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The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v1.c18: Chapter 10. The Great Gods—Terrestrial

The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v1.c18

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Chapter 10. The Great Gods—Terrestrial

§ 1. Agni

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AGNI is clearly in the eyes of the priest only second to Indra in importance: in the Rigveda he has some 200 hymns for himself alone.¹ From Indra, however, he is essentially distinguished by his nature; he is intimately connected with the element of which he is the deity, and his nature is therefore far less anthropomorphic; moreover, what there is of human in him is derived, not from the conception of the warrior god, but from that of the ideal priest: if both gods are expected to send fortune and happiness to their votaries, Indra gives rather victory in battle and power, Agni the prosperity and happiness of the home. Moreover, while Agni is assimilated in much to Indra and as usual is accorded several of his feats and his powers, Indra remains comparatively unaffected by the qualities of Agni. Indra also is not, like Agni, the messenger between gods and men, an office, which, if it makes Agni in some ways a god of the closest intimacy with the life of men, still does tend to reduce his status, and renders him in some sense inferior to the other gods. Nor is Soma the normal drink of Agni: he is indeed a Soma-drinker, but only in a minimal degree for a great god, and often because of his connexion with Indra.

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¹ For Indo-European fire gods, see von Schroeder, *Arische Religion*, i. 466 ff.

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The appearance of Agni is clearly merely a description of the fire, and in one passage he is truly called headless and footless: elsewhere he is called butter-faced, butter-backed, butter-haired, flame-haired or tawny-haired. He has three or seven tongues, which receive in the later literature names of their own; his steeds are similarly given seven tongues. He has butter for his eye, four or a thousand eyes, and a thousand horns. He is also an archer. He is likened to, or identified with, a bull or horse or bird, an eagle or Haṅsa: even once he is called a raging serpent. Again he² is a hatchet or a car.

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² RV. i. 79. 1.

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His food is ghee, but he also devours the woods, and eats thrice a day. Or he is the mouth by which the gods eat the sacrifice. He is invoked to come to sit on the strew to receive the offerings for himself, or the gods.

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Agni's brightness is often mentioned; he is like the sun, dispels darkness, and bears the epithet 'waking at dawn'. But, when he drives through the forest, shaving the earth like a barber a beard, his path is black. His flames roar terribly, and his light reaches the sky. But he has also a car drawn by two or more horses, with which he brings the gods to receive the offerings of men.

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Agni’s mythic parents are Dyaus and Pṛthivī, or Tvaṣṭṛ and the Waters. But he is also produced by the gods whose father, however, he is; he is brought into existence by Indra or Indra and Viṣṇu, or by the Dawn, and is the son of Iḍā, the personification of the sacrificial food. All these accounts are open to obvious explanations and are of no consequence. More important is the birth from the two fire sticks, the upper being deemed the male, the lower the female, and in mythical form being described as Purūravas and Urvaçī, from that famous pair of lovers. They are also called two mothers, and many plays on the curious infant and his mothers occur.¹ As friction is engendered by the action of the hands in turning the one stick in the other, he is credited with ten mothers, the ten fingers. As force is needed for his production, Agni is the son of strength. He is born ever new and is called the youngest, but still is old as being born for ever. Here and there occurs, in the Brāhmaṇa literature, the idea that the fire at the end of a year is outworn, but the idea that the fire is at the beginning of each year to be formally renewed in a special rite is not to be recognized. For the sacrifices such as the Agniṣṭoma, the four-monthly rites, and the animal offering, the fire is solemnly produced anew by friction, but there is no evidence that the winter solstice was felt to be a time when the fire as such was in need of any special renewal. If such an idea existed,² it has not left any clear trace in Vedic ritual.

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¹ The long period of gestation (RV. v. 2) is probably an allusion to the long latency of fire in the wood, ere evoked by friction. The old mode of lighting the fire was preserved in the rite of rekindling on March 1 the fire of Vesta in Rome and in the occasional use of this method in kindling the ‘need fire’ in Germany (von Schroeder, *Arische Religion*, ii. 596 f.).

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² Hillebrandt, *Ved. Myth.* ii. 77 ff. Cf. his theory of Dawn as the Goddess of a New Year (above, Part II, Chap. 8, § 7). Cf. von Schroeder (*Arische Religion*, ii. 485), who regards Agni as reborn at the opening of spring, comparing the return of Apollo in spring (p. 523).

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As Agni springs from the wood, it is regularly stated that he dwells in plants. On earth too he has a place in the navel (*nābhi*) of the earth, a reference doubtless to the hole in the high place of offering in which the fire is deposited: hence Agni is the navel of immortality.

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Agni is also born from the waters: he is the embryo of the waters, kindled in the waters, a bull who has waxed great in the waters, and he descends from the clouds. In these cases it is probable that the waters of the clouds are meant: in this aspect he is Apāṁ Napāt, who has become practically a separate deity. On the other hand, there is a widely prevalent view that the waters are terrestrial: several late hymns of the Rigveda tell of the flight of Agni because of unwillingness to perform the sacrifice, and his being found among the waters and the plants, and this legend is a common-place of the Brāhmaṇa period. In the Atharvaveda the Agni in the waters is clearly distinguished from the lightning, and is made terrestrial. The Rigveda itself recognizes the existence of Agni in the streams. In the ritual there are many traces of the same view of Agni as in waters other than those of the clouds.

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At the dedication of tanks of water and similar rites, offerings are made to Agni in the waters;¹ the Brahman student, when he performs the bath marking the end of his period of pupilship, takes water from a vessel, appropriating to himself the bright form of Agni and repelling the other forms of Agni, which have entered into the water.² The waters used at the royal consecration are regarded as being full of Agni.³ In the ceremony of the piling of the fire altar, when it is desired to diminish the heat of Agni, cooling plants and a frog are placed on the altar, and Agni is asked to enter the waters of which he is the gall.⁴ It is clear, therefore, that the view that Agni is connected with the waters of the earth is an old one, but it must be noted that at no period is his connexion with the waters of the air forgotten: we find it expressly asserted in a Sūtra⁵ text which shows that it was perfectly well understood. It is impossible, therefore, to accept the view of Oldenberg that the connexion of Agni in the terrestrial waters is the normal one, as opposed to the Agni of the aerial waters: both conceptions are clearly found equally authenticated. The explanation of the belief in the presence of Agni in the terrestrial waters may be a transfer from the belief in his presence in the aerial waters, but it can also be accounted for in other ways. Thus the phenomenon of the lightning coming down to and entering the waters may well have played a more important part than the more elaborate idea, clearly valid for the Brāhmaṇa period, which sees in the plants the closest connexion with the waters, and which pictures a cycle from the water to the plants, from the plants to the flame, from the flame to the smoke, from the smoke to the cloud, and thence to the water again.

