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The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v1.c17.s2: § 2. Trita Āptya

The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v1.c17.s2

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§ 2. Trita Āptya

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Trita Āptya is a deity, whose importance in the Rigveda is much less great than the account of the feats attributed to him would at first sight seem to warrant. He is not the subject of any hymn, and his name is mentioned no more than forty times in all. His associations are predominantly with Indra, but also with the Maruts, Agni, and Soma. The name Āptya belongs to him seven times in four hymns.

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The deeds of Trita have often the closest resemblance to those of Indra, and still more to those of Thrita in the Avesta. Thus, exhilarated by the Soma, he slays Vṛtra, he overthrows Vala, he destroys the three-headed Viçvarūpa, or again he assists Indra to overthrow Arbuda, while Indra is said to overthrow Viçvarūpa for him. He brings the Maruts on his car, and he sharpens Agni and makes his flames to rise. Agni also he finds. He has a secret and remote abode, whither the Ādityas and the Dawn are besought to remove ill deeds and evil dreams. This home seems to be in the regions of the sun or the heaven. He is also a preparer of Soma, with powers of healing, and all wisdom centres in him. More characteristic is the legend that, being in a well, he prays to the gods for help: Bṛhaspati hears him and sets him free. Another version has it that, being in a pit, he prays to his father and goes forth claiming his father’s weapons to fight with Viçvarūpa. His shadowy figure becomes yet more obscure in the later Saṁhitās; the Yajurveda¹ ascribes to him the giving of long life, doubtless merely because he is the presser of Soma, and the Atharvaveda² knows him only as some far off deity to whom guilt or dreams may be banished. In the Brāhmaṇas we come across a tale of three brothers, Ekata, Dvita, and Trita, the first two of whom throw Trita in a well. Dvita actually occurs in the Rigveda,³ once with Trita and once in an Agni hymn apparently as identical with Agni.

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¹ TS. i. 8. 10. 2.

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² i. 113. 1, 3; xix. 56. 4.

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³ viii. 47. 16; v. 18. 2.

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The Avestan parallel of Trita is Thrita, the third preparer of the Haoma, who received from Ahura 10,000 healing plants, which grew round the healing Haoma. Cognate with Thrita is Thraētaona, son of Āthwya, who slays the serpent of three heads and six eyes, Aži Dahāka; in his expedition for this purpose he is accompanied by two brothers who seek to slay him. The name Trita of course is third, while Āptya seems to refer to water and to be equivalent to Apāṁ Napāt.

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The original nature of so obscure a god is not easy to decide. The connexion of Trita with Triton led Roth⁴ to the view that he was a wind and water god: Hardy⁵ finds in him a moon god, for which view there is no evidence at all;

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⁴ ZDMG. ii. 224. The divergence of quantity can be explained by folk etymology; Güntert (p. 31) makes him the ‘friendly’ third of a divine triad.

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⁵ *Ved.-brahm. Periode*, pp. 35-8.

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Hillebrandt¹ holds that he is god of the bright sky revered in the Āptya family, or a deified ancestor, which is certainly inadequate as an account of his nature, and Pischel's² suggestion that he was originally a human healer, who was later deified, can hardly be taken seriously. Perry³ is unquestionably right in seeing in him an older god than Indra, who seems to have largely usurped his position as an important deity. His connexion with the Soma, which is peculiarly close and which shows him as more active in the details of its preparation than Indra, who is rather the drinker of Soma than the preparer of the plant, suggests the conclusion, which is also made plausible by his name as Third, that he is a form of fire, the lightning in which the Soma descends to earth. This would agree with his nature as watery, Āptya, and does not contradict any of his known features.⁴ But it is possible to hold that he was really a water deity, a parallel to the Greek Triton and the German Mimi.⁵

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¹ *Varuṇa und Mitra*, p. 94. Cf. *Ved. Myth.* iii. 39, 343 f.

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² *GGA.* 1894, p. 428.

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³ *JAOS.* xi. 142–5.

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⁴ Macdonell, *JRAS.* xxv. 419–96.

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⁵ Carnoy, *JAOS.* xxxviii. 294 ff.; *Les Indo-Européens*, pp. 199 f. Wackernagel (*GN.* 1909, p. 61) holds that Trita is a short form of Tritavana 'the thrice strong', Thraētaona corresponding to Traitavana (*RV.* once Traitana), and Āptya being a popular etymology for Ātpya. This is not plausible.

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