Zoological Mythology Volume I Part 5

The glowing aspect of the sky, morning and evening, suggested the idea, now of a splendid nuptial feast, now of a fire. In this fire, sometimes the witch who persecutes the hero and heroine is burnt, and sometimes the hero and heroine themselves are immolated. The sacrifice of cavari and of Sita, who are delivered by the sun Ramas, is only a variation of that of cuna?cepas, liberated by the dawn in the _?igvedas_. The story of cuna?cepas has already been made known by Professor Rodolph Roth,[217] and by Professor Max Muller,[218] who translated it from the _aitareya-brahma?am_; and I refer the reader to these translations, as well as to the English version which Professor Martin Haugh has given us of all the _aitareya_. I shall, therefore, here give but a short account of it, with a few observations apropos to the subject in hand.

The king Hariccandras has no sons; the G.o.d Varu?as the coverer, the gloomy, the watery, the king of the waters,[219] obliges him to promise that he will sacrifice to him whatever is born to him. The king promises; a child is born, who is named the red (Rohitas).

Varu?as claims him; the father begs him to wait till the child has cut his teeth, then till his first teeth are cast, then till he is able to bear armour. It is evident that the father wishes to wait till his son be strong enough to defend himself against his persecutor, Varu?as. Varu?as thereupon claims him in a more resolute manner, and Hariccandras informs the son himself that he must be given up in sacrifice. Rohitas takes his bow and flees into the woods, where he lives by the chase. This first part of the legend corresponds with those numerous European popular tales, in which, now the devil, now the aquatic monster, now the serpent, demands from a father the son who has just been born to him without his knowledge. The second part of the story of cuna?cepas shows us the hero in the forest; he has taken his bow with him, and hence, like Ramas in the _Ramaya?am_, who has scarcely entered the forest than he begins to hunt, Rohitas turns hunter, and hunts for the six years during which he remains in the forest. But his chase is unsuccessful; he wanders about in quest of some one to take his place as the victim of Varu?as; at last he finds the brahma?as Agigartas, who consents to give his own second son, cuna?cepas, for a hundred cows. The first-born being particularly dear to the father, and the third being especially beloved by the mother, cannot be sacrificed; the second son, therefore, is ceded to Varu?as, the gloomy G.o.d of night, who, like Yamas, binds all creatures with his cords. We have already observed how the middle son is the son of the celestial cow Aditis, the hidden sun, the sun during and covered by the darkness of night, or, in other words, bound by the fetters of Varu?as--and it is his own father who binds him with those fetters.

His sacrifice begins in the evening. During the night he appeals to all the G.o.ds. At last Indras, flattered by the praise heaped upon him, concedes to him a golden chariot, upon which, with praises to the Acvinau, and help from the dawn, cuna?cepas, unbound from the fetters of Varu?as, is delivered. These fetters of Varu?as, which imprison the victim, bound and sacrificed by his own father, help us to understand the second part of the European popular tale of the son sacrificed against his will to the demon by his father; for cuna?cepas, towards the end of the European story, takes the form of a horse, Varu?as that of a demon, and the fetters of Varu?as are the bridle of the horse, which the imprudent father sells to the demon, together with his son in the shape of a horse;[220] the beautiful daughter of the demon (the white one, who, as usual, comes out of the black monster) delivers the young man transformed into a horse; as in the Vedic story of cuna?cepas, it is explicitly the dawn who is the young girl that delivers.[221] Varu?as is called in the _Ramaya?am_ the G.o.d who has in his hand a rope (_pacahastas_); his dwelling is on Mount Astas, where the sun goes down, and which it is impossible to touch, because it burns, in an immense palace, the work of Vicvakarman, which has a hundred rooms, lakes with nymphs, and trees of gold.[222] Evidently, Varu?as is here, not a different form, but a different name of the G.o.d Yamas, the pacin, or furnished with rope, the constrictor _par excellence_; for we are to suppose the magic display of golden splendour in the evening heavens not so much the work of the sun itself, as produced by the gloomy G.o.d who sits on the mountain, who invests and surprises the solar hero, and drags him into his kingdom.

As to Hariccandras and Agigartas, Rohitas and cuna?cepas, they appear, in my opinion, to be themselves different names for not only the same celestial phenomenon, but the same mythical personage. Hariccandras is celebrated in the legends as a solar king; Rohitas, his son, the red one, is his _alter ego_, as well as his successor cuna?cepas.

