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The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v1.c19.s7: § 7. Divine Animals

The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v1.c19.s7

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§ 7. Divine Animals

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The place of animals in the Veda is restricted and of comparatively little importance so far as it concerns direct worship of animals, whether individuals or species, as distinct from the theriomorphism of gods who are not animal gods, and the use of animal fetishes. But the existence of these different ways, in which an animal may seem to be divine, renders it difficult in each case to say whether or not direct worship of animal is to be detected.

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Dadhikrā or Dadhikrāvan is the most famous of horses in the Rigveda where he is praised in four rather late hymns.⁷ He was, it is clear, especially famous among the Pūrus: his speed is extolled, he is compared to, and even directly identified with, the eagle. He is even described with epithets appropriate to Agni as the swan dwelling in light, the Vasu in the air, the priest at the altar, the guest in the home.⁸ He is a hero who wins booty, and who pervades the five tribes with his might, as Sūrya the waters with his light. He is a gift to the Pūrus of Mitra and Varuṇa, and is invoked with Agni, with the Dawn, with the Açvins, Sūrya, and other gods, but in such invocations he has the first place.

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⁷ iv. 38–40; vii. 44.

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⁸ iv. 40. 5.

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The name appears to mean 'he who scatters the curd', and from the name and his general divine appearance Roth¹ holds that he is none other than the sun in the form of a swift steed. With this agrees the fact that the sun is constantly associated with Uṣas, that it is compared to or identified with a steed, and that it is said to be a bird. Bergaigne's² view that lightning is specially referred to may be supported by the swiftness ascribed to the steed, but it is not clear that the conception could possibly be explained, unless the sun were taken as meant. The alternative view of Ludwig,³ Pischel,⁴ and Oldenberg⁵ sees in the steed a real horse, a famous race-horse, which won its fame by its swift pace, but this is to exaggerate beyond all possible measure the value attached by the Vedic Indians to the sport of horse-racing.

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¹ *St. Petersburg Dict.*, *s.v.*

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² *Rel. Véd.* ii. 456, 457.

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³ *Rigveda*, iv. 79.

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⁴ *Ved. Stud.* i. 124; cf. von Bradke, ZDMG. xlvi. 447.

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⁵ *Rel. des Veda*², p. 69; SBE. xlvi. 282.

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Hillebrandt,⁶ therefore, suggests, with much more plausibility, that the steed is divine as being the horse which was to be sacrificed at the end of the period of a year, during which the sacrificial horse for the horse sacrifice of the king was allowed to wander at pleasure, guarded by the king's sons and warriors, as a sign that his sovereignty was acknowledged on all sides. The suggestion is interesting and is correct, in so far as it is clear that the horse at the horse sacrifice was addressed in terms appropriate to divinity: it cannot seriously be doubted that for the time being the horse was considered as being in a sense divine, nor that in the offering the horse represented the embodiment of the sun. It is, therefore, probable that we have in the horse of the sacrifice a sun fetish,⁷ and this being so we have support for the theory that Dadhikrāvan is the sun in horse shape, but we need not suppose that Dadhikrāvan in the hymns in question was actually the horse of the horse sacrifice: he is instead the theriomorphic form of the sun, which in the horse sacrifice is represented by a real horse.

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⁶ *Ved. Myth.* iii. 401, 402; (Kl. Ausg.), pp. 170 f.

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⁷ Totemistic suggestions (J. v. Negelein, *Zeitschrift für Ethnologie*, 1901, p. 78; E. Monseur, RHR. li. 16) are refuted by van Gennep, *L'état actuel du problème totémique*, pp. 291 f. The ceremonial lying of the queen beside the dead horse is doubtless intended to secure her fertility through contact with the divine.

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The nature of Tārkṣya seems to be similar to that of Dadhikrāvan: he is described in part in the same terms, as pervading the five tribes with his power, and his character as a steed is shown by his bearing the name Ariṣṭanemi, 'whose fellies are uninjured.' From this epithet in the Yajurveda⁸ a new entity Ariṣṭanemi is created and invoked along with Tārkṣya. He is in later Vedic texts once or twice called a bird, and this may be compared with the bird character of Garuḍa, who is beyond question the sun bird. It is difficult, therefore, to doubt that Tārkṣya is merely a form of the sun, conceived as a bird or horse: his name is possibly derived from the prince Tṛkṣi Trāsadasyava who is mentioned in the Rigveda,¹ and naturally it has been suggested that he is a real horse deified.²

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⁸ VS. xv. 19. Garuḍa appears in TA. x. 1. 6, and in the Suparṇādhyāya; see Charpentier, *Die Suparṇasage*, chap. v.

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¹ viii. 22. 7.

