clothed in bright red colour, but gradually changed into the representative of the morning. We see at once, if examining these various expressions, how some of them, like the child of Dyu, are easily carried away into mythology, while others, such as the son of strength, or the light of the sacrifice, resist that unconscious metamorphosis. That Arusha was infected by mythology, that it had approached at least that point where nomina become changed into numina, we see by the verse immediately following: vi. 49, 3. arushásya duhitárâ vírûpe (íti ví-rûpe) strí-bhih anya pipisé surah anyẩ. There are two different daughters of Arushá; the one is clad in stars, the other belongs to the sun, or is the wife of Svar. Here Arushá is clearly a mythological being, like Agni or Savitar or Vaisvânara; and if Day and Night are called his daughters, he, too, can hardly have been conceived otherwise than as endowed with human attributes, as the child of Dyu, as the father of Day and Night, and not as a mere period of time, not as a mere cause or effect. iv. 15, 6. tám árvantam ná sânasím arushám ná diváh sísum marmrigyánte divé-dive. They trim the fire day by day, like a strong horse, like Arusha, the child of Dyu. Here, too, Arushá, the child of Dyu, has to be taken as a personal character, and, if the ná after arushám is right, a distinction is clearly made between Agni, the sacrificial fire, to whom the hymn is addressed, and Arusha, the child of heaven, the pure and bright morning, here used as a simile for the cleaning or trimming of the fire on the altar. v. 47, 3. arusháh su-parnáh. Arusha, the morning sun, with beautiful wings. The feminine Arushi as an Adjective. Arushî, like arushá, is used as an adjective, in the same sense as arushá, i. e. red: iii. 55, 11. syẩvî ka yát árushî ka svásârau. As the dark and the red are sisters. i. 92, 1 and 2. gấvah árushîh and árushîh gấh. The red cows of the dawn. vii. 71, 1. ápa svásuh ushásah nák gihîte rinákti krishnĩh arushaya pánthâm. The Night retires from her sister, the Dawn; the Dark one yields the path to the Red one, i. e. the red morning. Here Arusha shares the same half-mythological character as Ushas, and where we should speak of dawn and morning as mere periods of time, the Vedic poet speaks of them as living and intelligent beings, half human, half divine, as powers of nature capable of understanding his prayers, and powerful enough to reward his praises. I do not think therefore that we need hesitate to take Arushá in this passage as a proper name of the morning, or of the morning sun, to whom the dark goddess, the Night, yields the path when he rises in the East. vi. 49, 2. diváh sísum sáhasah sûnúm agním yagñásya ketúm arushám yágadhyai. To worship the child of Dyu, the son of strength, Agni, the light of the sacrifice, the Red one (Arushá). In this verse, where the name of Agni actually occurs, it would be easier than in the preceding verse to translate arushá as an adjective, referring it either to Agni, the god of fire, or to yagñásya ketúm, the light of the sacrifice. I had myself yielded so far to these considerations that I gave up my former translation, and rendered this verse by 'to worship Agni, the child of the sky, the son of strength, the red light of the sacrificet.' But I return to my original translation, and I see in Arushá an independent name, intended, no doubt, for Agni, as the representative of the rising sun and, at the same time, of the sacrificial fire of the morning, but nevertheless as having in the mind of the poet a personality of its own. He is the child of Dyu, originally the offspring of heaven. He is the son of strength, originally generated by the strong rubbing of the aranis, i. e. the wood for kindling fire. He is the light of the sacrifice, whether as reminding man that the time for the morning sacrifice has come, or as himself lighting the sacrifice on the Eastern altar of the sky. He is Arusha, originally as *Chips from a German Workshop, vol. ii. p. 139. clothed in bright red colour, but gradually changed into the representative of the morning. We see at once, if examining these various expressions, how some of them, like the child of Dyu, are easily carried away into mythology, while others, such as the son of strength, or the light of the sacrifice, resist that unconscious metamorphosis. That Arusha was infected by mythology, that it had approached at least that point where nomina become changed into numina, we see by the verse immediately following: vi. 49, 3. arushásya duhitárâ vírûpe (íti ví-rûpe) strí-bhih anya pipisé surah anyẩ. There are two different daughters of Arushá; the one is clad in stars, the other belongs to the sun, or is the wife of Svar. Here Arushá is clearly a mythological being, like Agni or Savitar or Vaisvânara; and