The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v1.c20.s5.33

v1.c20.s5.33

We hear also in the Kauçika Sūtra² of an enumeration such as Agni, Brahman, Udaṅkya, Çūlvāṇa, Çatruṁjaya, Kṣātrāṇa, Mārtyuṁjaya, Mārtyava, Aghora, Takṣaka, Vaiçāleya, Hāhāhūhū, &c. Of these some have obviously reality of some kind or another: Takṣaka is a famous snake, and Hāhāhūhū seem to be two Gandharvas. We learn also³ of goddesses who weave, spin, spread out, and draw the threads of a garment, of night walkers and day walkers,⁴ of divine hosts and hosts not divine;⁵ in the funeral ritual⁶ Khyātṛ, Apākhyātṛ, Abhilālapant, and Apalālapant are addressed;⁷ and the list of some more or less abstract figures which are addressed as in some degree sacred might be considerably lengthened both from Vedic times and later on, such as the Ghoṣiṇī, who guards the cattle at pasture,⁸ or Dhanvantari, who in the epic becomes the physician of the gods,⁹ and who is possibly¹⁰ an old cloud deity, ‘whose boat is the cloud island’.