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² Foy, *KZ.* xxxiv. 366, 367.

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Another horse is Paidva, who was given by the Açvins to Pedu, is white, praiseworthy, and is compared to Indra and Bhaga, and called slayer of the dragon, conqueror invincible.³ All this will pass as a description of the sun horse. Even more certain is the sun nature of Etaça : in the plural the word denotes often the horses of the sun, and in the singular it denotes the sun horse who draws the sun : in a curious legend Indra is said to have aided Etaça in contest with the sun, perhaps by causing a wheel of the sun car to fall off : Etaça picks it up and gives it to the sun, but now is able to take the lead of the sun, who finally, moved by the nobility of Etaça, concedes to him the front place in his chariot.⁴ It would probably be idle to see in this more than a mythological fancy, but the nature of Etaça is quite certain.

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³ Bergaigne, *Rel. Véd.* ii. 51, 52. For a possible Daurgaha, cf. Hillebrandt, *GGA.* 1903, pp. 243 f.

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⁴ Bergaigne, *Rel. Véd.* ii. 330-3; Oldenberg, *Rel. des Veda*², p. 155; Geldner, *Ved. Stud.* ii. 161 f. Hillebrandt (*Ved. Myth.* iii. 278-84) takes the myth as Indra aiding the charioteer (= Aruṇa) of the sun at the critical moment of the winter solstice : this is fanciful.

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In these cases, and in those which have been noted above, there is no trace of direct worship of the horse as such, whether as an individual of special qualities or as a species. Nor is any such worship of the bull to be found : as the sun and Agni are represented in the ritual by horse fetishes, so also in the ritual Indra and Rudra are represented rarely by bulls, and a bull plays an obscure part in the legend of Mudgala and his wife,⁵ which has been interpreted in the most diverse ways and which is clearly without value for mythology : the bull is the theriomorphic form of Indra, Dyaus, and more rarely of other gods. The cow is often the theriomorphic form of the rain cloud or the beams of dawn : hence the many-coloured cows which yield all desires in heaven mentioned in the Atharvaveda,⁶ and the post-Vedic Kāmaduh, a wish-milking cow who dwells in the heaven of Indra. Iḍā and Aditi are also addressed as cows, and the gods are born of cows. But the actual worship of the cow as such is not found in the Rigveda : the most that can be said is that perhaps from her connexion with the Iḍā and Aditi the cow was becoming invested with sacred character : the term *aghnyā*, which is addressed to her, or used of her, sixteen times, denotes that she should not be killed, an idea which was not, however, the early idea. One great Vedic hero, Atithigva, has his name from his hospitable habit of slaying oxen or cows for guests; the tradition that beef was the proper food for guests prevailed throughout the Vedic age, and the eating of meat was never a general taboo, seeing that the great Vedic ritual authority Yājñavalkya was credited with the dictum that he ate meat if it was in a certain condition, variously interpreted as coming from the shoulder, or firm.¹ The opposite doctrine of Ahiṅsā which forbade the taking of life, even animal, is however reflected in many passages such as the declaration that he who eats beef is born again in earth as a man of evil fame,² and the warnings of retribution in the next world which are offered to eaters of meat³ in this. Moreover, in the Atharvaveda⁴ we find the express assertion of the sacred character of the cow, which points to that animal having become in itself an object of worship.

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⁵ RV. x. 102; cf. Bloomfield, ZDMG. xlviii. 541 ff.; Keith, *JRAS.* 1911, p. 1005.

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⁶ AV. iv. 34. 8. Cf. the Çabalī offering of the domestic ritual; PB. xxi. 1. 5; Hopkins, *Trans. Conn. Acad.* xv. 27, n. 2; Güntert, *Weltkönig*, p. 368.

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¹ Macdonell and Keith, *Vedic Index*, ii. 145-7.

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² ÇB. iii. 1. 2. 21.

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³ KB. xii. 3.

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⁴ xii. 4, 5. Cf. RV. viii. 101. 15, 16.

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The goat is the animal which draws the car of Pūṣan, and it may be that in some cases Pūṣan was conceived in goat shape: it is also the name of the 'one-footed goat', Aja Ekapād, which seems to be the lightning: here and there it is conceived as Agni. The ass draws the car of the Açvins. The boar is the theriomorphic form of the Maruts, Rudra, and Vṛtra: in the Brāhmaṇas it also occurs as the form assumed by Prajāpati when he raises the earth from the waters,⁵ which is the beginning of the boar incarnation of Viṣṇu of the post-Vedic literature. The dog occurs in the two brindled dogs, Çabala, reminiscent of Kerberos, and Çyāma of Yama, the god of the dead, who are called Sārameya, a name denoting descent from Saramā.⁶ This indicates, though it does not conclusively prove, that Saramā, who figures as the messenger of Indra in the myth of the Paṇis, was treated as a dog, and this tradition, which is not expressly set out in the Rigveda, is the account of the later texts and of Yāska, who calls her the bitch of the gods. In all these cases there is clearly either theriomorphism, or the natural association of animals with the gods on the model of the relation of man and the animals. This last fact explains in all probability the figure of the male ape Vṛṣākapi who causes trouble between Indra and Indrāṇī:⁷ the effort to find some deity behind the ape is of doubtful validity, though it has naturally been thought possible to connect him with the monkey god Hanumant, who has been explained plausibly as a god of the monsoon, rather than as a case of direct zoolatry.

