The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v1.c16.s6.14

v1.c16.s6.14

This is a formidable list of achievements and many more are given by name of the recipients in the Rigveda. For one and all explanations based on natural phenomena have been found:³ thus the blind man is healed when the sun is released from the darkness—whether of winter, as Max Müller holds, or the arctic, as Tilak, or the rains, as A. C. Das, and it may be that, in many of the incidents, there is more than the mere record of remarkable rescues of real men from misfortunes. There is not the slightest doubt that such rescues might give rise to traditions of the sort recorded in the hymns, but the explanation is one which cannot be given with certainty in all cases: the giving of an iron limb to a horse is a feat which no modern could accomplish, and, while it might be ascribed to the Açvins in recognition of their great powers, still it is rather doubtful if this is enough to explain the incident, though the suggestion that Viçpalā is the first quarter of the new moon is no more plausible. The rescue of the quail from the mouth of a wolf and the slaying of 101 sheep by Ṛjrāçva are episodes also which seem mythical. But to recognize that there may be a mythical foundation to a story and to discover that foundation, when the episode is given in the form of a mere reference in a few words in the Rigveda, are totally different things, and it would be contrary to sound method to seek to penetrate the exact force of these legends: it is not difficult to interpret them, but the fatal objection to such attempts is that several ways of interpretation are always open, and that we have no standard of criticism by which to judge of the comparative merits of the different views.