Vedic Mythology c4.s1.3

c4.s1.3

The notion of parentage as a creative agency in the universe, chiefly connected with the birth of the sun at dawn and with the production of rain after drought, has three principle applications in the RV. The first is temporal, as involving the idea of priority. One phenomenon preceding another is spoken of as its parent. Thus the dawns generate (*jan*) the sun and the morning sacrifice (7, 78³), while Dawn herself is born of Night (1, 123⁹). As the point of view is changed, contradictions with regard to such relationships naturally arise (cp. p. 48). When the rising of the dawn is ascribed to the sacrifice of the Fathers, the explanation is to be found in this notion of priority. Secondly, a local application frequently occurs. The space in which a thing is contained or produced is its father or mother. Illustrations of this are furnished by purely figurative statements. Thus the quiver is called the father of the arrows (6, 75⁵) or the bright steeds of the sun are termed the daughters of his car (1, 50⁹). This idea of local parentage is especially connected with heaven and earth. Paternity is the characteristic feature in the personification of Dyaus (see § 11), and Dawn is constantly called the 'daughter of Heaven'. Similarly the Earth, who produces vegetation on her broad bosom (5, 84³), is a mother (1, 89⁴ &c.). Heaven and earth are, however, more often found coupled as universal parents, a conception obvious enough from the fact that heaven fertilizes the earth by the descent of moisture and light, and further developed by the observation that both supply nourishment to living beings, the one in the form of rain, the other in that of herbage. They are characteristically the parents of the gods (§ 44). As the latter are often said to have created heaven and earth, we thus arrive at the paradox of the Vedic poets that the children produced their own parents; Indra, for instance, being described as having begotten his father and mother from his own body (1, 159²; 10, 54³). Again, the raincloud cow is the mother of the lightning calf, or the heavenly waters, as carrying the embryo of the aerial fire, are its mothers, for one of the forms of the fire-god is 'the son of waters' (§ 24). 'Son of the steep' also appears to be a name of lightning in the AV. (1, 13²·³; cp. 26³ and RV. 10, 142²). Thirdly, the notion of parentage arises from a generic point of view: he who is the chief, the most prominent member of a group, becomes their parent. Thus Vāyu, Wind, is father of the Storm-gods (1, 134⁴), Rudra, father of the Maruts or Rudras, Soma, father of plants, while Sarasvatī is mother of rivers.