if Day and Night are called his daughters, he, too, can hardly have been conceived otherwise than as endowed with human attributes, as the child of Dyu, as the father of Day and Night, and not as a mere period of time, not as a mere cause or effect. iv. 15, 6. tám árvantam ná sânasím arushám ná diváh sísum marmrigyánte divé-dive. They trim the fire day by day, like a strong horse, like Arusha, the child of Dyu. Here, too, Arusha, the child of Dyu, has to be taken as a personal character, and, if the ná after arushám is right, a distinction is clearly made between Agni, the sacrificial fire, to whom the hymn is addressed, and Arusha, the child of heaven, the pure and bright morning, here used as a simile for the cleaning or trimming of the fire on the altar. v. 47, 3. arusháh su-parnáh. Arusha, the morning sun, with beautiful wings. The feminine Arushi as an Adjective. Arushî, like arushá, is used as an adjective, in the same sense as arushá, i. e. red: iii. 55, 11. syẩvî ka yát árushî ka svásârau. As the dark and the red are sisters. i. 92, 1 and 2. gấvah árushîh and árushîh gấh. i. 92, 2. rúsantam bhânúm árushîh asisrayuh. Here ushásah, the dawns, occur in the same line, so that we may take árushîh either as an adjective, referring to the dawns, or as a substantive, as a name of the dawn or of her cows. i. 30, 21. ásve ná kitre arushi. Thou bright, red dawn, thou, like a mare. Here, too, the vocative arushi is probably to be taken as an adjective, particularly if we consider the next following verse: iv. 52, 2. ásvâ-iva kitrấ árushî mâtẩ gávâm ritá-varî sákhâ abhût asvínoh ushah. The dawn, bright and red, like a mare, the mother of the cows (days), the never-failing, she became the friend of the Asvins. x. 5, 5. saptá svásrîh árushîh. The seven red sisters. The feminine Arushi as a Substantive. If used as a substantive, árushî seems to mean the dawn. It is likewise used as a name of the horses of Agni, Indra, and Soma; also as a name for mare in general. It means dawn in x. 8, 3, though the text points here so clearly to the dawn, and the very name of dawn is mentioned so immediately after, that this one passage seems hardly sufficient to establish the use of árushî as a recognized name of the dawn. Other passages, however, would likewise gain in perspicuity, if we took árushî by itself as a name of the dawn, just as we had to admit in several passages arushá by itself as a name of the morning. Cf. i. 71, I. Arushî means the horses of Agni, in i. 14, 12: yukshvá hí árushîh ráthe harítah deva rohítah. Yoke, O god (Agni), the red-horses to the chariot, the bays, the ruddy. i. 72, 10. prá nîkîh agne árushîh agânan. They knew the red-horses, Agni, coming down. In viii. 69, 5, árushî refers to the horses of Indra, whether as a noun or an adjective, is somewhat doubtful: ፕ a hárayah sasrigrire árushîh. The bay horses were let loose, the red-horses; or, possibly, thy bright red-horses were let loose. Soma, as we saw, was frequently spoken of as arusháh hárih. In ix. III, 2, tridhấtu-bhih árushîbhih seems to refer to the same red-horses of Soma, though this is not quite clear. The passages where árushî means simply a mare, without any reference to colour, are viii. 68, 18, and viii. 55, 3. It is curious that Arusha, which in the Veda means red, should in its Zendic form aurusha, mean white. That in the Veda it means red and not white is shown, for instance, by x. 20, 9, where svetá, the name for white, is mentioned by the side of arushá. Most likely arushá meant originally brilliant, and became fixed with different shades of brilliancy in Sanskrit and Persian. Arushá presupposes a form ar-vas, and is derived from a root ar in the sense of running or rushing. See Chips from a German Workshop, vol. ii. pp. 135, 137. Having thus explained the different meanings of arushá and árushî in the Rig-veda, I feel it incumbent, at least for once, to explain the reasons why I differ from the classification of Vedic passages as given in the Dictionary published by Messrs. Boehtlingk and Roth. Here, too, the passages in which arushá is used as an adjective are very properly separated from those in which it appears as a substantive. To begin with the first, it is said that 'arushá means ruddy, the colour of Agni and his horses; he (Agni) himself appears as a red-horse.' In support of this, the following passages are quoted: iii. 1, 4. ávardhayan su-bhágam sapta yahvih svetám gagñânám arushám mahi-tvấ, sísum ná gâtám abhí âruh ásvâh. Here, however, it is only said that Agni was born brilliant-white*, and grew red, that the horses came to him as they come to a new-born foal. Agni himself is not called a red-horse. iii. 7, 5. Here, again, vríshnah arushásya is no doubt * See v. I, 4. svetáh vâgì gâyate ágre áhnâm. x. 1, 6. arusháh gâtáh padé ilâyâh. |