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¹ ÇGS. v. 2. 5.

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² PGS. ii. 6. 10.

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³ AB. viii. 6.

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⁴ TS. iv. 6. 1. 2; VS. xvii. 6.

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⁵ ĀpÇS. v. 16. 4.

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In the third place Agni has a birth in the heaven; he is born there and was brought down by Mātariçvan, who is doubtless his lightning form. The Aitareya Brāhmaṇa⁶ calls him at once heavenly and in the waters. Agni, however, is often as the god contrasted with the lightning. Agni as heavenly is the sun, born in the morning. The Aitareya⁷ says that on setting the sun enters into Agni, and in the Rigveda⁸ Agni unites himself with the rays of the sun. But this side of the nature of Agni is little referred to: the sun was too great and prominent a deity to be treated merely as a form of Agni.

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⁶ vii. 7. 2.

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⁷ viii. 28.

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⁸ v. 37. 1; vii. 2. 1.

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The three births of Agni are constantly referred to: he is made threefold, has three heads, tongues, stations. The order of his abodes is variously stated, as heaven, earth, the waters; or earth, heaven, the waters; or sky, air, and earth. Hence we must doubtless trace the view of the Nairuktas preserved for us by Yāska,⁹ which makes the whole Vedic pantheon reducible to the three gods, Agni, Indra or Vāyu, and Sūrya. The second member of the triad must be taken to have replaced the lightning, which would be more easy, since the lightning has no mythic name to give it substance, and, therefore, the god of the middle space is better represented by a deity of more concrete nature. On the other hand, it would be an error to underestimate the importance of lightning in Vedic mythology, on the ground that it is too transient in character to serve as the basis of mythology.¹

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⁹ Nir. xii. 19.

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¹ Oldenberg, *Rel. des Veda*², pp. 112 f.; Hardy, *Ved.-brahm. Periode*, p. 64; Hillebrandt, *Ved. Myth.* i. 368; ii. 129 ff.

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Still more important is the fact that the three forms of Agni explain the practice that in the ritual Agni is worshipped on three altars, the Gārhapatya, the Āhavanīya, and the Dakṣiṇa,² which are kept quite distinct from the ordinary household fire. The alternative view that these fires are to be regarded as the source of the myth of the three forms of Agni can hardly be taken seriously. More plausible is connexion with fire as the sun, as domestic, and as driving away evil spirits, as von Schroeder suggests.³

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² It is connected with the dead, and they with the winds and the air. Hence it corresponds to the aerial, as the Āhavanīya to the celestial Agni.

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³ *Arische Religion*, ii. 487 f.

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Though the birth of Agni is most often triple, yet in many passages he is given but two births, the one on earth, the other in the sky, or, less often, the one in heaven and the other in the waters. The idea is already found in the Rigveda that Agni descends into the waters, and that from the plants he arises again, and, from the distinction of the aspects of fire, we arrive at the frequent Vedic idea that the god is to sacrifice to himself, or bring himself to the sacrifice, or descend with the gods to the sacrifice. Moreover, by another view Agni is kindled not only by men or earth, but by the gods in heaven:⁴ this doubtless points at once to the necessity of some kindler for the Agni of the heaven as for him of earth, and to the tendency to see in the gods the precise analogues of pious sacrificers among men. But from yet another point of view Agni is manifold, since there are many fires on earth: the unity of the conception, however, as in the case of Dawn triumphs: the other fires are likened to the branches of the tree, Agni. This manifold nature of his origin is sometimes developed in detail, as when he is said to be born from the heavens, the waters, stones, woods, and plants.⁵ The rock whence it is born may be the stone from which he is struck out or the cloud: he dwells also in man as animal heat, in beast and birds, in biped and quadruped.⁶ He is the germ therefore of all that is.

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⁴ RV. vi. 2. 3; cf. AB. ii. 34.

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⁵ RV. ii. 1. 1.

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⁶ RV. x. 5. 1; AV. iii. 21. 2; xii. 1. 19; 2. 33; TS. iv. 6. 1. 3.

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The three births of Agni give rise to the legend of his three brothers, or his brothers generically, who again with him make up the four Hotṛs, of whom three die according to the Kāṭhaka Saṁhitā.⁷ The legend of death seems purely imaginative. Of the gods Varuṇa is once his brother, and Indra is his twin brother. From Indra Agni borrows, as we have seen, some of his feats, such as vanquishing the Paṇis. In one hymn Agni is mentioned with Soma. He lends himself also to identifications with other gods: thus in the evening he is Varuṇa, rising in the morning Mitra, as Savitṛ he traverses the air, as Indra he illumines the sky; so the Atharvaveda ¹ tells us. He has various forms and many names, he embraces all the gods, and once even in the Rigveda ² he is successively identified with twelve gods and five goddesses.

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⁷ xxv. 7. Cf. TS. ii. 6. 6; Bṛhaddevatā, vii. 61 with Macdonell's note.

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¹ xiii. 3. 13.

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² ii. 1. 3–7.

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Agni is not without martial traits, but his activity is quite different from that of Indra, who wars on the Asuras and on the Dāsas. Agni is in place of that the destroyer of the demons; with iron teeth he consumes the sorcerers, he drives away the goblins, he is the slayer of Rakṣases *par excellence*. Indra borrows this feature of his character from him, and it is also attributed to the Açvins, Bṛhaspati, and Soma, but the primary claim of fire to destroy the wizards and the demons is an obvious one, and recorded by anthropology ³ over all the earth. It is also most strongly attested in the ritual.

