Vedic Mythology c3.s3.4

c3.s3.4

As soon as a person has taken the place of a natural force in the imagination, the poetical fancy begins to weave a web of secondary myth, into which may be introduced in the course of time material that has nothing to do with the original creation, but is borrowed from elsewhere. Primary and essential features, when the material is not too limited, betray themselves by constant iteration. Thus in the Indra myth his fight with Vṛtra, which is essential, is perpetually insisted on, while the isolated statement that he strikes Vṛtra's mother with his bolt (1, 32⁹) is clearly a later touch, added by an individual poet for dramatic effect. Again, the epithet 'Vṛtra-slaying', without doubt originally appropriate to Indra alone, is in the RV. several times applied to the god Soma also. But that it is transferred from the former to the latter deity, is sufficiently plain from the statement that Soma is 'the Vṛtra-slaying intoxicating plant' (6, 17¹¹), the juice of which Indra regularly drinks before the fray. The transference of such attributes is particularly easy in the RV. because the poets are fond of celebrating gods in couples, when both share the characteristic exploits and qualities of each other (cp. § 44). Attributes thus acquired must of course be eliminated from the essential features. A similar remark applies to attributes and cosmic powers which are predicated, in about equal degree, of many gods. They can have no cogency as evidence in regard to a particular deity⁴. It is only when such attributes and powers are applied in a predominant manner to an individual god, that they can be adduced with any force. For in such case it is possible they might have started from the god in question and gradually extended to others. The fact must, however, be borne in mind in this connexion, that some gods are celebrated in very many more hymns than others. The frequency of an attribute applied to different deities must therefore be estimated relatively. Thus an epithet connected as often with Varuṇa as with Indra, would in all probability be more essential to the character of the former than of the latter. For Indra is invoked in about ten times as many hymns as Varuṇa. The value of any particular passage as evidence may be affected by the relative antiquity of the hymn in which it occurs. A statement occurring for the first time in a late passage may of course represent an old notion; but if it differs from what has been said on the same point in a chronologically earlier hymn, it most probably furnishes a later development. The tenth and the greater part of the first book of the RV.⁵ are therefore more likely to contain later conceptions than the other books. Moreover, the exclusive connexion of the ninth book with Soma Pavamāna may give a different complexion to mythological matter contained in another book. Thus Vivasvat and Trita are here connected with the preparation of Soma in quite a special manner (cp. §§ 18, 23). As regards the Brāhmaṇas, great caution should be exercised in discovering historically primitive notions in them; for they teem with far-fetched fancies, speculations, and identifications⁶.