THE VEDIC PANTHEON.

15

the subsequent period, are either wholly unnamed in the Veda or are noticed in a different and inferior

capacity. The far larger number of hymns in the first book are dedicated to Agni and Indra, the deities or personifications of Fire and Firmament."* Indra has for friends and followers the Maruts, or spirits of the winds, whose host consists, at least in part, of the souls of the pious dead; and the Ribhus, who are of similar origin, but whose element is rather that of the sunbeams or the lightning, though they too rule the winds, and sing like the Maruts the loud song of the storm. Their name means the "artificers," and not even the divine workman of Olympus was more skilled than they in all kinds of handicraft. The armour and weapons of the gods, the chariot of the Asvins (deities of the dawn), the thunderbolt and the lightning steed of Indra, were of their workmanship. They made their old decrepid parents young and supple-jointed again. But the feat for which they are most renowned is the revival of the slaughtered cow on which the gods had feasted. Out of the hide alone these wonder-working Ribhus reproduced the perfect living animal; and this they did not once, but again and again. In other words, out of a small portion of the

* Wilson, Translation of Rig Veda.

16

THE TWELVE NIGHTS.

imperishable cloud that had melted away in rain and seemed destroyed, they reproduced its whole form and substance. Similar feats were ascribed to the Northern thunder-god Thor, whose practice it was to kill the two buck goats that drew his car, cook them for supper, and bring them to life again in the morning by touching them with his hammer.

In the gloomy season of the winter solstice the Ribhus sleep for twelve days in the house of the sun-god Savitar; then they wake up, and prepare the earth to clothe itself anew with vegetation, and the frozen waters to flow again. It appears certain, from some passages in the Vedas, that twelve nights about the winter solstice were regarded as prefiguring the character of the weather for the whole year. A Sanscrit text is noticed by Weber, which says expressly, “The Twelve Nights are an image of the

year.' The very same belief exists at this day in Northern Germany. The peasants say that the calendar for the whole year is made in the twelve days between Christmas and Epiphany, and that as the weather is on each of those days so will it be on the corresponding month of the ensuing year. They believe also that whatever one dreams on any

* Mannhardt, p. 50.

RIBHUS.

ORPHEUS.

ELVES.

17

of the twelve nights will come to pass within the

next year.*

Before the dispersion of the Aryan race the Ribhus were also called Arbhus, and this form of the word is strictly identical with the Greek name, Orpheus. Of this, as of most other Greek mythical names, the Greek language affords no explanation, but Sanscrit reveals its origin and gives a new interest to its story. We see how the cruder idea of the Ribhus, sweeping trees and rocks in wild dance before them by the force of their stormy song, grew under the beautifying touch of the Hellenic imagination into the legend of that master of the lyre whose magic tones made torrents pause and listen, rocks and trees descend with delight from their mountain beds, and moved even Pluto's unrelenting heart to pity. In Northern Europe, the word Arbhus became changed, in conformity with the laws of the Germanic languages, into Albs, Alb, or Alp; plural Elbe, Elfen; English Elf, Elves. The Maruts also survived under the name of Mârt, or Mahr. The English Nightmare, French Cauchemar, is one of them, and the whole family formed the retinue of Odin, when he rode abroad as the Wild Huntsman.

Kuhn, Ndd. p. 411; Kuhn, Westf. ii. 115. + Max Müller, "Oxford Essays," 1856,

18

RUDRA. ODIN. APOLLO.

Odin's prototypes are Indra and Rudra, the storm-god and dragon-slayer. The latter is called the father of the Maruts, or Winds, and they are as often in attendance on him as on Indra. The stormy Apollo of the older Greek legends is also a close copy of Rudra. The latter "is evidently a form of Agni, or Indra."*

Agni, the god of fire (Latin, ignis), has for retainers the Bhrigus and the Angirases. They are his priests on earth whilst they dwell there in mortal form; and after death they are his friends and companions in heaven. They are also the companions of the clouds and the storms. The Angirases tend the heavenly cows (the clouds), and the Maruts (the storms) milk them. On the whole, it is manifest that all these divine tribes, Maruts, Ribhus, Bhrigus and Angirases, are beings identical in nature, distinguished from each other only by their elemental functions, and not essentially different from the Pitris, or fathers. The latter are simply the souls of the pious dead. High above the clouds and the blue firmament there is a shining realm, whence the sun, the moon, and the stars receive their light, and whence also is drawn the fire of the lightning, which again is the origin of the earthly fire. Here the

YAMA. MANU. PITRIS.

19

Pitris dwell in everlasting bliss with their great progenitor, the god Yama. The myths relating to the origin of mankind are many and various, but they all agree in this, that the soul of the first man came down to earth as a particle of living fire in the lightning. So it is in the Greek legend of Prometheus he brought down fire from heaven and created the first men. In the Vedas, Yama is the first lightning-born mortal, the first, too, who trod the path of death, and therefore he became king of the departed fathers. His brother, Manu, (ie., man,) is the chief of the living. It is manifest that Yama and Manu were originally one, but were subsequently divided, Manu becoming the supreme representative of human life on earth, and Yama that of its continuance after death.

Manu is the thinking being * (from the root man, whence also the Greek, Latin, and English words, ménos, mens, mind). The Minos and Minyas of the Greeks, and the Mannus of the Germans are identical with Manu. Minos is judge of the dead; Yama, who is only another form of Manu, is their king.

The Pitris, or fathers, led no inactive lives in their blissful abode. They were elementary powers, and

* Max Müller, "Lectures on Language."