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³ Frazer, *Balder the Beautiful*, i. 325 ff.

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The domestic side of the fire worship is revealed mainly by the constant reference to Agni as the friend in the homes of men, whence comes his description as father, or brother, or son, or even mother. He has the epithet domestic, and is styled lord of the house. He is the immortal who abides among mortal in human habitations. He is further the protector of settlers, the man who makes mortals to settle down, and he is the lord of the clan (*viçpati*). The close relation of men to him is attested by the fact that we hear expressly of the Agni of Bharata, of Devavāta, of Divodāsa, of Trasadasyu, and of Vadhryaçva. His relation to the Aṅgirases and the Bhṛgus may have been mythical, but were not so conceived in all probability in Vedic times, and he certainly stood in close relation to families like the Vasiṣṭhas. His connexion with Aryan settlement is told clearly in the legend of the advance of the Aryans to the east under the guidance of Gotama Rāhūgaṇa and Videgha Māthava,⁴ the latter of whom has been compared rashly with Prometheus; the story preserves in the clearest way possible the record of the essential connexion between the introduction of the fire cult, and the advance of Aryan settlement and of Aryan culture.

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⁴ ÇB. i. 4. 1. 10; von Negelein (VOJ. xviii. 97–9) lays stress on the function of fire as burning the wild and preparing the way for agriculture, the value of which in India is almost unlimited.

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The ritual hardly gives a clear picture of these aspects of the character of Agni as the domestic friend and father, and as the protector and leader of the people. In it stress is laid in the main on the ritual of the three fires of the more elaborate sacrifices performed for an individual, and this elaboration is old, since in the Rigveda, while the name of only one of the later fires expressly occurs, that of the Gārhapatya, there are references to the later practice of transporting the fire from one altar to another: thus Agni is said to be led round, to go round the sacrifice three times, to be led east and then west. But the importance of the domestic fire, which can be assumed for the earliest period, and which is preserved in some degree in the domestic ritual, is also attested by the fact that in the later ritual, and perhaps also in the earlier, the fire was first placed on the Gārhapatya altar, a name which indicates that the real domestic fire was the starting-point of the late development. There are fainter traces of the worship of fire not merely by an individual, but as the fire of the clan or community. In the later ritual¹ we hear of the fire of the Sabhā and the Āvasatha, which were respectively the council-house and a place of reception for those who came to the Sabhā, as it seems, and it may be conjectured from the fact that the word Sabhya as an epithet of fire is found in the Atharvaveda,² though not in the Rigveda, that we are entitled to conceive of the fire as being lighted in the Sabhā for the cult of the clan or community on the solemn occasions of the meeting of the people in council. There are parallels among other peoples of the Indo-European stock, and among the Iranians where such fires as those of the head of the clan and of the canton were known,³ but in the case of the Rigveda, the traces are scanty, unless stress can be laid on the term 'lord of the clan' applied to the god, and the title of king of the clans of men. It is, however, notorious that the Sabhā, which appears as a real institution in the Rigveda, in the later period disappears, and is reduced at most to a small council, first of warriors and priests and then of priests only,⁴ so that it is possible that an earlier public cult disappeared in the course of time. Analogy suggests this conclusion, which is merely rendered doubtful by the imperfection of the evidence which can be adduced to prove the positive existence of the cult.

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¹ ApÇS. v. 19. 2 ff.; KÇS. iv. 9. 20 ff.; Hillebrandt, *Ved. Myth.* ii. 118, 126; *contra*, Caland, VOJ. xxiii. 59 as to Āvasathya.

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² xix. 55. 6; cf. viii. 10. 7 (Gārhapatya, Āhavanīya, Dakṣiṇāgni, Sabhā, Āmantraṇa) with KS. vi. 8 (Odanapacana, Gārhapatya, Āhavanīya, Madhyādhīdevana, Āmantraṇa).

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³ Geiger, *Ostir. Kult.*, p. 472.

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⁴ Macdonell and Keith, *Vedic Index*, ii. 426, 427; Foy, *Die königliche Gewalt*, p. 10.

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On the other hand we have abundant references to the activities of Agni as a sacrificer, and he serves as the model for sacrificers. He is an essential element in the transmission of the sacrifice to the gods who cannot enjoy it without him. On the one hand he brings the gods down to the sacrifice and seats them on the strew that they may enjoy the food and drink offered. On the other hand he bears the oblation to the gods in the heaven. In either case he is constantly serving as an envoy between the gods and men, and is especially often called the messenger of men, though also that of Vivasvant. The Yajurveda⁵ elevates him into the messenger of the gods, and places over against him Kāvya Uçanas as the messenger of the Asuras. A Brāhmaṇa⁶ deals with him, not as the messenger of, but as the path leading to the gods. He is called the Hotṛ, the Adhvaryu, the Brahman, and Purohita of the gods, thus combining in himself all the activities of the human priest. He is thus the one most fitted to worship the gods, he makes the oblations fragrant. But there is also a tradition that he wearied of his office, and required to be induced by promise of rich reward to be the bearer of the oblation.⁷ It seems that he had to be found in the waters and the plants, and that he was reluctant to undertake the duties. Hillebrandt,¹ who thinks that the reluctance was connected with the death of his brothers, which is not, however, quite clearly referred to in the Rigveda and which may be only a later myth, and of independent origin, deduces from the story the view that it refers to the contrast between the two periods of the year, the northern and the southern course of the sun, Uttarāyaṇa and Dakṣiṇāyana, Devayāna and Pitṛyāṇa, and that the legend explains the winning back of Agni at the end of the southern course of the sun, at the period of the winter solstice. He interprets the waters into which Agni retires as the fate of the sun at the winter solstice, an idea which, however, in India he considers to have been absorbed in that of the rainy season. The conjecture unhappily lacks any verisimilitude: the picture of the bringing of Agni to work seems no more than the conception of an individual poet of the constant theme of the mode, in which Agni comes to be employed as the sacrificer on earth.

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⁵ TS. ii. 5. 8. 5.

