The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v2.c41.s4.4

v2.c41.s4.4

Dumézil seeks to show⁵ that on principle the silence of the Vedic texts is not fatal to the early character of the legend, considering that these texts show no disinterested narratives of legends, and that the philosophical thought of the Vedic age was not concerned with this special theme. Similarly, he insists that the Avesta represents most imperfectly the true Iranian nature beliefs. The arguments *a priori* have weight, but it seems impossible to accept his reconstructed primitive legend⁶ as established by the legends he recounts, including the Scandinavian legend of the beer of the Ases, the Greek legends of the war of the gods and the giants and of Prometheus and the Pithos of Immortality, the Latin tale of Anna Perenna or its Christian version as Anna Petronilla, a Celtic Grail legend and the Slav legend of Mikhailo Potyk and Maria, the white swan. Here and there in these tales common ideas can be seen, often doubtless much transformed, but there is far too little evidence to enable us to claim Indo-European antiquity for the complex myth which Dumézil evolves from the scanty evidence. The conclusion to be drawn is rather against than for the epic as a source of early myths; in truth what is in origin mythical is there often so transformed by imagination as to be barely recognizable, and a good deal more can be said for Hertel’s contention that the Brāhmaṇas present a much superior field for the discovery, in thin disguises, of true nature myths.