The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v1.c16.s8.14

v1.c16.s8.14

It is probable in any case that the question is not one of the supersession of a moon mythology by a sun mythology, but of simple contamination. If we hear that in the highest step of Viṣṇu there is the well of the mead,¹ it is not necessary to bring into connexion with this the Lettish legend of the footprint of the horse in which Uhsing, god of the spring sun, brews beer, and to suggest that there was an Indo-European myth which saw in the marks on the moon the footprint of a steed, the conclusion ultimately being drawn that behind both Viṣṇu and Uhsing we have a moon deity. The mead is from the heaven, Viṣṇu’s highest step is in the heaven; the combination of ideas is thoroughly in the spirit of the Vedic imagination. Or again Agni’s flight into the waters,² and assumption of animal forms therein, are easily enough explained from his character as the lightning from the clouds, and we are not really helped by the suggestion that the myth goes back to the loss of light when the moon disappears, the theriomorphic conception being due to the sickle shape of the moon which suggests a fish,³ naturally equated with the salmon form in which Loki evaded his pursuers, or even the Dolphin shape of Apollo. Agni, after all, is not conceived as a fish, and the imaginative efforts required to introduce the moon suggest that the whole suggestion of the importance of the moon is greatly exaggerated. The moon by its waxing and waning doubtless was of great importance in fixing times of offering, but in India at least it is difficult to see how fundamental importance could be attached to this figure in comparison with the vital energy of the sun. The ethnic evidence for the importance of the moon is valuable,⁴ but it is idle to suppose that every religion has developed on parallel lines and we may believe that Indo-European religion, owing perhaps to the place of its development, was less than some others inclined to make much of the moon.