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⁶ TB. ii. 4. 1. 6.

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⁷ RV. x. 51–3; Oldenberg, ZDMG. xxxix. 71 ff.

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¹ Hillebrandt, *Ved. Myth.* ii. 137 ff. Von Schroeder (*Arische Religion*, ii. 523) compares Apollonine legend, but without plausibility.

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In connexion with the sacrifice three forms of Agni are distinguished in the Yajurveda,² the eater of raw flesh, the eater of corpses, and the sacrificial, and this distinction is perfectly well known in the Rigveda ³ so far as concerns the Agni which bears the offering, and the Agni which devours the bodies of the dead. The term *kravyād* alternates in the Rigveda with *kravyavāhana*, later *kavyavāhana*, and a fire named *kavyavāhana*, appears as invoked with Yama at an offering to the Manes, which is performed on the afternoon of the new moon sacrifice at the last of the four-monthly offerings. From these facts Hillebrandt deduces the theory that from the fire, with which the dead was burned, there was taken a brand to rekindle the fire for the Manes, which he believes to have existed in the time of the Rigveda under the title of the Narāçaṅsa.⁴ The procedure is clearly wholly contrary to the spirit of the ritual, which regards death as requiring the extinction of all fires which are made thereby impure, and the evidence adduced for the theory is obviously inadequate to make it even plausible.

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² VS. i. 17.

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³ x. 16. 9.

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⁴ *Op. cit.* ii. 98–107, 107–10. Cf. Oldenberg, *RV.* ii. 215 f.

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Another division of the forms of Agni is given by the Taittirīya Saṁhitā,⁵ where the Agni which bears the oblation is distinguished from that which bears the funeral offering, called *kavyavāhana*, and that associated with the goblins (*saharakṣas*).

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⁵ ii. 5. 8. 6.

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As a sacrificer Agni has this advantage over the human sacrificer that he does not make mistakes, and if he errs in any way he can put all right. Hence he is all knowing, the sage, possessed of all wisdom, and exclusively bears the epithet Jātavedas,⁶ used about 120 times of him in the Rigveda and explained there as he who knows all generations, though some modern scholars prefer the sense ‘having innate wisdom’. The priest prays, therefore, to him to accord him power of memory and wisdom. He produces wisdom, and is himself eloquent, and a cause of eloquence in others. In all other matters too he befriends his worshippers, he gives food, wealth, long life, he defeats enemies, and demons: even in battle he leads the van, which may be a reference to the carrying of fire before the host in its onslaught. He is also occasionally given the power to remit sin, to make guiltless before Aditi, to avert the anger of Varuṇa,¹ and in the later texts he is said to free from the crimes committed by man’s father and mother.²

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⁶ SBE. xxvi. pp. xxxi f.

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¹ RV. iv. 12. 4; vii. 93. 7; iv. 1. 4.

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² AV. v. 30. 4; TB. iii. 7. 12. 3, 4.

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Agni is also as a great god magnified by being declared to be above all the gods: Varuṇa, Mitra, the Maruts, and all the gods worship him. He delivers the gods in battle, he defeats the Dasyus for the Aryan, he vanquished the Paṇis and is even called breaker of forts and Vṛtra-slayer, but these aspects of his are really derived from Indra. He measures out the air and supports the vault of heaven like all the greater deities, but he has a special function of his own, the strengthening of the sun when at the Agnihotra in the morning he is produced.³ This is recognized occasionally in the Rigveda and quite frankly in the Brāhmaṇa literature. But in many cases the two acts are regarded merely as simultaneous, and the later texts⁴ discuss the question whether the Agnihotra is to be offered just before or just after the sun rise.

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³ Oldenberg, *Rel. des Veda*², pp. 109, 110.

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⁴ AB. v. 30 ff.

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Agni is said to have produced men as also are other gods, but this relationship is neither often mentioned nor prominent. It is not probable that it stood in any special relation to the act of producing Agni from the fire sticks, though that act was naturally enough compared to the production of life: it lies rather in his close association with the worship of the family, which brings him into close contact with men.

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The derivation of Agni’s name, Latin *ignis*, Lithuanian *ugnis*, is uncertain, though connexion with *aj*, ‘drive’, is not impossible. In the Avesta the name is unknown as such and it does not appear among the Mitanni gods, which speaks in favour of the view that it is a specific development of the Indian priest.⁵ But the worship of fire itself, apart from the special conception of it as Agni, is undoubtedly strongly marked in the period of the unity of the Indo-Iranians. The fire in the Avesta is the centre of a strong and developed ritual: the fire priests Āthravans are clearly the same in origin as the Vedic Atharvans, and Ātar must have been conceived as a great and powerful god, giver of food, of fame, of offspring, the friend of the house, the repeller of foes, probably known as in the lightning and the plant-born forms. Oldenberg⁶ holds that, as in Greece and in Rome Hestia⁷ and Vesta are feminine, there cannot have been an early Indo-European worship of fire of any distinct character. This is true so far as the personification of the fire is concerned, but the close connexion of the fire with the home which is emphasized by these two faiths, and which is also in harmony with the indications of Vedic religion, suggests that the cult of fire must have been a very real one in the Indo-European period, a conclusion the more natural if, as is probable, the original home of the Indo-European is to be placed in a comparatively cold climate.¹ The stress laid on the fire in India would, therefore, be changed in emphasis, as not the domestic, but the sacrificial fire became the more important in a land where the sun provided for many things which elsewhere fire was required to accomplish.

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⁵ Oldenberg, JRAS. 1909, p. 1096.

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⁶ *Rel. des Veda*², p. 102. Kretschmer (*Gesch. der griech. Sprache*, pp. 162 ff.) argues that Vesta is a mere borrowing from Greece; Warde Fowler (*Religious Experience of the Roman People*, pp. 73–79) treats her as essentially Roman. So also Farnell, *Cults of the Greek States*, v. 364; *Greece and Babylon*, p. 133. Cf. von Schroeder, *Arische Religion*, ii. 584. For the Ugnis szventà of the Lithuanians see *ibid.* ii. 579 f.

