Thou giv'st us horses, cattle, gold, As thou didst give our sires of old. Thou sweep'st away the dark-skinned brood, Who know not Indra, hate his friends, Sweet nectar quaffing there with thee. 140 SECTION VII. PARJANYA. The following hymn, R.V. v. 83, affords a picturesque description of Parjanya, the thundering rain-god: v. 83, 1. Achha vada tavasam̃ girbhir ābhiḥ stuhi Parjanyaṁ namasā āvivāsa | kanikradad vṛishabho jiradānuḥ reto dadhāti oshadhishu garbham | 2. Vi vṛikshān hanti uta hanti rakshaso viśvam bibhāya bhuvanam mahāvadhāt | uta anāgāḥ ishate vṛishnyāvato yat Parjanyaḥ stanayan hanti dushkritaḥ | 3. Rathīva kaśayā 'śvān abhikshipann āvir dūtān kṛinute varshyān aha | dūrāt sim̃hasya stanathāḥ ud irate yat Parjanyaḥ kṛinute varshyam nabhaḥ | 4. Pra vātāḥ vānti patayanti vidyutaḥ ud oshadhir jihate pinvate svaḥ | irā viśvasmai bhuvanāya jāyate yat Parjanyaḥ prithivim retasă 'vati | 5. Yasya vrate prithivi namnamīti yasya vrate saphavaj jarbhurīti | yasya vrate oshadhir viśvarūpāḥ sa naḥ Parjanya mahi sarma yachha | 6. Divo no vṛishțim Maruto raridhvam pra pinvata vṛishno aśvasya dhārāḥ | arvan etena stanayitnunā ā ihi apo nishinchann asuraḥ pitā naḥ | 7. Abhi kranda stanaya garbham à dhāḥ udanvatā pari diya rathena | dṛitim su karsha nishitam nyancham samāḥ bhavantu udvato nipādāḥ | 8. Mahāntam kośam ud acha nishincha syandantām kulyāḥ vishitāḥ purastāt | ghṛitena dyāvā-pṛithivī vi undhi suprapānam bhavatu aghnyābhyaḥ | 9. Yat Parjanya kanikradat stanayan hamsi dushkṛitaḥ | prati idam viśvam modate yat kincha prithivyām adhi | 10. Avarshir varsham ud u su gribhāya akar dhanvāni ati etavai u | ajījanaḥ oshadhir bhojanāya kam uta prajābhyo avido manishām | 1. "Address the powerful (god) with these words; laud Prajanya; worship him with reverence: the procreative and stimulating fructifier, resounding, sheds his seed and impregnates the plants. 2. He splits the trees, he destroys the Rakshases; the whole creation is afraid of the mighty stroke; even the innocent man flees before the vigorous god, when Parjanya thundering smites the evil doers. 222 3. Like a charioteer urging forward his horses with a whip, the god brings into view his showery scouts. From afar the lion's roarings arise, when Parjanya charges the clouds with rain. 4. The winds blow, the lightnings fall, the plants shoot up; the heaven fructifies; food is produced for all created things, when Parjanya, thundering, replenishes the earth with moisture. 5. Parjanya, before whose agency the earth bows down, at whose operation all hoofed cattle quiver; by whose action plants (spring up) of every form; do thou grant us thy mighty protection. 6. Grant to us, Maruts, the rain of the sky; replenish the streams of the procreative horse; come hither with this thy thunder, our divine father, shedding waters. 7. Resound, thunder, impregnate, rush hither and thither with thy watery chariot. Draw on forward with thee thy opened and inverted water-skin; let the hills and dales be levelled. 8. Raise aloft thy vast water-vessel, and pour down showers; let the discharged rivulets roll on forward; moisten the heaven and earth with fatness; let there be well-filled drinking-places for the cows. 9. When thou, Parjanya, resounding and thundering, dost slay the evil-doers, the whole universe rejoices, whatever lives upon the earth. 10. Thou hast shed down rain; now desist; thou hast made the waterless wastes fit to be traversed; thou hast generated plants for food, and thou hast fulfilled the desires of living creatures." 223 Parjanya is also celebrated in two other hymns of the Rig-veda, viz., vii. 101, 102. The latter consists of only three verses, and the former is less spirited and poetical than that which I have translated. It assigns to Parjanya, however, several grander epithets and functions than are found in the other, as it represents this deity as the lord of all moving creatures (vii. 101, 2: yo viśvasya jagato devaḥ ise); declares 222 There does not seem to be any sufficient reason to understand evildoers here, and in verse 9, of the cloud demons, who withold rain, or simply of the malignant clouds, as Sāyaṇa in his explanation of verse 9 (pāpakṛito meghān) does. The poet may naturally have supposed that it was exclusively or principally the wicked who were struck down by thunderbolts. Dr. Bühler thinks the cloud-demons are meant (Orient und Occident, i. 217, note 2). 