in the midst of the waves: the Açvins heard his supplications and rescued him in a ship of a hundred oars, with four ships, with a winged boat, with three flying cars with a hundred feet and six horses, with their headlong flying steeds, or with their chariot swift as thought. They are the physicians of the gods, and guardians and granters of immortality and freedom from disease. The old and decrepit Cyavāna they released from his decrepitude and made him young again, and desirable to his wife. In the Çatapatha and Jaiminīya Brāhmaṇas¹ the tale is told at full length, and the centre of it is the magic water, in which Cyavana bathes and so recovers youth and beauty, a motive of world-wide fame. The same story seems to have been told of a certain Kali referred to in the Rigveda. To the young Vimada they brought as a wife Kamadyū, who seems to have been the wife of Purumitra: apparently in so doing they imitated the action of Aphrodite to Helen. Viṣṇāpū, like a lost animal, they found and restored to his father Viçvaka, their worshipper. They revived and saved Rebha who had been stabbed, bound, and cast into the waters, and abandoned as dead for ten nights and nine days.² They brought Vandana out of a pit in which he lay as dead. From a burning pit they rescued Atri Saptavadhri, and placed him in a cool place, a feat once attributed to Agni, who may have been deemed to have acted through the Açvins. A quail was saved by them from the jaws of a wolf. At the prayer of a she-wolf they restored the sight of Ṛjrāçva who had slain for her to eat a hundred and one sheep. They cured Parāvṛj of his blindness and his lameness. To Viçpalā—mare or maiden—whose limb was cut off in battle like the wing of a bird, they give an iron limb. Pedu received from them a strong steed dragon-slaying, and Kakṣīvant abundant blessings including the making to flow for him of a hundred jars of honey or wine from a strong horse's head. Akin to this story is the legend that they placed on Dadhyañc, son of Atharvan, a horse's head, which then told them of the place of the mead of Tvaṣṭṛ.