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⁷ Feist, *Kultur der Indogermanen*, p. 526.

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¹ Cf. Wissowa, *Religion und Kultus der Römer*², p. 142; E. Meyer, *Gesch. des Alt.*³ I. ii. p. 872. Von Schroeder’s views as to Apollo and the Charites (cf. Agni’s flames as maidens) are interesting (*Arische Religion*, ii. 497 ff.), but not conclusive. The legend of the theft of fire (Prometheus, Loki) is only faintly seen in the figure of Mātariçvan (Chap. 9, § 6) and possibly that of Bhṛgu (Chap. 19, § 1).

§ 2. Bṛhaspati and other forms of Agni

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Bṛhaspati is a god of much importance in the eyes of the Rigveda, since it devotes to him eleven hymns and mentions him, under that name or as Brahmaṇaspati, about 170 times. He forms with Indra a pair in two hymns. But his character appears very clearly as a compound of the activities of other gods. Thus his appearance is like that of Agni: he has seven mouths, seven rays, a beautiful tongue, he is bright, pure, ruddy, and clear-voiced. He has sharp horns and a hundred wings; he carries an iron axe, wrought by Tvaṣṭṛ, or a golden hatchet, and rides on a car with ruddy steeds. But he is marked out by having a bow whose string is Ṛta, which here doubtless refers to the holy rite, the sacrifice, showing that his weapons are also priestly. He is said to have been born from great light in the highest heaven, and with thunder to have dispelled the darkness, but also to be the half of the two worlds or of Tvaṣṭṛ, and he is the producer of the gods.

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Bṛhaspati is especially the divine priest; he is the Purohita, but also the Brahman, and the Brāhmaṇas constantly play on his position as the Brahman priest or the Brahman, ‘the holy power’, of the gods. In the later texts as Brahman he is probably denoted as the technical priest of that name, who oversees the sacrifice and, like Agni, is able by his invention to make good any defects which he may observe in the sacrifice. In the Rigveda the technical sense is doubtful: the Brāhmaṇācchaṅsin priest may, however, be meant in one or two cases.² He sings hymns, metre is his, he has singing hosts and thence is called Gaṇapati, a term once given to Indra. He is, as his name denotes, the lord of prayer, the generator of prayer which he communicated to men: hence in the later texts he is lord of speech, Vācaspati, a name which is specially his in post-Vedic literature.

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² Oldenberg, *Rel. des Veda*², pp. 38 ff., correcting Geldner, *Ved. Stud.* ii. 143 ff.; *GN.* 1916, pp. 731 ff.

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Bṛhaspati is often named beside Agni, but he is not rarely identified with him:¹ he is given three abodes, is called son of strength, associated with Narāçaṁsa, Mātariçvan and the Aṅgirases. He is lord of the dwelling, while Agni for his part is called lord of prayer. Like Agni, however, he is associated with Indra, and becomes specially connected with the myth of the overthrow of Vala and the release of the cows, in which he acts with his singing host. He splits the mountains, drives out and distributes the cows, and the Atharvaveda² makes his conquest of Vala proverbial. In winning the cows he finds the light, the Dawn, and Agni. He is also said to roar like a bull, to shatter forts, to overthrow Vṛtras and conquer foes. He is even given the epithet of bolt-bearer and is made a friend of the Maruts. He has also the more general traits of being a bestower of wealth and long life, a remover of disease, and a father. He stimulates also the life of the plants, through him the sun and moon rise alternately, and in the Yajurveda³ he is made the regent of the constellation Tiṣya, while in post-Vedic literature he is the ruler of Jupiter.

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¹ RV. i. 38. 13; iii. 26. 2; v. 43. 12.

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² ix. 3. 2.

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³ TS. iv. 4. 10. 1; TB. iii. 1. 1. 5; cf. Keith, *JRAS.* 1911, pp. 794 ff.

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It is clear that the name was held by the Rigvedic poets to be derived from a word *bṛh* in the sense of Brahman, prayer, as it is parallel with Brahmaṇaspati, and the meaning of the name is, therefore, lord of prayer or devotion. The great similarity to Agni, which makes Bṛhaspati in much merely his double, can best be explained on the theory that Bṛhaspati is Agni in his priestly form, but that the connexion was one early developed.⁴ The most plausible of alternative views is undoubtedly that of Roth,⁵ which takes the god as a direct personification of the power of devotion, and Oldenberg⁶ develops a similar idea in insisting that Bṛhaspati is the typical priest who assists in the feats of the gods by his songs and his prayers. In that case it is necessary to suppose that he has won to himself the attributes of the gods by his close association with them in their activities, a view to which there is no good ground of objection in itself, but which is on the other hand not in any way more probable than the idea that the name was at first an epithet of the god. On the other hand Weber⁷ and Hopkins⁸ start from the marked similarity to Indra in the warlike deeds of Bṛhaspati, and make him out to be derived from the character of Indra modified under the views of the priesthood:⁹ this view is also legitimate, but is subject to the objection that on the whole it is easier to explain the development, if the Agni side be taken as the standing point in the discussion of the nature of the god. It is, however, impossible to accept the efforts of Hillebrandt¹ to prove that Bṛhaspati is the moon, especially as a god of magic and the magic southern fire; the long list of parallels with Soma which he adduces will on investigation be found merely to refer either to points which are commonplaces of many Vedic gods, or to points in which Agni and Soma agree. The fact that Bṛhaspati produces effects on the plants is wholly inadequate to make out that he is a moon god, for there is no very clear trace in the Rigveda of the doctrine that all growth or even that most growth is due to the action of the moon: the heat and the water which are characteristic of Agni are essentially connected with plant life.

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⁴ Macdonell, *Ved. Myth.*, p. 103. Hillebrandt (*Ved. Myth.* i. 408) took *bṛhas—* as growth, but (Kl. Ausg., p. 60) accepts ‘das magische Fluidum ritueller Zauberkraft.’ Cf. Chap. 27, § 2.

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⁵ ZDMG. i. 73.

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⁶ *Op. cit.*, pp. 66–8; SBE. xlvi. 94; GN. 1915, pp. 196 ff.