223 This last clause is translated according to Professor Roth's explanation, s.v. manishā. Wilson, following Sayana, renders "verily thou hast obtained laudation from the people," and Dr. Bühler gives the same sense: "thou hast received praise from the creatures." Prajābhyaḥ may of course be either a dative or ablative. that all worlds (or creatures), and the three spheres abide in him (ibid. 4: yasmin viśvāni bhuvanāni tasthus tisro dyāvaḥ); that in him is the soul of all things moving and stationary 224 (ibid. 6: tasminn ātmā jagatas tastushaś cha); and designates him as the independent monarch (ibid. 5: svarāje). In vii. 102, 1, he is called the son of Dyaus or the Sky (Divas putrāya). Parjanya is also mentioned in various detached verses in the R. V., viz. iv. 57, 8; v. 63, 4, 6; vi. 52, 6; vii. 35, 10; viii. 6, 1; viii. 21, 18; ix. 2, 9; ix. 22, 2; x. 66, 6; x. 98, 1, 8; x. 169, 2. In vi. 49, 6; vi. 50, 12; x. 65, 9; x. 66, 10, he is conjoined with Vāta the wind (Parjanya-vātā, Vātā-parjanyā), and in vi. 52, 16, with Agni (Agniparjanyau). In ix. 82, 3, he is called the father of the great leafy plant soma (Parjanyaḥ pitā mahishasya parninaḥ compare ix. 113, 3). The former contains an English Parjanya forms the subject of two papers by Dr. G. Bühler, the one in English in the Transactions of the London Philological Society for 1859, pp. 154 ff., and the other in German in Benfey's Orient und Occident, vol. i. (1862) pp. 214 ff. The latter of these papers is not however, a translation of the former. version of the hymns R.V. v. 83; vii. 101, and vii. 102; to which the German article adds a translation of A.V. iv. 15, a hymn consisting of sixteen verses. The English paper contains a comparison of Parjanya with the Lithuanian god Perkunas, the god of thunder, which is not reproduced in the German essay. Dr. Bühler holds Parjanya to have been decidedly distinct from Indra (Transact. Phil. Soc. p. 167, and Or. und Occ. 229). In the English paper he says (p. 161): "Taking a review of the whole, we find that Parjanya is a god who presides over the lightning, the thunder, the rain, and the procreation of plants and living creatures. But it is by no means clear whether he is originally a god of the rain, or a god of the thunder." He inclines however to think that from the etymology of his name, and the analogy between him and Perkunas, he was originally the thunder-god (pp. 161-167). In his German essay, his conclusion is (p. 226) that Parjanya is "the god of thunderstorms and rain, the generator and nourisher of plants and living creatures." 224 Compare i. 115, 1, where the same thing is said of Surya. SECTION VIII. VAYU. Vayu, the wind, as we have already seen, is often associated with Indra. See also i. 2, 4; i. 14, 3; i. 23, 2; i. 135, 4 ff. (ā vām ratho niyutvān vakshad avase abhi prayāmsi sudhitāni vitaye vāyo havyāni vitaye | pibatam madhvo andhasaḥ pūrvapeyam hi vām̃ hitam | “Let your car with team of horses bring you to our aid; and to the offerings which are well-arranged for eating; Vayu, the oblations (are well-arranged) for eating. Drink of the soma, for to you twain belongs the right to take the first draught;" and see the next verse); i. 139, 1 ; ii. 41, 3; iv. 46, 2 ff.; iv. 47, 2 ff. ; v. 51, 4, 6 f.; vii. 90, 5 ff.; vii. 91, 4 ff. ; x. 65, 9; x. 141, 4. The two gods appear to have been regarded by the ancient expositors of the Veda as closely connected with each other; for the Nairuktas, as quoted by Yaska (Nirukta, vii. 5), while they fix upon Agni and Surya as the representatives of the terrestrial and celestial gods respectively, speak of Vayu and Indra in conjunction, as deities, either of whom may represent those of the intermediate sphere: Tisraḥ eva devatāḥ iti Nairuktāḥ Agniḥ prithivi-sthāno Vāyur vā Indro vā antariksha-sthānaḥ sūryo dyu-sthānaḥ | "There are three gods according to the Nairuktas, viz., Agni, whose place is on earth, Vayu, or Indra, whose place is in the air, and Surya, whose place is in the heaven," etc. Vayu does not occupy a very prominent place in the Rig-veda. If we except the allegorical description in the Purusha Sūkta, x. 90, 13, where he is said to have sprung from the breath of Purusha (prāṇād Vāyur ajāyata), or unless we understand vii. 90, 3 (rāye nu yam jajnatuḥ rodasi ime "He whom the two worlds generated for wealth") to assert that he was produced by heaven and earth, I am aware of no passage where the parentage of Vayu is declared. He is, however, |