The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v1.c18.s2.23

v1.c18.s2.23

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.