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⁷ *Vājapeya*, p. 15.

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⁸ *Rel. of India*, p. 136.

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⁹ Their preference is visible in AB. vii. 38 (cf. KU. iii. 1; TS. ii. 5. 1), where insult to him is censured in Indra; cf. Weber, *Rājasūya*, pp. 109 f.

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¹ *Ved. Myth.* i. 606 ff.; ii. 102 ff.; (Kl. Ausg.), pp. 60 ff.; *contra*, C. Strauss, *Bṛhaspati im Veda* (1905); Oldenberg, GN. 1915, pp. 200 ff.

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The chief importance of Bṛhaspati lies in the fact that he is in the earlier Vedic period the root from which sprung the god Brahman, who appears first in the later stratum of the Brāhmaṇa texts.²

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² Keith, *Aitareya Āraṇyaka*, p. 350.

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While the identity of Bṛhaspati with Agni has been obscured by the development of the character of the deity, the identity of Vaiçvānara is made absolutely certain by the constant mention of Agni under that epithet in the Rigveda. It denotes ‘pertaining to all men’, and is normally believed to refer to Agni in all his aspects, celestial as well as terrestrial. In point of fact, however, the mention of Vaiçvānara is mainly in certain definite contexts. He appears in connexion with the descent of celestial fire and the agency of the Bhṛgus and Mātariçvan, and once³ Agni Vaiçvānara is styled Mātariçvan. In the Brāhmaṇas Vaiçvānara has a direct reference to the sun in the fact that it is said that Agni Vaiçvānara is the year, and that cakes offered on twelve potsherds are frequently presented to him. Vaiçvānara appears also in comparison with the Maruts as connected with the princely rank: the Dhruva cup which is offered to Vaiçvānara is guarded by a prince,⁴ and is employed in a variety of rites for the preservation or restoration of lordly power.⁵ It is clear also that in these texts the fire specially related to Vaiçvānara is the Āhavanīya, so that we have a good warrant for seeing in the god a form of the sun, which on earth has a counterpart in the Āhavanīya fire. This explains well the controversy which existed even in early days regarding the nature of the god: it was maintained by the Yājñikas that Vaiçvānara was the sun, while Çākapūṇi, with whom in effect Yāska⁶ agrees, held that he was the terrestrial Agni. Vaiçvānara would then be a suitable epithet of the sun, who is common to all men and seen of all.

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³ RV. iii. 26. 2.

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⁴ ApÇS. xii. 16.

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⁵ Hillebrandt, *Ved. Myth.* ii. 112 ff. He sees in Vaiçvānara’s connexion with the Pūrus and the Bharatas, and in RV. i. 59. 1; iii. 23. 4; v. 1. 10, traces of a κοινὴ ἑστία of the Vedic tribes, but this is implausible.

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⁶ Nir. vii. 23 and 31.

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The name Narāçaṅsa is also used of the god, and with it is connected one of the great ritual distinctions of the Vedic ritual: some families took in the Āprī hymns, used at fore-offerings in the ritual of the animal sacrifice, a verse addressed to Narāçaṁsa, others took in place Tanūnapāt, while only a few families, such as that of Medhātithi Kāṇva and Dīrghatamas Aucathya, solved the dispute by including invocations of both in the hymns.¹ In the long run the tradition of the Jamadagni² family prevailed and their invocation of Tanūnapāt was accepted, the Vasiṣṭha family, however, remaining faithful to their invocation of Narāçaṁsa. The god has little that is characteristic about him in the Rigveda : he thrice a day sprinkles the sacrifice with honey ; he anoints the three heavens and the gods. Soma is said to go between Narāçaṁsa and the celestial one, which may refer to the contrast of terrestrial and celestial fires. In the Brāhmaṇas there is more distinct information : five cups are styled Nārāçaṁsa, two at each of the first two pressings and one at the third : after being tasted by the priests they are placed on the south oblation-holder.³ The epithet ‘drunk by Narāçaṁsa’ is used of Soma in connexion with an offering to the Fathers, and the connexion of Narāçaṁsa and the Fathers appears in one passage in the Rigveda,⁴ which may conceivably point to the later ritual having been in this respect known to the Rigveda. Moreover in two hymns Narāçaṁsa seems to be identified with Bṛhaspati.⁵ On this ground Hillebrandt⁶ concludes that Narāçaṁsa is a designation of a moon god of the dead, equivalent to Bṛhaspati, and of the Dakṣiṇa fire for the Fathers. He strengthens this view by pointing out that in a Brāhmaṇa text⁷ the term three-headed and six-eyed is applied to Narāçaṁsa, which would seem to identify him with Viçvarūpa, son of Tvaṣṭṛ, who, like Bṛhaspati, is in his opinion the moon as the home of the Fathers. The conjecture, however, is too bold, and rests upon the mistaken identification of Bṛhaspati and the moon, and the still less plausible version of Viçvarūpa as the moon. It necessitates also the making of the word to mean ‘he who praises men’, applicable to a judge of the Fathers, instead of ‘praise of men’ in the sense ‘praised by men’, which is the more natural sense.⁸ The comparison of the Avestan Nairyosaṅha leads to no further conclusion : traces of connexion with the Fathers are seen by Hillebrandt, but they are very faint, and his chief certain characteristic is that of messenger, which makes him merely a normal form of Agni. It is impossible, therefore, to say more than that Narāçaṁsa is a form of Agni: Bergaigne¹ thinks that he is specifically a god of prayer like Bṛhaspati, and this accords with the identification of the two gods which seems certainly intended by the Vedic poets.

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¹ Narāçaṁsa occurs in RV. ii. 3; v. 5; vii. 2; x. 70; Tanūnapāt, i. 188; iii. 4; ix. 5; x. 110; both, i. 13 and 142.

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² RV. x. 110.

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³ AB. ii. 24. 3; ApÇS. xii. 25. 25–27.

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⁴ x. 57. 3.

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⁵ RV. i. 18; x. 182.