Hariccandras, moreover, who promises to sacrifice his son to Varu?as, seems to differ little, if at all, from Agigartas, who sells his own son for the sacrifice. The _Ramaya?am_,[223] has given us a third name for the same unnatural father,[224] in Vicvamitras, who asks his own sons to sacrifice themselves, instead of cuna?cepas, who is under his protection, and as they refuse to obey, he curses them.

The variation of the same legend which we find in the _Harivancas_[225] proves these ident.i.ties, and adds a new and notable particular. The wife of Vicvamitras designs, on account of her poverty, to barter her middle son for a hundred cows, and with that view already keeps him tied with a rope like a slave. The grandfather of Rohitas, Hariccandras's father, Tricankus, wanders through the woods, and delivers this son of Vicvamitras, whose family he thenceforth protects and maintains. The deeds of Tricankus, who begs of Vasish?as to be allowed to ascend to heaven bodily, and who, by grace of Vicvamitras, obtains instead the favour of remaining suspended in the air like a constellation, are also attributed to his son Hariccandras; whence we may affirm, without much risk of contradiction, that as Tricankus is another name for his son Hariccandras, so Hariccandras is another name for his son Rohitas, and that, therefore, the Tricankus of the _Hariva?cas_ is the same as the Rohitas of the _aitareya_, with this difference, that Tricankus buys the son destined to the sacrifice in order to free him, while Rohitas buys him to free himself. But the first hundred cows given by Tricankus to Vicvamitras do not suffice for him, and the fruits of his hunting in the forest are not enough to maintain the family, a circ.u.mstance which weighs upon him almost as much as if the family were his own; upon which, in order to save Vicvamitras, in order to save Vicvamitras's son, and, we can perhaps add, to save himself, he resolves to sacrifice, to kill the beautiful and dearly-prized wife of Vasish?as (the very luminous). I have said the wife of Vasish?as, but the _Hariva?cas_ says, speaking strictly, it was the cow of Vasish?as who was killed. But we know from the _Ramaya?am_[226] that this cow of Vasish?as, this kamadhuk or kamadhenus, which yields at pleasure all that is wished for, this cow of abundance, is kept by Vasish?as, under the name of cabala, as his own wife. Vicvamitras is covetous of her; he demands her from Vasish?as, and offers a hundred cows for her, the exact price which, in the _Hariva?cas_, he receives from Tricankus for his own son. Vasish?as answers that he will not give her for a hundred, nor for a thousand, nor even for a hundred thousand cows, for cabala is his gem, his riches, his all, his life.[227] Vicvamitras carries her off; she returns to the feet of Vasish?as, and bellows; her bellowing calls forth armies, who come out of her own body; the hundred sons of Vicvamitras are burned to ashes by them. These armies which come out of the body of Vasish?as's cow remind us again of the Vedic cow, from which come forth winged darts, or birds, by which the enemies are filled with terror. Vasish?as is a form of Indras; his cow is here the rain-cloud. Vicvamitras, who wishes to ravish the cow from Vasish?as, often a.s.sumes monstrous forms in the Hindoo legends, and is almost always malignant, perverse, and revengeful. His hundred sons burned to cinders by Vasish?as remind us, from one point of view, of the hundred cities of cambaras destroyed by Indras, and the hundred perverse Dh?itarashtrides of the _Mahabharatam_; whence his name, Vicvamitras, which may also mean the enemy of all (_vicva-amitras_), would agree well with his almost demoniacal character.

This story of the cow of Vasish?as, whose relations.h.i.+p with the legend of cuna?cepas cannot be doubted, brings us back to the animal forms of heroes and heroines from which we started. In the story of Vasish?as, the cow-cloud, the cow cabala, or the spotted-cow, plays in the epic poem the part of the cow Aditis, the cow p?icnis (spotted, variegated), with which we are already familiar in the Vedic hymns. This cow is benignant towards the G.o.d, or the hero, or the wise Vasish?as, as the p?icnis is to the G.o.d Indras. But we have seen in the _?igvedas_ itself the cloud as the enemy of the G.o.d, and represented as a female form of the monster, as his sister. This sister generally tries to seduce the G.o.d, promising to deliver into his hands the monster her brother, and she sometimes succeeds, as the witch Hidimba of the _Mahabharatam_, who gives up her brother, the monster Hidimbas, into the hands of the hero Bhimas, who thereupon espouses her. On the other hand, curpa?akha, the sister of the monster Rava?as, does not succeed in her intent; making herself beautiful, she endeavours to win the affection of the hero Ramas; but being ridiculed by him and by Lakshma?as, she becomes deformed, and sends forth cries like a cloud in the rainy season,[228]

exciting her brothers to annihilate Ramas.

