Vedic Mythology c5.s1.1

Language: English

c5.s1.1.1

§ 11. Dyaus.—By far the most frequent use of the word *dyaus* is as a designation of the concrete ‘sky’, in which sense it occurs at least 500 times in the RV. It also means ‘day’¹ about 50 times. When personified as the god of heaven, Dyaus is generally coupled with Earth in the dual compound *dyāvāpṛthivī*, the universal parents. No single hymn of the RV. is addressed to Dyaus alone. When he is mentioned separately the personification is limited almost entirely to the idea of paternity. The name then nearly always appears in the nominative or genitive case. The latter case, occurring about 50 times, is more frequent than all the other cases together. The genitive is regularly connected with the name of some other deity who is called the son or daughter of Dyaus. In about three-fourths of these instances Uṣas is his daughter, while in the remainder the Aśvins are his offspring (*napātā*), Agni is his son (*sūnu*) or child (*śiśu*), Parjanya, Sūrya, the Ādityas, the Maruts, and the Aṅgirases are his sons (*putra*). Out of its thirty occurrences in the nominative the name appears only eight times alone, being otherwise generally associated with Pṛthivī or mentioned with various deities mostly including Pṛthivī. In these eight passages he is three times styled a father (1, 90⁷. 164³³; 4, 1¹⁰), once the father of Indra (4, 72³), once he is spoken of as rich in seed (*suretāḥ*) and as having generated Agni (4, 17⁴);

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in the remaining three he is a bull (5, 36⁵) or a red bull that bellows downwards (5, 58⁶), and is said to have approved when Vṛtra was slain (6, 72³). In the dative the name is found eight times. In these passages in the RV. where they are spoken of as great and small, young and old (1, 27¹³). It is probable that this statement represents the settled view of the Vedic poets as to gradation of rank among the gods (cp. pp. 14. 17). It is only a seeming contradiction when in one passage (8, 30¹) it is said with reference to the gods, 'none of you is small or young; you are all great'; for a poet addressing the gods directly on this point could hardly have expressed himself differently. [It is certain that two gods tower above the rest as leading deities about equal in power, Indra as the mighty warrior and Varuṇa as the supreme moral ruler.] The older form of Varuṇa became, owing to the predominance of his ethical qualities, the supreme god of Zoroastrianism as Ahura Mazda, while in India Indra developed into the warrior god of the conquering Aryans. Varuṇa appears as preëminent only when the supreme laws of the physical and moral world are contemplated, and cannot be called a popular god. It has been held by various scholars that Varuṇa and the Ādityas were the highest gods of an older period, but were later displaced by Indra (p. 28). There is at any rate no evidence to show that Indra even in the oldest Rigvedic period occupied a subordinate position.

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It is true that Ahura Mazda is the highest god and Indra only a demon in the Avesta. But even if Indra originally possessed coördinate power with Varuṇa in the Indo-Iranian period, he was necessarily relegated to the background when the reform of the Avestan religion made Ahura Mazda supreme²⁰ (cp. p. 28). [Next to Indra and Varuṇa come the two great ritual deities Agni and Soma.] These two along with Indra are, judged by the frequency of the hymns addressed to them, the three most popular deities of the RV. For, roughly speaking, three-fifths of its hymns are dedicated to their praise. The fact that the hymns to Agni and Indra always come first in the family books, while the great majority of the hymns to Soma have a whole book, the ninth, to themselves, confirms this conclusion²¹. Following the number of the hymns dedicated to each of the remaining deities, combined with the frequency with which their names are mentioned in the RV., five classes of gods may be distinguished: 1) Indra, Agni, Soma; 2) Aśvins, Maruts, Varuṇa; 3) Uṣas, Savitṛ, Bṛhaspati, Sūrya, Pūṣan; 4) Vāyu, Dyāvā-pṛthivī, Viṣṇu, Rudra; 5) Yama, Parjanya²². The statistical standard can of course be only a partial guide. For Varuṇa is celebrated (mostly together with Mitra) in only about thirty hymns, his name being mentioned altogether about 250 times, while the Aśvins can claim over 50 hymns and are named over 400 times. Yet they cannot be said to approach Varuṇa in greatness.

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Their relative prominence is doubtless owing to their closer connexion with the sacrifice as deities of morning light. Again, the importance of the Maruts is due to their association with Indra. Similar considerations would have to enter into an estimate of the relative greatness of other deities in the list. Such an estimate involves considerable difficulties and doubts. A classification according to gradations of rank would therefore not afford a satisfactory basis for an account of the Vedic gods.