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⁶ *Ved. Myth.* ii. 98 ff.; iii. 445–50; (Kl. Ausg.), pp. 58 ff. He quotes RV. i. 95. 1; 96. 5; x. 88. 6 as proofs of Agni as the moon, also Indrāgnī as deity of the new moon (sun and moon), but implausibly. For spirit connexion with the moon he cites RV. x. 90. 13; AA. ii. 4. 1; BAU. i. 3. 17; iii. 2. 13.

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⁷ MS. iv. 13. 8; TB. iii. 6. 13. Oldenberg (GN. 1915, p. 222) suggests a possible reference to Narāçaṁsa’s partaking of the three Savanas daily, duplicated by the twin offices of Hotṛ and Udgātṛ (i. 185. 9).

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⁸ Macdonell, *Ved. Myth.*, p. 100. The alternative is to regard the praise as deified. Cf. Oldenberg, GN. 1915, pp. 210–24. RV. x. 57. 3 on this view alludes to the Fathers as authors of praises. But his denial of connexion with fire is implausible, in view of RV. iii. 29. 11; VS. xxvii. 13, &c., and the parallel of Nairyosaṅha (cf. Gray, *Archiv für Rel.* iii. 48; Güntert, *Weltkönig*, p. 287).

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¹ *Rel. Véd.* i. 305-8.

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Tanūnapāt is even more obscure than Narāçaṁsa. His name means either ‘son of his self’, a reference to the fact that Agni generates Agni, fire being *sui generis*, or ‘own son’, i. e. of the divine father as suggested by Bergaigne.² He is contrasted with Narāçaṁsa and Mātariçvan as the divine embryo. The dawns kiss Agni, the Tanūnapāt of the ruddy one. He takes the sacrifice to the gods: Varuṇa, Mitra, Agni honour him thrice a day. Who is meant is impossible to say: Hillebrandt,³ who once identified him with Agni as a guardian of the Soma and as lunar fire, has abandoned⁴ the suggestion: in the Brāhmaṇas he is variously identified with summer and Indra, while in the ritual he plays a part only in the Tānūnaptra ceremony in which the patron and the celebrants of the rite engage not to injure one another: in this rite he serves, it seems, as the god who watches over the fulfilment of the mutual oaths of fidelity.

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² *Op. cit.* ii. 99. An implausible suggestion to assimilate Tanūnapāt to Narāçaṁsa as praise, as incorporating the ancestral poetry, is made by Oldenberg, GN. 1915, p. 214, n. 4.

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³ *Ved. Myth.* i. 339.

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⁴ *Op. cit.* ii. 110-12.

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Closely connected with Agni are other figures: the gods Mātariçvan, Ahi Budhnya, Aja Ekapād are in some degree associated with him, and the priestly families of the Atharvans, Bhṛgus, and Aṅgirases are closely related to him: they will be considered later together with the other families of priests, to whom they are perhaps more closely related in origin than to the god himself.

§ 3. The God Soma

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The poetry of the Rigveda is mainly connected with the Soma sacrifice, and this fact must be borne in mind in estimating the importance of the god Soma. In its present form the whole of the ninth book of the Saṁhitā is devoted to him and he has six hymns in other books: moreover he is invoked in parts of four or five others, and also as a joint deity with Indra, Agni, Pūṣan and Rudra. The number of times his name occurs is incapable of accurate calculation, as the name is constantly mentioned without it being possible to say whether the god is really referred to.

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Soma resembles Agni in the fact that the anthropomorphism of the god is constantly coming into collision with the actual form of the plant and thus is prevented from attaining any clear development. Hence myths of a concrete character cannot spring up around the name, and the deeds which are given to Soma are simply borrowed by him from the other gods, especially Indra and Agni, with whom he is very nearly associated, since the former is the great Soma drinker and the latter for his part is a god of ritual like Soma. But on the other hand the Soma is the great object of priestly interest, and the most elaborate imagery seems to have formed round the simple operations of pressing and straining the juice: the monotony of the ninth book is only equalled by its obscurity in detail, and, it must be admitted, much of the obscurity hides no real depth of thought but merely puerile fancies.

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For the juice pressed from the Soma plant the Rigveda offers various names, such as *andhas*, applied also to the whole plant, *pitu*, and often *mada*, the intoxicating beverage; it is even called food, and very often honey, a term which is applied also to milk and to ghee.

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Frequently it is Amṛta, ‘ambrosia’ the drink of immortality, or milk, or the wave from the stalk, or the juice of honey. A common name of the plant and the drink is Indu, the bright drop. The plant is brown, ruddy or most often tawny, and, in accord with this, it is the rule that the cow, with which in the rite the Soma is purchased, must be brown or ruddy, and that any substitutes used for Soma must be similar to it in colour. The plant is made to yield its juice by being pounded with a stone or pressed with stones, which lie on a skin and seem in contravention to the ritual usage to be placed on the altar.¹ The stones are called *adri* or *grāvan*, the latter usually employed with verbs meaning to speak and therefore more mythical than the word *adri*. It is almost, if not quite certain, that the extraction of the juice by pounding with a pestle in a mortar was known to the Rigveda² as well as the normal pounding with stones which is repeatedly mentioned: the Avestan ritual knows the use of mortar and pestle in connexion with the Haoma. When pounded the juice is strained through a sieve, which is called a skin, hair, wool, filter, or metaphorically perhaps ridge. In this state Soma wins the title Pavamāna, under which, as becoming clear, it is celebrated in the ninth book of the Rigveda. In the purified form it is called Çukra or Çuci, ‘the bright,’ and is offered in this shape to Indra and Vāyu, who is the drinker of the pure Soma *par excellence*, a fact which is confirmed by the ritual where the unmixed Soma is reserved for Indra and Vāyu, while it is mixed with milk for Mitra and Varuṇa and with honey for the Açvins. It is clear that after the purifying process Soma was often mixed with water: so in the ritual the pressing is followed by the mixing of water (*ādhavana*). Water however does not bear the technical name of *āçir*, which is reserved for the milk, fresh or curdled, and the barley with which Soma clothes himself as with a garment. The refreshing of the stalks of the plants with water, which is known in the later ritual as the Āpyāyana, is possibly but not certainly, referred to in the Rigveda. The three offerings of the Rigveda³ correspond in some measure at least to those of later times: Indra is present at both the morning pressing and at the midday pressing which is his alone, whence it later has a Çastra called Niṣkevalya, and the Ṛbhus have a place in the third offering. The term ‘of three abodes’ given to the god may allude to three tubs of the ritual, but this is uncertain, and the same doubt attends the three Soma lakes, of which mention is made, as drunk by Indra. The three backs of the god are probably the three admixtures.