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⁵ Macdonell, JRAS. xxvii. 178-89.

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⁶ RV. x. 14. 11; Yāska, Nir. xi. 25. Bloomfield (JAOS. xv. 163-72) makes them sun and moon. Carnoy (*Les Indo-Européens*, pp. 194, 226) treats them as kindly guardians of the dead; Arbman (*Rudra*, p. 260) as destroyers of the dead.

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⁷ RV. x. 86. Hillebrandt (*Ved. Myth.* iii. 278, n. 2) sees in him a constellation marking the beginning of the pressing of the Soma each year; Güntert (*Weltkönig*, p. 310), a vegetation spirit.

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The case of the tortoise is by no means so simple as that of most of the animals. In the piling of the fire altar in the ritual a tortoise is built into the altar, where it is left as lord of the waters to continue its existence;⁸ it is possible that here we have a trace of the reverence paid to the beast for itself, though it may be merely so treated as representing the waters. In the Çatapatha Brāhmaṇa,⁹ however, the tortoise is treated as the form assumed by Prajāpati for creating all creatures, and this view is embodied by the later mythology in the tortoise incarnation of Viṣṇu. The tortoise as Kaçyapa appears also beside Prajāpati in the Atharvaveda,¹ and in the Aitareya Brāhmaṇa² it is said that Viçvakarman promised the earth to Kaçyapa. In these cases there is merely theriomorphism. Theriomorphism is also found in the case of demons, who are not seldom called *mṛga*, ‘wild beast’, and specific enemies are called Aurṇavābha, ‘spider brood’, and Uraṇa, ‘ram’. By far the most frequent case, however, is that of Vṛtra, who is called the serpent repeatedly: we find also Ahi, ‘serpent’, not merely identified with Vṛtra, but occasionally alone, when he is described exactly as Vṛtra is described, as encompassing or swallowing the waters, and defeated by Indra. From this conception arises that of several Ahis of whom he is the chief.³ The term is also applied to Agni, and one god, Ahi Budhnya, has no other name.

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⁸ Weber, *Ind. Stud.* xiii. 250.

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⁹ vii. 4. 3. 5; 5. 1. 1.

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¹ xix. 53. 10.

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² viii. 21. 10.

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³ RV. ix. 88. 4; x. 139. 6; cf. i. 32. 14.

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Among the birds also theriomorphism is the normal explanation of their mention. The sun is essentially a bird, and is twice in the Rigveda⁴ called Garutmant, whence arises the sun bird Garuḍa of the latest Vedic period. The eagle is connected with Indra, and Indra seems, like Verethraghna in the Avesta and Odin in Germanic mythology, to have assumed an eagle shape: Agni is also an eagle, and Soma is often called a bird.

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⁴ Hopkins, *Rel. of India*, p. 45. For parallels cf. von Schroeder, *Arische Religion*, ii. 77.

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There are, however, some traces of real reverence of animals, more certain than that of the tortoise, and more direct in origin than that of the cow whose divinity is really on the growth in the Vedic period. Thus in the case of birds the Rigveda⁵ twice invokes a bird of omen to give auspicious signs: it relegates, however, the owl and the pigeon to the rank of the messengers of Yama, but it is reasonable in this case to suggest more direct reverence of a sort at an early period. It must, however, be admitted that this cannot be proved: even in the later literature⁶ the owl is styled the messenger of the evil spirits, and the beast of prey, covered with blood, and the vulture, which preys on the dead, are called the messengers of Yama, or of Yama and Bhava. A bird king is Tārkṣya Vaipaçyata according to the Çatapatha Brāhmaṇa.⁷

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⁵ ii. 42, 43.

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⁶ HGS. i. 16. 19 ff.; Kauç. 129; TA. iv. 28.

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⁷ xiii. 4. 3. 9.