The same cloud-monster is found again in the _Ramaya?am_, under the name of Dundubhis, in the form of a terrible buffalo with sharpened horns.[229] The buffalo, as a wild animal, is often chosen to represent the principle of evil, in the same way as the bull, increaser of the bovine herds, is selected as the image of good. This bellowing buffalo, whence his name of Dundubhis (drum), strikes and knocks with his two horns at the door of the cavern[230] of the son of Indras (Balin), the king of the monkeys. But Balin takes Dundubhis by the horns, throws him on the ground, and destroys him.

Dundus is also a name given to the father of K?ish?as, or the black one, who in the _?igvedas_ is still a demon, and only later becomes the G.o.d of cows and cowherds, a govindas, or pastor _par excellence_.[231]

Indras, his enemy in the Vedas, having fallen from heaven, he became one of the most popular G.o.ds, and even sometimes the most popular form of the deity. In the _Mahabharatam_, for instance, he is almost the _deus ex machina_ of the battles between the Pa??avas and the Dhartarash?ras, and presents many a.n.a.logies to the Zeus of the Iliad; whereas Indras plays only a part in the episodes, the rain-giver and thunderer being often forgotten for the black one who prepares and hurls the light. But the fall of Indras begins in the Vedas themselves. In the _Ya?urvedas_, Vicvarupas, the son of Tvash?ar, whom Indras kills, appears as no less than the purohitas or high-priest of the G.o.ds, and son of a daughter of the Asuras; he has three heads, of which one drinks the ambrosia, another the spirituous drink, while the third eats food. Indras cuts off Vicvarupas's three heads, in revenge of the one which drinks his ambrosia; he is therefore charged with having killed a Brahman, and decried as a brahmanicide.[232] In the _aitareya-brahma?am_,[233] the criminality of Indras in this regard is confirmed, to which the _Kaus.h.i.+taki-Upanishad_ also refers. In the seventh book of the _Ramaya?am_, even the multiform monster Rava?as is represented as a great penitent, whom Brahman fills with supreme grace; in the sixth book, the son of the wind, Hanumant, cuts off the three heads of the Ravanide monster Triciras (having three heads), as one day Indras cut off the three heads of the monster V?itras, son of Tvash?ar;[234] and he cuts all the three heads off together (_samas_), as the hero of the European popular tales must cut off, at a blow, the three heads of the serpent, the wizard, otherwise he is powerless, and able to do nothing.

The monster, like the hero, seems to have a special affinity for the number three: hence the three heads of Triciras, as also the three brothers of Lanka--Rava?as, the eldest brother, who reigns; k.u.mbhakar?as, the middle brother, who sleeps; Vibhisha?as, the third brother, whom the two others do not care about, but who alone is just and good, and who alone obtains the gift of immortality.[235] We have evidently here again the three Vedic brothers; the two eldest in demoniacal form, the youngest a friend of the divine hero, and who, by the victory of Ramas over the monster Rava?as, obtains the kingdom of Lanka. As to the brothers Ramas and Lakshma?as, and the brothers Balin and Sugrivas, their natural place is in the story of the two twins, which will be referred to in the next chapter, although Hanumant, the son of the wind, figures second to them in the character of strong brother.

