has given the sun, has given the prolific cow, and he has given golden wealth destroying the Dasyus, he has protected the Aryan colour." iv. 26, 2: aham bhūmim adadām āryāya aham vṛishṭim dāśushe martyāya | “I have given the earth to the Arya, and rain to the worshipping mortal." vi. 18, 3: tvam ha nu tyad adamāyo dasyūn ekaḥ krishṭir avanor äryāya | "Thou didst then subdue the Dasyus, and gavest the people to the Arya." vi. 25, 3: ābhir viśvāḥ abhiyujo vishūchir āryāya viśaḥ avatārīr dāsīḥ | “With these succours thou hast subjected all the distracted hostile Dasyu peoples to the Arya." viii. 24, 27 yaḥ rikshad amhaso muchad yo vā āryāt sapta sindhushu | vadhar dāsasya tuvinṛimna ninamaḥ | "Who delivered from great straits; who, o god of mighty force, didst in (the land of) the seven rivers turn away from the Arya the weapon of the Dasyu." viii. 87, 6: tvam hi śaśvatīnām Indra dartā purām asi | hantā dasyor manor vṛidhaḥ patir divaḥ "Thou, Indra, art the destroyer of unnumbered cities; the slayer of the Dasyu; the prosperer of the (Aryan) man; the lord of the sky." x. 49, 2: aham S'ushṇasya śnathitā vadhar yamam na yo rare āryam nāma dasyave | "I, the smiter, have stayed the weapon of S'ushna; I do not abandon the Aryan race to the Dasyu." x. 86, 19: ayam emi vichākaśad vichinvan dāsam āryam | “I come beholding and distinguishing the Dasa and the Arya." (I am unable, however, to say who is the speaker here.)206 206 Indra with Agni is, however, besought in vi. 60 to slay all enemies, Āryas as well as Dasyus; hato vṛittrāni āryā hato dāsāni satpatī | hato viśvā apa dvishaḥ). In x. 38, 3, Indra alone is similarly addressed: Yo no dasaḥ āryo vā purushṭuta adevaḥ Indra yudhaye chiketati | asmābhir te sushahāḥ santu śatravas tvayā vayam tān vanuyāma sangame | "Whatever ungodly man, o much-lauded Indra, whether a Dasa or an Arya, designs to fight with us,-may all such enemies be easy to overcome; may we slay them in the conflict." And in x. 102, 3, it is said: antar yachha jighāmsato vajram Indra abhidāsataḥ | dāsasya vā maghavann āryasya vā sanutar yavaya vadham | "Arrest, o Indra, the bolt of the destroyer who seeks to slay us; avert far from us the stroke, whether of Dasa or of Arya." Indra and Varuna are invoked for the same object in vii. 83, 1: Dāsā cha vṛittrā hatam āryāṇi cha sudāsam Indrā-varunā 'vasā 'vatam | “Slay both Dasa and Arya enemies; protect Sudas with your succour, o Indra and Varuna.” So too in x. 83, 1, Manyu (personified Wrath) is prayed: sāhyāma dāsam āryam tvayā yujā sahskṛitena sahasā sahasvatā | “May we, with thee for our ally, overcome the Dasa and the Arya, with force-impelled, vigorous, energy." Perhaps ii. 11, 19 (sanema ye te ūtibhis taranto viśvāḥ spṛidhaḥ āryena dasyun) may have the same sense. In x. 65, 11, certain bountiful deities are spoken of as generating prayer, the cow, the horse, plants, trees, the earth, the mountains, the waters, as elevating the sun in the sky, and as spreading Aryan insti (7) Apparent mutual incongruity of some of the preceding representations of Indra. The reader who is not familiarly acquainted with the hymns of the Veda, either in the original or by translations, may think that he perceives an incompatibility between the conceptions of the god, which he will find in the different parts of the preceding sketch. And, according to our idea, no doubt, there is an incompatibility. The naïf familiarity with which Indra is treated in some places seems irreconcilable with the lofty ideas of his greatness which other portions express. And more particularly the sensual character, which is generally attributed to the god, appears to be in opposition to the moral perfection which is elsewhere described as an essential feature of his nature. But however incompatible, according to our ideas, they may seem to be, both of these sets of representations occur side by side, in the same hymns; and we must account for their co-existence and juxtaposition by supposing that the ancient Indian poets regarded the deity who was the object of their adoration as anthropopathically partaking, in a higher degree, of the elements, sensuous as well as intellectual and moral, which, on the evidence of their own consciousness, they knew to be equally constituent parts of their own nature. It must be further borne in mind that these