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The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v1.c20.s2: § 2. Tvaṣṭṛ and other Agent Gods

The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v1.c20.s2

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§ 2. Tvaṣṭṛ and other Agent Gods

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By far the most important of the agent gods is Tvaṣṭṛ, who is mentioned some sixty-five times in the Rigveda, most often in the late first and tenth books, but also in the family books, though rarely in the seventh of the Vasiṣṭha family, and in the eighth. Like the other gods of the Rigveda he goes to the heaven, and bestows blessings,⁴ but his characteristic feature is the iron axe, which he bears in his hand, and which marks him out as the skilled artificer. He forges the bolt of Indra, and the axe of Brahmaṇaspati, and especially the cup out of which the gods drink. He is, further, the power which shapes the germ in the womb for men and animals alike: he fashions husband and wife for each other from the womb, and presides over generation: so in the later Vedic texts¹ he is constantly mentioned in connexion with the making of forms, and the pairing of men and animals. These texts also ascribe to him the production of the horse.

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⁴ RV. x. 10. 5; AV. vi. 78. 3.

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¹ TB. i. 4. 7. 1; ÇB. xi. 4. 3. 3.

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Tvaṣṭṛ stands in special relation to the human race in that his daughter Saraṇyū, wife of Vivasvant, produced the twins, Yama and Yamī, whence came the human race. He is also father of Bṛhaspati, of Agni, and even of Indra, who, however, seems to have slain him for withholding from him the Soma. Indra also was hostile to Viçvarūpa, the three-headed son of Tvaṣṭṛ, from whom he sought to win the cows: he slew Viçvarūpa, and, when Tvaṣṭṛ in anger refused to allow him to take part in his Soma sacrifice, Indra came and drank the Soma by force.² As Tvaṣṭṛ is himself called more often than any other god Viçvarūpa, it is difficult not to suspect that the connexion of Tvaṣṭṛ with Viçvarūpa of the three heads is due to the similarity of name, and it is perhaps hence that there arises the hostility between Tvaṣṭṛ and Indra: the old character of the Viçvarūpa myth is vouched for by its Indo-European parallels. As son in law of Tvaṣṭṛ Vāyu once is mentioned.

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² TS. ii. 4. 12. 1; ÇB. i. 6. 3. 6.

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In the Rigveda Tvaṣṭṛ is normally mentioned along with gods of similar character, such as Savitṛ, Dhātṛ, Prajāpati, and, less naturally, Pūṣan. With Savitṛ he is twice³ indeed, it seems, identified in the phrase ‘god Tvaṣṭṛ, the stimulator, omniform,’ and the identification with Savitṛ and Prajāpati is asserted in the Kauçika Sūtra.⁴ In the ritual⁵ his most prominent feature is his combination with the divine ladies, who seem to be the wives of the gods, presumably because of his connexion with generation. We hear also of his daughters who cure Indra’s ophthalmic sleeplessness, and evoke him from a cow in which he takes refuge from Vṛtra, thus becoming his mothers.⁶

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³ RV. iii. 55. 19; x. 10. 5.

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⁴ Weber, *Omina und Portenta*, pp. 391, 392.

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⁵ As in RV. i. 22. 9, &c.

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⁶ PB. xii. 5. 19 ff. For the eye motif Hopkins (*Trans. Conn. Acad.* xv. 49) compares the legend in TS. vi. 1. 1. 5; ÇB. iii. 1. 3. 13.

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It results also from the special position of Tvaṣṭṛ with regard to generation that, when in the Soma ritual at a certain point in the rite the wife of the sacrificer comes up to perform an act intended to be symbolic, and productive of the process of generation, she is brought up by the Neṣṭṛ, the priest who stands in the closest relations to the god.⁷

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⁷ TS. vi. 5. 8. 6; ÇB. iv. 4. 2. 18.

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The etymological sense of Tvaṣṭṛ seems clear: it is formed from a root *tvakṣ*, which has a parallel in the Avesta, and which has the sense of fashion, like the normal *takṣ*. Oldenberg⁸ considers that the god is no more than the personification of creative activity, and so far as the Rigveda goes it seems difficult to deny that this theory is adequate. On the other hand Hillebrandt,¹ who, for no adequate reason, suggests that the etymology may be really from some aboriginal word, is strongly of opinion that the mythical conception is the concrete one of the sun, his son Viçvarūpa being the moon. The theory is open as regards Viçvarūpa to fatal difficulty, but there is no objection, having regard to the case of Savitṛ, to see in Tvaṣṭṛ another case of an agent god, who has come into separate existence from being at first merely an epithet of a more concrete divinity. The post-Vedic mythology indeed regards him as an Āditya, but this fact is of very little consequence. Ludwig ² takes him to be a god of the year, but this is obviously much less likely than the suggestion of the sun as a great creative power.

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⁸ *Rel. des Veda*², p. 237. Cf. the German Wie-land, E. H. Meyer, *Germ. Myth.*, pp. 300 f.

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¹ *Ved. Myth.* i. 517; Hardy, *Ved.-brahm. Periode*, pp. 30, 31. Hillebrandt holds that Agni (RV. i. 95. 2; x. 2. 7) as son of Tvaṣṭṛ is the moon.

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² *Rigveda*, iii. 333–5.

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Tvaṣṭṛ figures also in the myth of the Ṛbhus making his cup into four; even if the cup be the moon, as is possible, it does not shed any light either on the original nature of Tvaṣṭṛ or on his connexion with the moon.

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The other agent gods are of very minor importance. Dhātṛ, the creator, is a development, only found about a dozen times, and only once outside the tenth book, of the epithet creator, applied to Indra or Viçvakarman, and often used of the priests as establishers of the sacrifice. He is the creator of the heaven, air, earth, sun and moon, is besought to grant offspring, a clear eye, and length of days, and in the post-Vedic period is a synonym of Brahman or Prajāpati as the all-god. Vidhātṛ, ‘disposer’, is used with Dhātṛ as an epithet of Indra and Viçvakarman once each: it in two enumerations ³ attains a slight existence. With Dhātṛ in its solitary occurrence in book vii is found Dhartṛ,⁴ ‘supporter’, elsewhere an epithet of Indra and other gods. The god Trātṛ, ‘protector’, is found five times ⁵ with other deities, referring perhaps to Savitṛ and Bhaga: the word is usually an epithet of Indra, Agni or the Ādityas. A leader god, Netṛ, is invoked in one hymn only, and asked to lead to prosperity in life.⁶ Of goddesses we have Deṣṭrī, who is invoked with Dhātṛ and Mātariçvan in the marriage hymn, and the class of protectors, Varūtrī, known from the Rigveda onwards.

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³ RV. vi. 50. 12; ix. 81. 5.

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⁴ vii. 35. 3.

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⁵ RV. i. 106. 7; iv. 45. 5, 7; viii. 18. 20; x. 128. 7.

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⁶ RV. v. 50.

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