The three interesting heroic brothers come out more prominently in the _Mahabharatam_, where of the five Pa?davas brothers, three stay on one side, and are Yudhish?hiras, son of the G.o.d Yamas, the wise brother; Bhimas (the terrible), or V?ikodaras (wolf's belly), son of Vayus (the wind), the strong brother (another form of Hanumant, in company with whom he is also found in the _Mahabharatam_, on Mount Gandhamadanas); and Argunas (the splendid), the son of Indras, the genial, dexterous, fortunate, victorious brother, he who wins the bride. The first brother gives the best advice; the second shows proof of greatest strength; the third brother wins, conquers the bride. They are precisely the three Vedic brothers ?ibhavas, Ekatas, Dvitas, and Tritas, in the same relations.h.i.+ps to one another and with the same natures; only the legend is amplified.[236] As to their other brothers, twins, born of another mother, Nakulas and Sahadevas, they are the sons of the two Acvinau, and feebly repeat in the _Mahabharatam_ the exploits of the two celestial twins. Bhimas or V?ikodaras, the second brother, is considered the strongest, (balavata? creshtha?), because immediately after birth, _i.e._, scarcely has he come forth out of his mother (like the Vedic Marutas), than he breaks the rock upon which he falls, because he breaks his fetters as soon as he is bound with them (like Hanumant when he becomes the prisoner of Rava?as), because he carries his brothers during the night (as Hanumant carries Ramas), as he flees from the burning house prepared by the impious Duryodhanas (_i.e._, from the burning sky of evening), and because in the kingdom of serpents, where Duryodhanas threw him down (that is, the night), he drinks the water of strength. A serpent, wis.h.i.+ng to benefit Bhimas, says to Vasukis, king of the serpents--"Let there be given to him as much strength as he can drink from that cistern in which is placed the strength of a thousand serpents."[237] Bhimas, at one draught, drinks the whole cisternful; and with similar expedition, he drains consecutively eight cisterns.[238] The first-born of the Pan?avas is dear to his father Yamas, the G.o.d of justice, Dharmara?as,--and is himself indeed called Dharmara?as; and when he prepares himself to ascend into heaven, the G.o.d Yamas follows him in the form of a dog: by his skill in solving enigmas, he saves his brother Bhimas from the king of the serpents.

The third brother, Ar?unas, son of Indras, is the Benjamin of the Vedic supreme G.o.d. Indras welcomes him with festivals in heaven, whither Ar?unas had gone to find him. Ar?unas is an infallible archer, like Indras; like Indras, he several times regains the cows from the robbers or from the enemies; and, like Indras, he wins and conquers his bride; he is born by the a.s.sistance of all the celestials; he is invincible (_agayas_); he is the best son (_vara? putras_);[239] he alone of the three brothers has compa.s.sion on his master Dro?as and delivers him from an aquatic monster.[240]

But there is yet another particular which shows the resemblance between the three brothers Pa??avas and the three brothers of the Vedas; it is their dwelling, hidden in the palace of the king Vira?a, in the fourth book of the _Mahabharatam_. They are exiled from the kingdom, like Ramas; they flee from the persecution of their enemies, now into the woods, now, as the ?ibhavas, disguised as workmen in the palace of Vira?as, to whom their presence brings every kind of happiness.

We meet with these three brothers again, episodically, in the three disciples of Dhaumyas, in the first book of the _Mahabharatam_.[241] The first disciple, Upamanyus, takes his master's cows out to pasture, and, out of sensitive regard for his master's interest, refuses to drink not only their milk, but even the foam from their mouths, and fasts till, like to perish of hunger, he bites a leaf of arkapatra (properly, leaf of the sun, the _aristolochia indica_), when he instantly becomes blind. He wanders about and falls into a well; he there sings a hymn to the Acvinau, and they come immediately to deliver him. The second brother, Uddalakas, places his body, as a dike, to arrest the course of the waters. The third brother is Vedas, he who sees, he who knows, whose disciple Utankas is himself in the form of a hero. Utankas, like the Vedic Tritas, and the Pa??avas Ar?u?as, is protected by Indras. He is sent by the wife of his master to abstract the earrings of the wife of King Paushyas. He sets out; on his way he meets a gigantic bull, and a horseman, who bids him, if he would succeed, eat the excrement of the bull; he does so, rinsing his mouth afterwards. He then presents himself to King Paushyas and informs him of his message; the king consigns the earrings to him, but cautions him to beware of Takshakas, the king of the serpents. Utankas says that he is not afraid of him, and sets out with the earrings; but as he puts down the earrings upon the sh.o.r.e, in order to bathe, Takshakas presents himself in the shape of a naked mendicant, whips them up, and flees away with them. Utankas follows him, but Takshakas resumes his serpent form, penetrates the ground, and descends under it; Utankas attempts to follow the serpent, but does not succeed in cleaving the entrance, which corresponds to the Vedic rock under which the monster keeps his prey. Indras sees him tiring himself in vain, and sends his weapon, in order that it may be for a help to Utankas; that weapon, or club, penetrating, opened the cavern.[242] This club, this weapon of Indras is evidently the thunderbolt.[243] Utankas descends into the kingdom of the serpents, full of infinite wonders.

