Vedic Mythology c5.s2.t3.2

c5.s2.t3.2

7, 34 16, 17) in which he is invoked alone. When only one other deity is referred to with him, it is either Apāṃ napāt (1, 186⁵) or Aja ekapād (10, 64⁴). When Ahi budhnya and Aja ekapād are mentioned together in the same verse, they are always (with the slight exception of 10, 66¹¹) in juxtaposition. The most characteristic enumerations in which the name is invoked are: Aja ekapād, Ahi budhnya, the ocean, Apāṃ napāt, Pṛśni (7, 35¹³); Ahi budhnya, Aja ekapād, Trita, Ṛbhukṣan, Savitṛ, Apāṃ napāt (2, 31⁶); the ocean, the stream, the space (*rajas*), the air, Aja ekapād, the thundering flood, Ahi budhnya, and all the gods (10, 66¹¹). Judged by these associates Ahi budhnya would seem to be an atmospheric deity, and he is enumerated in the Naighaṇṭuka (5, 4) among the divinities of the middle or aerial region. But it is only where he is mentioned alone that anything more definite than this can be gathered. In the verse which gives most information about him, the poet exclaims: 'I praise with songs the serpent born in water (*abjām*), sitting in the bottom (*budhne*) of the streams in the spaces' (7, 34¹⁶; *cp.* 10, 93⁵). This indicates that he dwells in the atmospheric ocean, and Yāska explains *budhna* as air (Nir. 10, 44). In the verse immediately following he is besought not to give his worshippers over to injury, and these identical words are addressed to him in another passage also (5, 41¹⁶). This suggests that there is something hurtful in his nature. Ahi is otherwise a term commonly applied to Vṛtra (§ 68), and Vṛtra enclosing the waters is described as overflowed by the waters or lying in them (ibid.) or at the bottom (*budhna*) of the air (1, 52⁶). Agni in the space of air is called a raging *ahi* (1, 79¹) and is also said to have been produced in the depth (*budhne*) of the great space (4, 11¹). Thus it may be surmised that Ahi budhnya was originally not different from Ahi Vṛtra, though he is invoked as a divine being, who resembles Apāṃ napāt, his baleful aspect only being hinted at. In later Vedic texts Ahi budhnya is allegorically connected with Agni Gārhapatya (VS. 5, 33; AB. 3, 36; TB. 1, 1, 10³). In post-Vedic literature Ahi budhnya is the name of a Rudra as well as an epithet of Śiva.