The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v1.c19.s9.3

v1.c19.s9.3

Another goddess who is clearly connected with nature is Pṛçni, the mother of the Maruts, who is doubtless the storm cloud:² the word is properly an adjective 'speckled', used of the bull, or the cow, and in the plural of the cows, which milk Soma for Indra. More interesting is the figure of Saraṇyū ³ who occurs in a curious legend in the Rigveda, in which it is narrated that Tvaṣṭr made a wedding for his daughter, that at the news all the world came together, that during the wedding Saraṇyū disappeared, but not it seems until she had been married to Vivasvant, that the gods hid the immortal from mortals, and making one of like form they gave her to Vivasvant: it is added that Saraṇyū bore the two Açvins when this happened and left two pairs behind her. Yāska tells us that she first bore the pair Yama and Yamī, and then changed her form to that of a mare and ran away: Vivasvant in the form of a horse pursued, and then were born the Açvins, while on the female of like form was born Manu Sāvarṇi. The tale is a strange one, and may be compared with the legend of the Tilphossian Erinys,⁴ who bore in horse form the steed Areion; the two myths probably belong to the same order of ideas, but it is difficult to say what the origin of the conception should be taken to have been. The horse form of Saraṇyū does not occur in the Rigveda: it can only be inferred and we do not know from what source Yāska obtained the details of the legend: it may have been an old tradition or merely a speculation: moreover the idea may have been caused by nothing more than the conception of the Açvins who may have been thought to have been in horse form, and not merely lords of horses, in which case the comparison with the Erinys must probably be given up. On the other hand, especially if the comparison is held to be valid, the figure of Saraṇyū may be brought into connexion with the Dawn, or the sun-maiden, whose swift nature her name would then be a good expression, since it is essentially derived from the root, *sṛ*, 'run'. The verbal correspondence with Erinys cannot however be accepted as proved, as it is clearly contrary to the phonology. Such a view, which is defended by Bloomfield, is more plausible than the suggestion which connects Saraṇyū with the storm, and which, accepting the identity with Erinys, seeks to trace the character of the Erinyes to this conception. S. Reinach ⁵ again has traced in Europe an old horse goddess (originally totemistic), found in Arcadia, in the legend of Cloelia, and as Epona in Gaul.