ancient authors did not connect the same low associations as we now connect with the sensuous, or even sensual, principle in the character of the god which is exemplified in his love for the exhilarating draughts of his favourite beverage. This is clearly shewn by the high rank which, as we shall hereafter see, they assigned to Soma himself, as the deity in whom this intoxicating influence was personified, and by the power which they ascribed to him of conferring immortality upon his votaries. And that these apparently incongruous conceptions are not the products of different minds in various stages of development, but of the same poets, may be seen from the following instances. In ii. 15, 2, Indra is said to have fulfilled some of his grandest functions under the influence of the soma-juice: avamse dyām astabhāyad bṛihantam ā rodasi aprinad sations upon the earth (brahma gām aśvam janayantaḥ oshadhīr vanaspatīn prithivīm parvatān apaḥ | sūryam divi rohayantaḥ sudānavaḥ āryā vratā visṛijantaḥ adhi kihami). In antariksham | sa dhārayad pṛithivīm paprathach cha somasya tā made Indraś chakāra | "He fixed the heaven in empty space; he filled the two worlds and the air; he supported the earth and spread it out; these things Indra did in the exhilaration of the soma." Similarly in viii. 36, 4, Janitā divo janitā prithivyāḥ piba somam madāya kaṁ śatakrato | "Generator of Heaven, generator of the Earth, drink soma to exhilarate thee, o god of mighty force." In viii. 67, 5, as we have seen above, p. 112, Indra is said to hear and see everything. the seventh verse of the same hymn we are told that the belly of him, the impetuous actor, the slayer of Vrittra, and drinker of soma, is full of vigour (kratvaḥ it purnam udaram turasya asti vidhataḥ | vrittṛaghnaḥ somapāvnaḥ). And in viii. 81, 6, it is said of him asya pītvā madānām devo devasya ojasā | viśvā 'bhi bhuvanā 'bhavat | "Drinking, a god, of the exhilarating draughts of this god (Soma), he, by his energy, overcame all beings (or worlds)." (8) Professor Roth's theory of the supersession of the worship of Varuna by that of Indra. Professsor Roth is of opinion that Varuna belongs to an older dynasty of gods than Indra, and that during the Vedic age the high consideration originally attaching to the former was in course of being transferred to the latter. In support of his position that Varuna's worship was then declining, he urges the circumstance that, in the tenth book of the Rig-veda, which contains the latest productions of that period, there is not a single entire hymn addressed to this deity.207 207 See the Journal of the German Oriental Society, vi. 73; and Böhtlingk and Roth's Sanskrit and German Lexicon, s.v. Indra. Professor Whitney adopts the same view (Journ. Amer. Orient. Society, iii. 327). Windischmann, in his Mithra, p. 54, extends the same remark to that god also. The passage is translated in the 2nd vol. of this work, p. 295. Although, however, there is no hymn in the tenth Mandala addressed exclusively to Varuna, there are two, the 126th, of eight verses, and the 185th, of three verses, in which he is invoked along with two of the other Adityas, Mitra and Aryaman. In only two verses of the former of these hymns is reference made to any other god, viz., to Rudra, the Maruts, and Agni in the verse 5, and Agni in verse 8. Varuna is also invoked, or referred to, along with other deities, in numerous single verses of the 10th Mandala, viz., in 8, 5; 10, 6; 11, 1; 12, 8: 14, 7; 30, 1; 31, 9; 35, 10; 36, 1, 3, 12, 13; 37, 1; 51, 2, 4; 61, 17; 63, 9; 64, 5, 12; 65, 1, 5, 8, 9; 66, 2; 70, 11; 75, 2; 83, 2; 84, 7; 85, 17, 24; 89, 8, 103, 9; 109, 2; 173, 5. 9; 93, 4; 97, 16; 98, 1; 99, 10; 125, 1; 130, 5; 132, 2: 147, 5; 167, 3; 113, 5; 123, 6; 124, 4, 5, 7: See the index to Langlois's French translation of the R.V. I give the substance of his interesting observations : The supersession of the one god by the other Roth considers to be a result, or feature, of the gradual modification which the old Arian religion soon began to undergo after it had been transplanted into India. The more supersensuous or spiritual elements of this religion he thinks were preserved, though in a peculiar and somewhat altered form, in the Persian creed, which, at the same time, rejected almost entirely the gods representing