The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v2.c32.s8.39

v2.c32.s8.39

It is of interest to note that, while in the main the magician is content to use the Vedic pantheon as it appears in the sacrificial ritual, he is also prepared when necessary to fashion fresh figures or to modify those already existing. While Rudra in his forms as Bhava and Çarva is invoked in a hymn⁸ against internal disease in terms which are suggestive of the popular favour which was to turn him into Çiva, the great god, Viṣṇu takes an inferior place, though the representation of his three steps can be used to strengthen the magic act.⁹ The Apsarases appear in close connexion with dice, possibly as Henry¹⁰ holds in the main because the term *krīḍ*, ‘play’, applies to them *par excellence*: such linguistic considerations are of real importance in Vedic thought. In battle charms we find not merely Apvā, the spirit of panic and its physical result, but also Triṣandhi, which is clearly Indra's bolt, Arbudi, and Nyarbudi, who is plainly but a verbal variant of the former.¹ In Henry's view² Arbudi himself is a duplicate of Indra, like Namuci, but this view is much less probable than that of Bloomfield,³ who sees in him an old derivative of Arbuda, the cloud serpent slain by Indra, who comes to be regarded later merely as a serpent divinity and auspicious, like Takṣaka, who also figures in the Atharvaveda.⁴ It is characteristic of the Atharvaveda that Asura in independent passages has always an evil sense, that abstract deities like Arāti,⁵ illiberality towards priests, and perhaps Nirṛti,⁶ dissolution, take a prominent place, and that a faded mythological figure like the mysterious Trita appears, in the form Tṛta,⁷ in connexion with a hymn which is interpreted as an expiation for the somewhat venial fault of marrying before an elder brother, a fact on which is based the theory of Max Müller,⁸ which Henry inclines to approve, that Tṛta is the departing sun. On the model of Pūṣan is created the god Sūṣan, from *sū*, 'beget', who is invoked to secure safe delivery.⁹