The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v1.c17.s5.6

v1.c17.s5.6

It is difficult from these scanty facts to make anything out as to the nature of the god: Roth⁷ taking Aja, not as 'goat' which is its proper sense, but literally as 'driver', saw in him the storm; Bergaigne⁸, rendering Aja as 'unborn', thinks he is a mysterious deity of the isolated world; Hardy⁹ finds in him as usual the moon; Victor Henry¹⁰ and Bloomfield¹¹ the sun, while Macdonell¹² suggests the interesting, and, so far as the evidence allows, satisfactory, hypothesis that the lightning form of Agni is meant, the goat denoting his swift coming, and the one foot the solitary streak which smites the earth. This view is clearly preferable to that of Oldenberg,¹³ which sees in the figure the myth of a goat which holds apart the worlds, an idea which has no adequate support in the reference in the Atharvaveda.