Indras reappears at his side in the shape of a horse,[244] and obliges the king, Takshakas, to give back the earrings; having taken which, Utankas mounts the horse, that he may be carried more swiftly to the wife of his master, from whom he learns that the horseman seen by him on the way was none other than Indras himself; his horse, Agnis, the G.o.d of fire; the bull, the steed of Indras, or the elephant airavatas; the excrement of the bull, the ambrosia, which made him immortal in the kingdom of the serpents. In another episode of the same (the first) book of the _Mahabharatam_,[245] we again find Indras busied in the search of the earrings, that is to say, of the excessively fleshy part hanging from the ears of Kar?as, the child of the sun, who, as soon as born, had been abandoned upon the waters. We have seen above how the two Acvinau are also represented in the _Ramaya?am_ as the two ears of Vish?us Ramas (as the sun and moon are said to be his eyes); hence it seems to me that these mythical earrings, coveted by Indras, and protected by him, are nothing else than the two Acvinau, the two luminous twilights (in connection with the sun and the moon), in which Indras, and, still more than he, the aurora, his wife, take such delight.[246]

In the commentary of _Buddhagoshas_ on the Buddhist Dhammapadam, we have the three brothers again; the two eldest are represented as fleeing from the persecution of their cruel step-mother; the third brother, Suriyas (Suryas, the sun), goes to overtake them. The eldest counsels or commands, the second lends his aid, and the youngest fights. The second and third brothers fall into a fountain, under the power of a monster; the first-born saves them by his knowledge, as, in the _Mahabharatam_, Yudhish?hiras, by his skill in solving riddles, delivers the second brother from the fetters of the forest of the monster serpent.

This mode of delivering the hero, by propounding a question or a riddle, is very common in the Hindoo legends. Even in the _Pancatantram_,[247] a Brahman who falls under the power of a forest monster who leaps on his shoulders, frees himself by asking why his feet are so soft. The monster confesses that it is because, on account of a vow, he cannot touch the earth with his feet. The Brahman then betakes himself to a sacred pond; the monster wishes to take a bath, and the Brahman throws him in; the monster orders him to stay there till he has bathed and said his orisons. The Brahman profits by this opportunity to make his escape, knowing that the monster will not be able to overtake him, as he cannot put his feet to the ground. It is the usual vulnerability, weakness, or imperfection of the hero, or the monster, in the feet, and, if an animal is spoken of, in the tail.[248]

The _Mahabharatam_ has shown us the three Vedic brothers, of whom the youngest has fallen into the well; it also presents to us, in the witch (_asuri_) carmish?ha, daughter of V?ishaparvan, king of the demons, and in the nymph Devayani, daughter of cukras, who credits herself with the virtue of Indras as the rain-giver,[249] the two rival sisters of the Vedas, the good and the evil. In the _Ramaya?am_,[250] the witch curpanakha, who seduces Ramas, in order to take the place of Sita at his side, is compared to carmish?ha, who seduced Nahushas. In the _Mahabharatam_, carmish?ha a.s.sumes the guise of Devayani, whom she throws into a well. Yayatis, son of King Nahushas, goes to the chase; feeling thirsty, he stops near the well; from the bottom of the well a young girl looks up, like a flame of fire.[251] The prince takes her by the right hand and draws her up; and because in the marriage ceremony, the bride is taken by the right hand,[252] the prince Yayatis is said to marry Devayani. But even after she is a wife, carmish?ha continues to seduce her husband, to whom she unites herself. Two sons are born of Devayani, Yadus and Turvasas, similar to Indras and Vish?us (a new form of the twins, of the Acvinau); three are born of carmish?ha, Duhyus, a.n.u.s, and Purus; and here also the third brother is the most glorious and valiant. And in this way the episode is connected with the essential legend of the _Mahabharatam_, and one and the same general myth is multiplied into an infinity of particular legends. As the genealogy of the G.o.ds and heroes is infinite, so is there an infinite number of forms a.s.sumed by the same myth and of the names a.s.sumed by the same hero. Each day gave birth in the heavens to a new hero and a new monster, who exterminate each other, and afterwards revive in an aspect more or less glorious, according as their names were more or less fortunate.