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Direct worship is clear in the homage paid to the snakes at the beginning and the end of the rains when they are specially dangerous.⁸ Of this there is no trace whatever in the Rigveda: the only deity, as opposed to demon, is Ahi Budhnya and that his snake character was real, and not mere theriomorphism, is not suggested by anything we know of that deity. The demon Vṛtra was not a snake, but a natural phenomenon in origin, and the Rigveda does not propitiate him. But in the later Saṁhitās we do find the apotropaeic worship of the snakes set on a level with that of such beings as the Gandharvas. They are stated to be in earth, air, and heaven, and in one hymn of the Atharvaveda,⁹ which knows snake deities well, some individual snakes may be referred to. In the Sūtras offerings are prescribed for the snakes of the three regions,¹ they are washed, combed, presented with collyrium, ointment and garlands, and duly fed ;² they receive offerings along with gods, plants, and demons, and blood is poured out for them,³ a fact which brings them into conjunction with Rudra. It is only reasonable to recognize in this direct worship of the terrible snake, which is thus propitiated and honoured in the hope that it will stay away from the houses of those who show it respect. The feeling is common in modern India, and is a good case of a propitiation due to terror and awe rather than to loving admiration. It is possible that the mention of snakes of the air and the sky may have been aided by the conception of the snake Vṛtra, but it may be due merely to the formalism of the ritual, and the constant tendency to spread every power over the three parts of the universe. Several names of great snakes are known to us, e. g. Takṣaka, and Arbuda Kādraveya is at once a snake-priest and a snake-king.

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⁸ Winternitz, *Der Sarpabali* (Vienna, 1888). Cf. Arbman, *Rudra*, pp. 77 ff.; Hopkins, *Trans. Conn. Acad.* xv. 30, n. 1.

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⁹ xi. 9; Bloomfield, SBE. xlii. 631–4. Such worship in Greece is often only theriomorphic; Farnell, *Greece and* *Babylon*, pp. 78, 79. See also PB. iv. 9. 6 ; xxv. 15. 1 ff. ; ÇB. ii. 5. 2. 47 ; iv. 6. 9. 17 ; xiii. 4. 3. 9 ; AB. vi. 1.

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¹ AGS. ii. 1. 9 ; PGS. ii. 14. 9 ; BhGS. ii. 1.

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² AGS. iii. 4. 1 ; ÇGS. iv. 9. 3 ; 15. 4.

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³ AGS. iv. 8. 27.

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While the snakes are the most lasting and prominent instance of a worship intended in the main to avert danger, it is of course possible that the common ideas that the earth spirit takes the form of a snake, and that the soul of an ancestor lives on in a snake which is about the house, had something to do with the sacred character and kindly treatment of the snakes. There are other instances of a temporary propitiation of animals, which might else be harmful : thus the Kauçika Sūtra⁴ tells of the making of offerings to ants, the white in the east, the black in the south, and so on : the ants⁵ are regarded, as we have seen, as important beasts in that they can find water everywhere, and in the myth they play the part of the means of depriving Viṣṇu as the sacrifice of his head. If there are worms in a cow, an offering is made to worms,⁶ and similarly an offering may in a case of need be made to the king of the moles.⁷ These acts indeed are not precisely of the greatest importance : they merely amount to the recognition of the power of the animals to injure, and the desirability of making them a present to appease their will to work injury : the precise parallel is the practice in Greece⁸ of offering something to the flies to deter them from infesting the sacrifice. The case of the frogs, who seem in one hymn of the Rigveda⁹ to be treated as having power to send prosperity through the rain which marks their awakening from their slumber in the mud, is obscure. The frog often serves in the ritual as a representative of the cooling water, and therefore this case might be reduced to theriomorphism, but that is less likely.

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⁴ 116 ; Weber, *Omina und Portenta*, p. 382.

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⁵ Hillebrandt, *Ved. Myth.* iii. 277, 337.

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⁶ TA. iv. 36.

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⁷ GGS. iv. 4. 31. The mole is itself offered to earth, VS. xxiv. 26 ; it is Rudra's beast, ApÇS. viii. 17. 1 ; Hillebrandt, *Ved. Myth.* ii. 187, n. 1, 200, n. 1.

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⁸ Farnell, *Greece and Babylon*, p. 78.

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⁹ RV. vii. 103 ; Bloomfield, JAOS. xvi. 173–9 ; Oldenberg, *Rel. des Veda*², p. 68. *Contra*, Max Müller, *Sansk. Lit.* pp. 494, 495 ; Deussen, *Gesch. der Phil.* I. i. 101, 102.

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It should be added that in the list of sacrifices given in the Yajurveda¹ we find some animal offerings to such entities as the bull-king and the tiger-king: these would be worth consideration only if it were possible to take seriously all the lists of offerings prescribed in these cases: considerations of common sense enable us to relegate many of them to the realms of priestly fancy.

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¹ TS. v. 5. 11.

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