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The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v1.c17.s4: § 4. Ahi Budhnya

The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v1.c17.s4

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§ 4. Ahi Budhnya

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Ahi Budhnya, 'the serpent of the deep', is closely associated in the few cases, twelve in all, in which his name is found in the Rigveda with the gods Aja Ekapād, Apāṁ Napāt, the ocean, and Savitṛ. His name never occurs save in the hymns to the All-gods, and there it is regularly found among the spirits of the atmosphere, and in the Naighaṇṭuka⁷ he is definitely assigned to the middle or aerial region. The only definite traits ascribed to him are that he is born of the waters, sitting at the bottom of the streams in the spaces, language which the normal spirit of the Rigveda no less than the express assertion of Yāska⁸ induces us to refer to the ocean of the air, and not to the earthly waters. His dangerous character is hinted at by the fact that he is implored not to give over his worshippers to evil.⁹

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⁷ v. 4.

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⁸ Nir. x. 44.

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⁹ RV. vii. 34. 17; v. 41. 16.

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The explanation of the nature of this spirit is by no means obvious. The serpent *par excellence* of the Vedic poets is Vṛtra, who encloses the waters, but also is described as lying upon them, or in the depth of the waters. Agni, however, is also described as a raging serpent and is said to have been produced in the depth (*budhna*) of the great space. To Hardy¹⁰ the god is another form of the moon, to Oldenberg¹¹ a water snake, and Macdonell¹² suggests that he is really a form of Ahi-Vṛtra regarded as divine, and not as merely an enemy of Indra. More vaguely it may be thought that the god is nothing more than a personification of the writhing cloud, whose serpentine form is a simple enough conception; the difference between this conception and that of Vṛtra would lie in the fact that the latter conception applies to the thunder clouds rather than to the mere clouds of the sky. The prayer for safety from harm would be natural enough addressed to a deity conceived in serpent form. It is, however, also possible that the god is merely another form of Agni; in the later Vedic texts the god is connected with Agni Gārhapatya,¹ and with Aja Ekapād he receives a formal share in the offering at a Gṛhya ceremony, from which, however, it would doubtless be wrong to deduce that he was then a living deity.² Such a deity he cannot have been for even the earliest period of the Rigveda, and the occasional mention of these gods even in the latest texts is testimony not to the life of the god but to the commanding influence of the Rigveda. In the post-Vedic literature the name survives as an epithet of Çiva and the name of a Rudra.

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¹⁰ *Ved.-brahm. Periode*, p. 41.

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¹¹ *Rel. des Veda*², p. 70. Cf. the German dragons; Helm, *Altgerm. Rel.* i. 206 ff.; Hillebrandt, *Ved. Myth.* iii. 340 (ein Rest vom Quellenkult).

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¹² *Ved. Myth.*, p. 73.

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¹ VS. v. 33; AB. iii. 36; TB. i. 1. 10. 3.

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² PGS. ii. 15. 2.

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