the powers of nature, whom it had also inherited from an earlier age. The Indian faith, as found in the Rigveda, has, on the contrary, according to Roth, begun already to give the preference to these latter deities, to transfer to them an ever-increasing dignity and honour, to draw down the divine life into nature, and to bring it ever closer to man. Proof of this is especially to be found in the development of the myth regarding Indra, a god who, in the earlier period of Arian religious history, either had no existence, or was confined to an obscure province. The Zend legend assigns to another god the function which forms the essence of the later myth concerning Indra. This god Trita, however, disappears in the Indian mythology of tho Vedic age, and is succeeded by Indra. And not only so, but towards the end of this period Indra begins to dislodge even Varuna himself, the highest god of the ancient creed, from the position which is shewn, partly by historical testimonies, and partly by the very conception of his character, to belong to him, and becomes, if not the supreme god, at least the national god, whom his encomiasts strive to elevate above the ancient Varuna. This process was completed in the post-vedic period, as is shewn already in the Brahmanas and other works of the same era. Indra becomes the chief of the Indian heaven, and maintains this place even in the composite system. which adopted into itself the three great gods. The course of the movement was therefore this, that an old god, common to the Arians (i.e. the Persians and Indians), and perhaps also to the entire IndoGermanic race, Varuna-Ormuzd-Uranos, is thrown back into the darkness, and in his room Indra, a peculiarly Indian, and a national god, is intruded. With Varuna disappears at the same time the ancient character of the people, while with Indra there was introduced in the same degree a new character, foreign to the primitive Indo-Germanic nature. Viewed in its internal aspect, this modification of the religious conceptions of the Aryas consists in an ever-increasing tendency to attenuate the supersensuous, mysterious side of the creed, until the gods, who were originally the highest and most spiritual, have become unmeaning representatives of nature, Varuna being nothing more than the ruler of the sea, and the Adityas merely regents of the sun's course. This process of degradation naturally led to a reaction. (See the Journal of the German Oriental Society, vi. 76 f.) The superior antiquity of Varuna to Indra may no doubt (as intimated in the passage just quoted), be argued from the fact already noticed of the coincidence of the name of the former with that of the Greek Oupavós, which goes some way to prove that a deity of this name was worshipped by the entire Indo-Germanic race before its western branches were separated from the eastern, whilst we shall look in vain for any traces of the name Indra in the Greek mythology. (9) Supersession of Dyaus by Indra, according to Professors It is, however, as I have already intimated, p. 34, the opinion of other writers that Indra was rather the successor of Dyaus than of Varuna. Thus in a note (occasioned by the word sthātar) to his translation of R. V. i. 33, 5 (Orient und Occident, i. 48, 1862), Professor Benfey writes: "It may be distinctly shewn that Indra took the place of the god of the heaven, who in the Vedas is invoked in the vocative as Dyaush pitar (R.V. vi. 51, 5). This is proved by the fact that this phrase is exactly reflected in the Latin (Diespiter? and Jupiter (for Dyouspiter) and in the Greek Zeû πаτèρ (which is consequently to be taken for Zeûs Taτèρ), as a religious formula fixed, like many others, before the separation of the languages. When the Sanskrit people left the common country where for them, as well as for the other kindred tribes, the brilliant radiance of heaven (divant, part. from div, to shine...) appeared to them, in consequence of the climate there prevailing, as the holiest thing, and settled in the sultry India, where the glow of the heaven is destructive, and only its rain operates beneficently, this aspect of the celestial deity must have appeared the most adorable, so that the epithet Pluvius in a certain measure absorbed all the other characteristics of Dyaush pitar. This found its expression in |