A History of Sanskrit Literature. Arthur Anthony MacDonell

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СКАЧАТЬ the flushing of the earlier morning.

      We living men now look upon her shining;

      They are coming who shall in future see her (i. 113, 11).

      In a similar strain another Rishi sings:—

      Again and again newly born though ancient,

      Decking her beauty with the self-same colours,

      The goddess wastes away the life of mortals,

      Like wealth diminished by the skilful player (i. 92, 10).

      The following stanzas from one of the finest hymns to Dawn (i. 113) furnish a more general picture of this fairest creation of Vedic poetry:—

      This light has come, of all the lights the fairest,

      The brilliant brightness has been born, far-shining.

      Urged onward for god Savitṛi’s uprising,

      Night now has yielded up her place to Morning.

      The sisters’ pathway is the same, unending:

      Taught by the gods, alternately they tread it.

      Fair-shaped, of different forms and yet one-minded,

      Night and Morning clash not, nor do they linger.

      Bright leader of glad sounds, she shines effulgent:

      Widely she has unclosed for us her portals.

      Arousing all the world, she shows us riches:

      Dawn has awakened every living creature.

      There Heaven’s Daughter has appeared before us,

      The maiden flushing in her brilliant garments.

      Thou sovran lady of all earthly treasure,

      Auspicious Dawn, flush here to-day upon us.

      In the sky’s framework she has shone with splendour;

      The goddess has cast off the robe of darkness.

      Wakening up the world with ruddy horses,

      Upon her well-yoked chariot Dawn is coming.

      Bringing upon it many bounteous blessings,

      Brightly shining, she spreads her brilliant lustre.

      Last of the countless mornings that have gone by,

      First of bright morns to come has Dawn arisen.

      Arise! the breath, the life, again has reached us:

      Darkness has gone away and light is coming.

      She leaves a pathway for the sun to travel:

      We have arrived where men prolong existence.

      Among the deities of celestial light, those most frequently invoked are the twin gods of morning named Açvins. They are the sons of Heaven, eternally young and handsome. They ride on a car, on which they are accompanied by the sun-maiden Sūryā. This car is bright and sunlike, and all its parts are golden. The time when these gods appear is the early dawn, when “darkness still stands among the ruddy cows.” At the yoking of their car Ushas is born.

      Many myths are told about the Açvins as succouring divinities. They deliver from distress in general, especially rescuing from the ocean in a ship or ships. They are characteristically divine physicians, who give sight to the blind and make the lame to walk. One very curious myth is that of the maiden Viçpalā, who having had her leg cut off in some conflict, was at once furnished by the Açvins with an iron limb. They agree in many respects with the two famous horsemen of Greek mythology, the Dioskouroi, sons of Zeus and brothers of Helen. The two most probable theories as to the origin of these twin deities are, that they represent either the twilight, half dark, half light, or the morning and evening star.

      In the realm of air Indra is the dominant deity. He is, indeed, the favourite and national god of the Vedic Indian. His importance is sufficiently indicated by the fact that more than one-fourth of the Rigveda is devoted to his praise. Handed down from a bygone age, Indra has become more anthropomorphic and surrounded by mythological imagery than any other Vedic god. The significance of his character is nevertheless sufficiently clear. He is primarily the thunder-god, the conquest of the demon of drought or darkness named Vṛitra, the “Obstructor,” and the consequent liberation of the waters or the winning of light, forming his mythological essence. This myth furnishes the Rishis with an ever-recurring theme. Armed with his thunderbolt, exhilarated by copious draughts of soma, and generally escorted by the Maruts or Storm-gods, Indra enters upon the fray. The conflict is terrible. Heaven and earth tremble with fear when Indra smites Vṛitra like a tree with his bolt. He is described as constantly repeating the combat. This obviously corresponds to the perpetual renewal of the natural phenomena underlying the myth. The physical elements in the thunderstorm are seldom directly mentioned by the poets when describing the exploits of Indra. He is rarely said to shed rain, but constantly to release the pent-up waters or rivers. The lightning is regularly the “bolt,” while thunder is the lowing of the cows or the roaring of the dragon. The clouds are designated by various names, such as cow, udder, spring, cask, or pail. They are also rocks (adri), which encompass the cows set free by Indra. They are further mountains from which Indra casts down the demons dwelling upon them. They thus often become fortresses (pur) of the demons, which are ninety, ninety-nine, or a hundred in number, and are variously described as “moving,” “autumnal,” “made of iron or stone.” One stanza (x. 89, 7) thus brings together the various features of the myth: “Indra slew Vṛitra, broke the castles, made a channel for the rivers, pierced the mountain, and delivered over the cows to his friends.” Owing to the importance of the Vṛitra myth, the chief and specific epithet of Indra is Vṛitrahan, “slayer of Vṛitra.” The following stanzas are from one of the most graphic of the hymns which celebrate the conflict of Indra with the demon (i. 32):—

      I will proclaim the manly deeds of Indra,

      The first that he performed, the lightning-wielder.

      He smote the dragon, then discharged the waters,

      And cleft the caverns of the lofty mountains.

      Impetuous as a bull, he chose the soma,

      And drank in threefold vessels of its juices.

      The Bounteous god grasped lightning for his missile,

      He struck down dead that first-born of the dragons.

      Him lightning then availèd naught, nor thunder,

      Nor mist nor hailstorm which he spread around him:

      When Indra and the dragon strove in battle,

      The Bounteous god gained victory for ever.

      Plunged in the midst of never-ceasing torrents,

      That stand not still but ever hasten onward,

      The waters bear off Vṛitra’s hidden body:

      Indra’s fierce foe sank down to lasting darkness.

      With the liberation of the waters is connected the winning of light and the sun. Thus we read that when Indra had slain the dragon Vṛitra with his bolt, releasing the waters for man, he placed the sun visibly in the heavens, or that the sun shone forth when Indra blew the dragon from the air.

      Indra naturally became the god of battle, and is more frequently invoked than any other deity as a helper in conflicts with earthly enemies. In the words of one poet, he protects the Aryan colour (varṇa) and subjects the black skin; while another extols him for having dispersed 50,000 of the black race and rent their citadels. His combats are frequently called gavishṭi, “desire of cows,” his gifts being considered the result of victories.

      The following stanzas СКАЧАТЬ