[Pramāṇa](https://indike.org/pramana/) › [Studies](https://indike.org/pramana/ins) › [Religion and philosophy](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.religion) › [The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.religion.keith-1925) › v1.c19.s1 # The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v1.c19.s1: § 1. The Ṛbhus and the Ṛtus The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v1.c19.s1 - **Language:** English ### § 1. The Ṛbhus and the Ṛtus ### [v1.c19.s1.1](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.religion.keith-1925.v1.c19.s1.1) THE minor figures of the Vedic mythology are distinguished as a rule by the obscurity of their outlines: even when they are freely mentioned, as in the case of the Ṛbhus, it is a matter of the utmost difficulty to decide their precise character: it is probable indeed that in many cases the nature of the gods was little better understood by their worshippers than it is by us. Of this there is an excellent example in the Ṛbhus: they occur in eleven hymns in the Rigveda, being special favourites of the Bharadvāja family, and they are mentioned over a hundred times, but their mythical nature is very doubtful, and the Atharvaveda mentions them but eight times in seven hymns, and adds nothing to their character, indicating that in the popular side of the Vedic religion they had little hold. ### [v1.c19.s1.2](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.religion.keith-1925.v1.c19.s1.2) It appears that there are strictly three Ṛbhus, named Ṛbhukṣan, 'lord' or 'chief of the Ṛbhus', which is also an epithet of Indra, Vāja, and Vibhvan. It was, however, natural that the number should be increased, and we hear of all the Ṛbhus, or Ṛbhu with the Ṛbhus, or Vibhvan with the Vibhus, and, it may be added, the Praiṣa for the god Indra at the evening pressing in one version adds Prabhus. They are called Saudhanvanas, offspring of Sudhanvan, 'the good archer', or sons of Indra, and by a play on Indra's epithet, 'son of strength', they appear as 'descendants of strength'. On the other hand they are also sons of Manu, and claim Agni as brother. They are bright deities, who ride on a car drawn by fat steeds; they have metal helmets and fair necklaces. ### [v1.c19.s1.3](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.religion.keith-1925.v1.c19.s1.3) The essential features of the Ṛbhus is their connexion with Indra, through whom they are also connected with the Maruts and obtain a share of the Soma drink, which, however, in the ritual is whittled down to a share in an invocation to Indra. With other gods they have but slight connexion such as the Mountains, Rivers, the Ādityas, Savitṛ, and Tvaṣṭṛ. Their chief distinction is their skill, which wins them the favour of Indra and immortality, for they are distinctly regarded as men of the air, who earned for themselves immortality by their deeds, not as from the beginning divine. The Aitareya Brāhmaṇa¹ states they obtained their position by means of austerities, a view which of course entirely agrees with the priestly estimate of the due means of securing divine rank, but which ignores the older and simpler conception of their skill as the adequate cause. Having attained that position, they are addressed as gods, and are besought to bestow boons on their worshippers, including the dexterity which is theirs specially: they also aid in battle. ### [v1.c19.s1.4](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.religion.keith-1925.v1.c19.s1.4) ¹ iii. 30. 2. ### [v1.c19.s1.5](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.religion.keith-1925.v1.c19.s1.5) Five great feats of skill are enumerated as performed by the Ṛbhus, the making of a car which, horseless, reinless, with three wheels, travels space, for the Açvins; the fashioning for Indra of two bay steeds; the making out of a hide of a cow, seemingly for Bṛhaspati, to milk nectar, of which a variant seems to be the uniting of the mother with her calf; the rejuvenating of their ancient and frail parents, doubtless heaven and earth; and, last but not least, the making of Tvaṣṭṛ’s one cup into four. This they did on the bidding of the gods through Agni, and the promise of immortality was the bait: Tvaṣṭṛ seems to have approved the proposal,¹ but in one place² he is said to have been fain to slay them for this desecration of the cup of the gods, while they deny the desecration. Other feats are more commonplace: they fashion the sacrifice or the two worlds. ### [v1.c19.s1.6](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.religion.keith-1925.v1.c19.s1.6) ¹ RV. iv. 33. 5, 6. ### [v1.c19.s1.7](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.religion.keith-1925.v1.c19.s1.7) ² RV. i. 161. 