Vedic Mythology c7.s7: § 66. Deified Terrestrial Objects

Vedic Mythology c7.s7

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§ 66. Deified Terrestrial Objects

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A. Besides the phenomena and forces of nature, mostly aerial and celestial, and the earth itself (§ 34), various natural features of the earth's surface, as well as artificial objects, are treated as deities in the RV. It is the worship of inanimate things chiefly regarded as useful to man¹. It is not pantheistic, since each object is regarded as a separate divinity², but is rather fetishistic in its character.

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Rivers personified as goddesses have already been dealt with (§ 33).

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Mountains (*parvata*) are often in the RV. conceived as divinely animate, being invoked as deities nearly twenty times in the plural and four times in the singular. In this capacity they never appear alone, but only with other natural objects such as waters, rivers, plants, trees, heaven and earth (7, 34²³, &c.), or with gods like Savitṛ, Indra, and others (6, 49¹⁴, &c.). They are invoked as manly, firmly fixed, rejoicing in plenty (3, 54²⁰). Parvata is even three times lauded with Indra in the dual compound *Indrāparvatā* (1, 122³. 132⁶). The pair are spoken of as driving in a great car and are besought to come to the offering (3, 53¹). Here Parvata seems to be a mountain god, conceived anthropomorphically as a companion of Indra.

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Plants (*oṣadhi*) are also personified as divine. The whole of a long hymn of the RV. (10, 97)³ is devoted to their praise, mainly with reference to their healing powers⁴. They are called mothers and goddesses (v. 4), and Soma, to whom trees are subject, is described as their king. In another text a herb to be used medicinally is spoken of as a 'goddess born on the goddess earth' (AV. 6, 136¹). An animal sacrifice is even offered to plants in order to remove their obstruction to the attainment of offspring (TS. 2, 1, 5³).

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Large trees, called *vanaspati*, 'lord of the forest', are a few times addressed as deities either in the plural (7, 34²³; 10, 64⁸) or the singular (1, 90⁸; Vāl. 6⁴), chiefly along with Waters and Mountains. Later texts refer to the adoration paid to large trees passed in marriage processions⁵ (cp. p. 134).

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The forest as a whole appears as a deity under the name of Araṇyānī, the jungle goddess, who is invoked in RV. 10, 146. Here she is called the mother of beasts, abounding in food without tillage; and the various uncanny sounds heard in her dark solitudes are weirdly described. The plant, tree, and forest deities, however, play a very insignificant part not only in the RV., but even in the AV. and in the ritual of the lesser domestic sacrifices; while in the Buddhist literature they seem to have been more closely connected with human life than any other lower deities⁶.

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B. Implements. Another group of inanimate objects susceptible of personification and worship is formed by various implements of sacrifice. The deification of these is by Barth⁷ called by the rather misleading name of ritualistic pantheism⁸. The most important of these objects is the sacrificial post, which under the name of *vanaspati* and *svaru* is deified and invoked in RV. 3, 8. The tree is here described as well-lopped with the axe, as anointed and adorned by priests; and the posts set up by priests are gods, and as gods go to the gods (vv. ⁶. ⁹). In the tenth or eleventh verses of the Āprī hymns¹⁰, the post is described as thrice anointed with ghee and being set up beside the fire is invoked to let the offering go to the gods. In other verses of the same hymns the sacrificial grass (*barhis*) is twice (2, 3⁴; 10, 70⁴) addressed as a god, and more frequently the doors leading to the place of sacrifice, as goddesses (*devīr dvāraḥ*).

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The pressing stones (*grāvan*, also *adri*) are deified in three hymns (10, 76. 94. 175). They are spoken of as immortal, unaging, and more mighty even than heaven¹¹. When pressing they are like steeds or bulls and the sound of their voice reaches to heaven. They are invoked to drive away demons and destruction, and to bestow wealth and offspring. In two verses of the RV. (1, 285. 6) the mortar and pestle are invoked to resound aloud and to press Soma for Indra.

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¹¹ HVM. 1, 151.

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The AV. ascribes divine power of the highest order to Ucchiṣṭa, the ‘remnant’ of the sacrifice (AV. 11, 7)¹² as well as to different sacrificial ladles¹³.

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¹² OST. 5, 396; SPH. 87—8.

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¹³ OST. 5, 398.

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Agricultural implements named Śuna and Sīrā, probably the ploughshare and the plough, are invoked in a few verses of the RV. (4, 575—8), and a cake is assigned to them at the sacrifice in the ritual (ŚB. 2, 6, 35).

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Weapons, finally, are sometimes deified. The whole of RV. 6, 75 is devoted to the praise of various implements of war, armour, bow, quiver, and arrows. The arrow is adored as divine and is besought to grant protection and to attack the foe (vv. 11. 15. 16). The drum (*dundubhi*) is invoked to drive away dangers, foes, and demons (vv. 29—31); and a whole hymn of the AV. (5, 20) celebrates its praises¹⁴.

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¹⁴ ROTH, FaB. 99.

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C. Symbols. Material objects are occasionally mentioned in the later Vedic literature as symbols representing deities. Something of this kind (possibly an image) must be meant even in a passage of the RV., in which the poet asks, ‘Who will buy this my Indra for ten cows? When he has slain his foes he may give him back to me’ (4, 2410; cp. 8, 15). References to idols¹⁵ begin to appear in the later additions to the Brāhmaṇas and in the Sūtras¹⁶.

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¹⁵ The allusion to idols of Agni, seen in RV. 1, 1454. 5 by BOLLENSEN (ZDMG. 47, 586), is inconclusive.

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¹⁶ WEBER, Omina und Portenta 337. 367 f.; IS. 5, 149; KRV. note 79 a; HRI. 251.

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The wheel is in various ritual performances employed as a symbol of the sun, as representing both its shape and its motion. It is thus used in the Vājapeya sacrifice¹⁷, in the ceremony of laying the sacrificial fire, and at the solstitial festival¹⁸. In post-Vedic mythology, moreover, one of the weapons of Viṣṇu is a wheel (*cakra*)¹⁹.

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¹⁷ WEBER, Vājapeya 20. 34 f.

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¹⁸ ORV. 88, note 4.

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¹⁹ V. BRADKE, ZDMG. 40, 356.

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Gold or a firebrand was employed as a symbol of the sun, when drawing water after sunset (ŚB. 3, 9, 29); gold served the same purpose when the sacrificial fire was made up after sunset instead of before (ŚB. 12, 4, 46); and in piling the fire-altar, a disc of gold was placed on it to represent the sun (ŚB. 7, 4, 110)²⁰.

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²⁰ ORV. 255—61. 87—92.

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A symbol must have been used, as at a later period, in the phallic worship which was known in the earliest Vedic period, as is shown by the occurrence in two passages of the word *śiśnádevāḥ*, ‘those who have a phallus for their deity’. Such worship was, however, repugnant to the religious ideas of the RV.; for Indra is besought not to let the *śiśnadevāḥ* approach the sacrifice (7, 215), and he is said to have slain the *śiśnadevāḥ*, when he won the treasure of the hundred-gated fort (10, 993). In the post-Vedic period the phallus or *liṅga* became symbolical of Śiva's generative power and its worship is widely diffused in India even at the present day²¹.

Linked texts (4)

Ṛgvedasaṃhitā — Sanskrit
Atharvavedasaṃhitā — Atharvan & Aṅgiras, Sanskrit
Śatapathabrāhmaṇa — Yājñavalkya & Śāṇḍilya (Vedic teacher), Sanskrit
Taittirīyasaṃhitā — Sanskrit