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¹ Cf. RV. v. 31. 12; Hillebrandt, *Ved. Myth.* i. 179 ff.; Oldenberg, *Ṛgveda-Noten*, i. 328.

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² RV. i. 28; Hillebrandt, *op. cit.* i. 158 ff. Oliphant (*Studies in honor of Bloomfield*, pp. 225-50) holds that mortar and pestle were normally used, but does not prove this theory.

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³ Bergaigne (*Rel. Véd.* i. 179) thinks the three tubs mythical, but cf. TS. iii. 2. 1. 2.

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So much of the mythology of Soma is clear enough: the actual plant lies immediately behind the god, and explains his characteristics. But there are other traits which show that the plant is a very powerful one. The waters which are mixed with the Soma give rise to many metaphors, and Soma is said to be the producer of the waters, and to be born of the waters: he streams rain from the sky, and he flows clearly with a stream of honey like the cloud full of rain. He is the father of the waters as well as their son, and the Soma seems in some cases to be deemed to be rain. The Çatapatha Brāhmaṇa ¹ directly identifies the ambrosia with the water. The sound of the pouring of the Soma is likened to thunder, and lightning is associated with the process. Again, as a thunderer and a loud-sounding god, Soma is a bull and the waters are his cows: he fertilizes the waters. He is a sharp-horned bull. But he is also for his swift flow a steed or bird, and again he is identified for his bright colour with the sun, and made to dispel the darkness and defeat it. In all this there is clearly evident the fact that Soma is no mere plant on earth, but is in addition a great celestial deity.

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¹ xi. 5. 4. 5.

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The same double side of Soma appears in the legends which make him drunk by the gods as well as by men. He is for both the drink of immortality, which makes them live for ever. In less exalted phrase he is of high value in healing, he makes the blind to see, and the lame to walk. He even destroys sin and promotes truth: *in vino veritas*. He inspires speech and so Soma is lord of speech: he has all wisdom and knowledge. He surveys all things with his thousand eyes. A votary declares ² ‘We have drunk the Soma, we have become immortal, we have attained the light, we have known the gods.’ The Fathers too love the Soma with whom they sometimes go, and who in their life excited them to their great deeds.

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² RV. viii. 48. 3.

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The god who is most closely united with Soma is Indra, who needs the drink to strengthen him to perform the slaying of Vṛtra: hence the drink is called the bolt, and Soma even takes the title of Vṛtra-slayer. Again Indra makes the sun to rise when he has drunk Soma, so that Soma is credited with this feat also. From this it is a short step to becoming a great cosmic power, who generates the two worlds and wields universal sway. He rides in a chariot with Indra, and is connected with the Maruts. He becomes a great and terrible warrior with a bow and shaft: he (alone of Vedic gods ³) is described as killing the wicked and he also kills the demons. The Yajurveda ⁴ says that Brahmans who drink the Soma can slay their foes by their mere look. Through Indra he is associated with Vāyu, and, more superficially, he is connected with Pūṣan and Rudra.

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³ RV. ix. 28. 6.

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⁴ MS. iv. 8. 2.

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The dualism in the character of Soma appears in the two quite different accounts of his birth, in heaven and on the mountains. The mountain birth of Soma is made more precise by the epithet Maujavata, which seems to point to mount Muñjavant, and the Avesta declares that Haoma grows in the mountains. But it is by no means certain that the rock, from which the eagle brought Soma, is to be so taken; it seems rather to refer to the clouds and to point to his celestial form. Of the celestial abode of Soma there is abundant evidence of all kinds: he is the bird in the heaven, his home is in the highest heaven, but the contact with the terrestrial is clear in the fact that Soma going over the filter is also Soma on the summit (*sānu*) of the sky.

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The bringing of Soma from the mountains was no doubt a physical act, performed regularly by the priests or on their behalf: the ritual shows that the tradition of using Soma was kept up, when the priests had long left the place where the Soma grew, and when it had to be brought from afar off. The sacred character of the plant, however, vindicated itself in a curious manner. It had come to be necessary to purchase the drink, or rather the plants whence the juice could be extracted, but the ritual shows the Soma seller¹ regarded as a disgraceful creature from whom is taken away, with blows, the price, a cow, paid to him for the stalks. On the celestial side there stands the Rigvedic myth of the descent of Soma which is brought down by an eagle to the earth. The myth is told at some length in two hymns of the Rigveda² and referred to in others. The eagle was restrained by a hundred iron castles, but it none the less secured the Soma and fled with it from the sky: the archer Kṛçānu, however, who saw the bird as it fled away shot at it and severed one feather: the Brāhmaṇas³ add that the feather or claw or the leaf of the shoot became a tree, the Parṇa or Palāça, or a porcupine. The eagle is in the legend represented as bringing down the Soma for Indra, and Indra is once⁴ directly called an eagle, when seated at the Soma offering, but not in immediate connexion with the myth. On the other hand Agni is called the eagle of heaven once⁵ and often a bird; the term eagle is applied in a Brāhmaṇa⁶ to Agni as lightning, and from these data Bloomfield⁷ derives the conclusion that the whole origin of the myth of the descent of Soma is the lightning flash, which comes forth from the cloud, the castle of iron, and which brings down to the earth the refreshing rain. With this accords the fact that in one passage of the Rigveda⁸ the descents of the lightning and of Soma are combined. It is not, it should however be noted, of much importance whether the eagle be treated as Agni or as Indra, since an essential feature of Indra is the lightning which breaks forth while the rain falls, and it is probable that, when he is hailed as an eagle at the Soma sacrifice, he is regarded as the bringer of the Soma.

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