The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v1.c19.s7.28

v1.c19.s7.28

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.