4, 5. ### [v1.c19.s1.8](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.religion.keith-1925.v1.c19.s1.8) In a curious myth they are connected with Savitṛ. It seems that they went round the sky in swift flight, and came to the house of Savitṛ, who bestowed immortality upon them, when they came to Agohya. When after twelve days of slumber they had enjoyed Agohya’s hospitality, they made the fields to flourish and the streams to flow over the earth. They after a year looked around: they asked Agohya who had wakened them. When they slumbered in his house, they made grass on the heights and water in the depths.³ ### [v1.c19.s1.9](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.religion.keith-1925.v1.c19.s1.9) ³ RV. iv. 33. 1, 7; i. 140. 2; i. 161. 11, 13. ### [v1.c19.s1.10](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.religion.keith-1925.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\*. ### [v1.c19.s1.11](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.religion.keith-1925.v1.c19.s1.11) ⁴ \*Ved. Myth.\* iii. 135–54; (Kl. Ausg.), pp. 144–8; cf. Ludwig, \*Rigveda\*, iv. 160; v. 510. But see Oldenberg, \*Rel. des Veda\*,² pp. 239 ff.; ZDMG. lix. 262 ff., who refutes Hillebrandt's view that in RV. i. 110. 3 Agohya appears as Savitṛ; Thibaut, \*Indian Thought\*, i. 107. ### [v1.c19.s1.12](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.religion.keith-1925.v1.c19.s1.12) ⁵ RV. iv. 33. 9. ### [v1.c19.s1.13](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.religion.keith-1925.v1.c19.s1.13) ⁶ This view is accepted by J. H. Moulton, \*Essays and Studies presented to W. Ridgeway\*, p. 259, n. 1. ### [v1.c19.s1.14](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.religion.keith-1925.v1.c19.s1.14) ⁷ RV. i. 15; ii. 37; ÇÇS. vii. 8; ApÇS. xii. 268 ff.; GGS. iii. 10; ĀÇS. ii. 4. 12. ### [v1.c19.s1.15](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.religion.keith-1925.v1.c19.s1.15) ¹ Macdonell, \*Ved. Myth.\*, p. 133; Henry, \*Journal des Savants\*, 1903, p. 496. ### [v1.c19.s1.16](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.religion.keith-1925.v1.c19.s1.16) ² Keith, \*JRAS.\* 1915, pp. 131-3. ### [v1.c19.s1.17](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.religion.keith-1925.v1.c19.s1.17) ³ On the etymology cf. Kluge, \*Etym. Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, s. v.\* Alp. ### [v1.c19.s1.18](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.religion.keith-1925.v1.c19.s1.18) ⁴ ĀpÇS. v. 11. 7; KÇS. iv. 9. 5.; Weber, \*Ind. Stud.\* xvii. 196. ### [v1.c19.s1.19](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.religion.keith-1925.v1.c19.s1.19) Other theories are even less plausible: Weber⁵ sees in them the geniuses of the past, present, and future, and in Agohya the sun who may not be concealed, i. e. driven from his course even by the winter solstice; Bergaigne⁶ takes them as three ancient skilful sacrificers who attained immortality, and whose number three stands in connexion with the three fires. The evidence forbids any certainty or even probability: it is, however, most probable that they are identical with the German ‘Elbe’, and that they are elves of the air or the earth who have won their way to a divine greatness.⁷ By an extraordinary freak we find them in the Mahābhārata elevated to the stature of the greatest of gods imaginable.⁸ ### [v1.c19.s1.20](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.religion.keith-1925.v1.c19.s1.20) ⁵ \*Ved. Beitr.\* 1894, p. 37. ### [v1.c19.s1.21](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.religion.keith-1925.v1.c19.s1.21) ⁶ \*Rel. Véd.\* ii. 412. ### [v1.c19.s1.22](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.religion.keith-1925.v1.c19.s1.22) ⁷ Macdonell, \*op. cit.\*, p. 134; Carnoy, \*Les Indo-Européens\*, p. 219. ### [v1.c19.s1.23](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.religion.keith-1925.v1.c19.s1.23) ⁸ iii. 261. 19 ff. ## Linked texts (8) - [Ṛgvedasaṃhitā](https://indike.org/pramana/in.veda.samhita.rg.4.33.5) — Sanskrit - [Āpastambaśrautasūtra](https://indike.org/pramana/in.vedanga.kalpa.srauta.apastamba.5.11.7) — Āpastamba, Sanskrit - [Kātyāyanaśrautasūtra](https://indike.org/pramana/in.vedanga.kalpa.srauta.katyayana.4.9.5) — Kātyāyana (Vājasaneyi sūtrakāra), Sanskrit - [Śāṅkhāyanaśrautasūtra](https://indike.org/pramana/in.vedanga.kalpa.srauta.sankhayana.7.8) — Śāṅkhāyana, Sanskrit - [Gobhilagṛhyasūtra](https://indike.org/pramana/in.vedanga.kalpa.grhya.gobhila.3.10) — Gobhila, Sanskrit - [Aitareyabrāhmaṇa](https://indike.org/pramana/in.veda.brahmana.aitreya.3.30) — Mahidāsa Aitareya, Sanskrit - [Mahābhārata](https://indike.org/pramana/in.lit.mahabharata.vyasa.3.261.19) — Vyāsa, Sanskrit - [Āśvalāyanaśrautasūtra](https://indike.org/pramana/in.vedanga.kalpa.srauta.asvalayana) — Āśvalāyana, Sanskrit --- Source: [https://indike.org/pramana/ins.religion.keith-1925.v1.c19.s1](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.religion.keith-1925.v1.c19.s1) · Pramāṇa