The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v1.c19.s1.10

v1.c19.s1.10

An elaborate theory of their nature has been proposed by Hillebrandt.⁴ He lays stress on the fact that, when they pleased the gods by their work, they became the artificers of the gods, Ṛbhukṣan of Indra, Vibhvan of Varuṇa, and Vāja of the gods generally.⁵ Now the four-month offerings are the Vaiçvadeva, the Varuṇapraghāsas, and the Sākamedhas, and he puts the three Ṛbhus in contact with the three sets of offerings, and sees, therefore, in them the three seasons. Further, he holds that the twelve days’ slumber must refer to the period of twelve nights at the winter solstice known in German folklore and mythology:⁶ in this still period of the year when the sun is at a standstill, the geniuses of the seasons exert their creative power. In the ritual this is the Dvādaçāha, ‘the twelve day rite’, which is of the utmost importance for the ritual as it serves as a model for all Sattras, and it is in this rite that most of the Ṛbhu hymns are used. Moreover, he adds that at the end of the year the Ṛtus,⁷ ‘the seasons’, are offered to in the Gṛhya ritual of the Aṣṭakās, and also occur in the Çrauta ritual. But all this is mere conjecture, as is the suggestion which has been made that the cup of Tvaṣṭṛ is the moon, the four parts being either replicas of the four months of each of the seasons, or four moon phases.¹ The attempt to bring the four-month offerings into conjunction with the Ṛbhus is a very forced one and is not supported by anything save the vague connexion of names, by which almost anything could be established; the belief that the Indians and the Germans preserve a tradition of twelve days' rest of nature at the winter solstice is a most improbable idea,² and the Dvādaçāha obviously connects with the number of the months. Nor is it in the slightest degree intelligible how, if that were the case, the three seasons by sleeping then would procure grass and water in abundance. Nor is the assertion that the Ṛbhus are really the Ṛtus in the slightest degree plausible: the seasonal cups of the Soma sacrifice have no real relation to Ṛbhus at all. Finally he makes the ingenious suggestion that the contemned position of the Ṛbhus is due to the fact that these are the gods of a particular clan, who took to the work of chariot making, were not admitted for a long time to the Brahmanical circle, but eventually found admission through their skill in this useful art, a fact which may stand in relation to the name Ṛbhu, which he equates not with the German ‘Elbe’, but with the root *arb* seen in ‘Arbeit’.³ The evidence for this theory consists simply in the fact that at the laying of the fire a Rathakṛt according to some Sūtras⁴ should mention as his forefathers the Ṛbhus, and the name Saudhanvana is stated in late texts to denote a caste. The case is an interesting one, not because it makes the theory of Hillebrandt at all tenable, but because it shows how the Rathakṛt, being a skilled chariot maker, was advised to claim as his forefathers the Ṛbhus, the chariot makers *par excellence*.