The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v1.c23.s2.44

v1.c23.s2.44

One set of demons seems still to show its essential connexion with a natural object, those which are conceived as embodied in plants. Agni and Indra are implored to destroy the demons together with the root,⁸ and the point, or three points, of demons is alluded to: it is natural to assume that the root is the incorporation of the deity, and this view is strengthened by the reference⁹ to those ‘whose god is the root’, an expression which surely denotes that the root was the actual demon, rather than merely that the demon was supposed to have taken up his abode¹ in the root, though the former conception might easily be passing into the latter.