Vedic Mythology c5.s3.t3.11

c5.s3.t3.11

Bṛhaspati is a purely Indian deity. Both forms of the name occur throughout the older as well as the later books of the RV. But since appellations formed with *pati* (like *vācas pati*, *vāstoṣ pati*, *kṣetrasya pati*) to designate deities presiding over a particular domain, must be comparatively recent as products of reflexion¹⁰, this mythological creation can hardly go much further back than the beginning of the Rigvedic period. The accentuation of the word *bŕhaspáti* shows it to be an improper compound. The prior member might possibly be a neuter noun in *-as*¹¹, but the contemporaneous form *bráhmaṇas páti*, which is a kind of explanation, indicates that the poets of the RV. regarded it as the genitive¹² of a noun *bṛh*, from the same root as *brahman*.