The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v1.c17.s10.56

v1.c17.s10.56

The chief defect of these views is that they are based too exclusively upon the later accounts of the nature of the god, which really represent a time when he is ceasing to be connected with the original natural basis, on which the conception rests. There is nothing in the conception of the god as he is found in the Rigveda, which cannot be explained by the idea of a storm god considered mainly in the form of lightning, the tempest being viewed on its destructive rather than its healing aspect.³ From this could be derived easily the god's character as father of the Maruts, while from the beneficent rains loosened by the storm comes the aspect of him as a healing god, which is an essential feature of his character in the Rigveda and without which indeed he could hardly have been accepted as a god by the religion of the Rigveda. This theory explains in a satisfactory manner his connexion with Agni, which is close and obvious. Moreover, the theory of the original relation of Rudra with the dead is contradicted by the fact that he never appears in any close connexion with the dead: he is not their king, nor does he lead them to, or receive them in, his realm; his is the Svāhā not Svadhā call in the offering; his place is the north, not the south, which is essentially that of the dead, and, though in certain aspects the ritual of the dead has analogies with that for Rudra, that point is adequately and naturally explained by the fact that both the dead and Rudra have terrible characteristics. The clear connexion of Rudra with the sky is fatal to Oldenberg's theory, for the period of the Rigveda at any rate.