The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v1.c19.s4.16

v1.c19.s4.16

The mountains are according to the young Kṛṣṇa essentially the deities of pastoral folk: the Rigveda,⁴ which shows no trace of the old belief of mountains as the home of the gods generally,⁵ also invokes here and there the mountains, nearly twenty times in the plural, and four times in the singular. They never, however, occur alone, but only with other deities such as Indra or Savitṛ, or with the waters, trees, plants, heaven and earth. They are described as rejoicing in the sacrificial offering and abiding securely. Parvata, ‘the mountain’, is once found invoked as a companion of Indra in the dual compound Indrāparvatā, and asked to come to the offering. In the ritual the mountains make but little appearance, but we hear in the Brāhmaṇas⁶ a good deal of a salve from the mountain Trikakubh which has wonderful powers, and in the late Hiraṇyakeçi Gṛhya Sūtra¹ there occurs an obscure phrase, which suggests that it was thought in applying the salve to the eyes that the spirit of the mountain entered into the performer of the rite. The idea is of course perfectly in harmony with primitive ideas.