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tioned with respect and gratitude. He is a "Son of Heaven" (Dyâus), and not only is he invited to partake of the Soma libations, but when he comes with other gods, the first drink is his by right.' The following short hymn (X., 168) shows the high esteem in which this unobtrusive deity was held and how sensitively alive the fancy of those ancient poets was to the picturesque and the mysterious-also how a thing may strike in the same way spirits separated by ages and continents.

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"I celebrate Vâta's great chariot: it comes rending the air, with noise of thunder. It touches the sky as it goes and makes it ruddy, whirling up the dust on the earth.-The flying gusts rush after it,— as maidens to a festival .. -As he flies along on airy paths, Vâta never rests on any day For what place was he born? and from whence came he,-the vital breath of gods, the world's great offspring? The god, where'er he will, moves at his pleasure; his rushing sound we hear,—his form was never seen.2

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38. With this god we close the cycle of Vedic gods -Dyâus, Váruna, Mitra, Agni, Soma, Yama, Vâyu —whom we can trace with absolute certainty to an Indo-Eranian past and identify with corresponding divine beings in the Avesta. Further researches no

1 There is, in one of the Brâhmanas, a story invented to account for this privilege. It tells how several gods once ran a race for the first drink of Soma, and Vâyu (naturally!) won. This is the way in which the Brahmanas dispose of all obscure or puzzling points-by stories made up to explain them. The result is generally obscurity doubly intensified, confusion inextricable, often sickening absurdities, and sometimes-gems of philosophy and poetry.

2 "The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh and whither it goeth."St. John, iii., 8.

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doubt will bring to light more affinities, more like—as indeed not a few have already been hinted at. But suggestions, conjectures, can find no place in works the object of which is to place before the larger public-the uninitiated laymen of science the results actually achieved, the conquests that may be considered final. The divine personages into whose exalted circle we shall now step are of Indian growth, bear the unmistakable impress of the land and conditions of life which the migrating Âryas found on the hither side of the Himâlaya and the Indus.

APPENDIX TO CHAPTER V.

THE CHURNING OF THE AMRITA.

THE accompanying illustration represents one of the most famous legends told in the Mahâbhârata and some of the Purânas, and is a good specimen of the literalness with which Indian art sets to work to reproduce the details of a mythical story, just as the legend itself is a fair sample of what the learned Brahmanic poetry of the classic or epic ages made of the simple and transparent myths of Vedic times. We have just admired and fully explained the myth of the amrita, the food of the gods, of which the sacred Soma-drink is the earthly imitation. The Brâhman poets amplified it into a story, given with varying details in different versions, but of which the main features are the following:

The devas were at war with the asuras (the evil demons), who repeatedly conquered them, so that they lost heart, and were fain to ask the assistance of Vishnu, the god to whom later theology ascribed the mission of general adviser to the gods and preserver to them and the created worlds. Vishnu promised them that their strength should be restored if they would do as he would direct. First they must collect specimens of all the plants and herbs that grow in the world and cast them into the Sea of Milk, then they must churn that sea, and they would thus obtain the Amrita, the drink of strength and immortality. But as the labor would be very great, he advised them to suspend hostilities with the Asuras and invite them to join in the work: "I will take care," he said, "your foes shall share your toil but not partake in its reward." The Asuras readily took the bait and worked with all their might. When the herbs were thrown in, the mountain Mandara was taken for a churning stick (pramantha), and the King of Serpents, VÂSUKIothers say SHESH or SHESHNA—allowed himself to be used as the rope to twirl the stick. So all pulled with a will, the devas on one side, the Asuras on the other, while Vishnu himself, taking the form of a tortoise, took the mountain on his back to steady it. Great was the tumult that ensued. The milky waves rose and tossed and foamed, as though lashed by a mighty storm. Then all sorts of rare, wonderful, and useful things and beings began to emerge from the heaving bosom of that mysterious deep. First rose from them the sacred Cow, then in succes

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sion the divine many-headed horse, the elephant, a troop of Apsaras (water-maidens); the goddess of beauty appeared, seated on a lotus blossom; deadly poison also was churned out of the waters; Vâsuki claimed that as his perquisite, to be given to his serpents. According to some versions the four Vedas also came out of that memorable churning. But on our picture they seem to be represented as one of the divine beings who do the churning-as a person with four heads and four arms, with a book in one hand. Last of all came forth the physician of the gods, radiant, triumphant, bearing aloft the cup with the precious beverage. Both devas and asuras made a rush for it and there ensued a raging battle. But the devas had managed to secure the first draught, and being fully invigorated by it, had no difficulty in beating off their late allies and hurling them into the dark abysses.

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