It is for the same reason that the sons always recognise their fathers without having once seen them or even heard them spoken of; they recognise themselves in their fathers. Thus cakuntala and Urvaci enable their mother to find again the husband that she has lost, and their father to recover his lost wife. Thus in the episode of Devayani and carmish?ha, when the former wishes to know who is the father of the three sons of carmish?ha, so similar to the sons of immortals, she turns to them, and they tell her at once.

For this fault, Yayatis, from being young, is fated to become old. He then beseeches the two eldest of the three sons that he had by carmish?ha to take on themselves the old age of their father; they refuse, but the third son, Purus, out of reverence for his father, consents to become old in his stead, to give up his youth to his father. After a thousand years, the king Yayatis, satiated with life, restores to his son Purus his youth, and although he is the youngest, along with his youth, the kingdom, because he found him the only one of the three who respected the paternal will; and he expels the two eldest brothers.[253]

Sometimes, however, the blind old father is entirely abandoned by his sons. Thus the old Dirghatamas (of the vast darkness), blind from birth, is deprived of food, and thrown into the water by his wife and sons,[254] but a heroic king saves him, in order, by his wife, to beget sons for him. We have in Dirghatamas and Yayatis, King Lear in embryo.

In the same legend of Dirghatamas, we find an exchange of wives. Queen Sudeshna, instead of going herself, sends her servant-maid, her foster-sister, to be embraced by Dirghatamas.[255] In the cunning Sudeshna we have an ancient variation of Queen Berta.

Other blind men occur frequently in the Hindoo legends. I shall here cite only Andhakas (the blind one) and V?ish?is (the sheep, as the lame one),[256] who appear in the _Harivancas_[257] as the two sons of Madri.

But we know from the _Mahabharatam_, that the two sons of Madri are a human incarnation of the celestial twins, the Acvinau; and here we come again upon the blind-lame one of the Vedas, the solar hero in his twin forms, the two Acvinau protected by Indras, and companions of the dawn.

The _Pancatantram_[258] represents the blind and the crooked, or hunchbacked,[259] in union with the three-breasted princess (_i.e._, the triple sister, the aurora in the evening, the aurora in the night, the aurora in the morning; the breast of the night nouris.h.i.+ng the defective, the monstrous, which the morning sweeps away). The crooked guides the blind with a stick; they both marry the three-breasted princess. The blind recovers sight by the steam of the poison of a black serpent, cooked in milk (the darkness of night, or of winter, mixed with the clearness of day, or of the snow); he then, being a strongly-built man, takes the hunchback by the legs, and beats his hunch against the third and superfluous breast of the princess. The anterior prominence of the latter, and the posterior one of the former, enter into their respective bodies;[260] thus the blind, the crooked, and the three-breasted princess help and cure each other; the two Acvinau and the aurora (or the spring) reappear together in beauty. The Acvinau and the aurora also come forth together from the monstrous shades of night; the Acvinau contend for the aurora; as we shall see soon, and in the next chapter, the delivered bride disputed for by the brothers.

The sun and the aurora flee from each other; this spectacle has been represented in different ways by the popular imagination; and one of the most familiar is certainly that of a beautiful young girl who, running more quickly than the prince, escapes from him. This incident, which is already described in the _?igvedas_, occurs again in the _Mahabharatam_,[261] in the legend of the loves of the virgin Tapati, daughter of the sun (the luminous and burning aurora, and also the summer season, ardent as Dahana), with the king Sa?vara?as, son of the bear (_?ikshaputras_, a kind of Indras). The king Sa?vara?as arrives on horseback with his retinue at the mountain, in order to hunt; he ties his horse up and begins the chase, when he sees on the mountain the beautiful girl, the daughter of the sun, who, covered with ornaments, s.h.i.+nes like the sun; he declares his love and wishes to make her his own; she answers not a word, but flees and disappears like the lightning in the clouds;[262] the king cannot overtake her, because his horse, while he was hunting, has died of hunger and thirst; he searches in vain through the forest, but not seeing her, he throws himself almost breathless to the ground. As he lies there the beautiful girl appears again, approaches and wakens him; he again speaks to her of love, and she answers that he must ask her father the sun, and then, still quite innocent, she disappears swiftly on high (_urdhvam_). The king again faints; his minister sprinkles him with the water of health, and makes him revive, but he refuses to leave the mountain, and having dismissed his hunting company, he awaits the arrival of the great purohitas Vasish?has, by whose mediation he demands from the sun his daughter Tapati to wife; the sun consents, and Vasish?has reconducts to Sa?vara?as, for the third time, the beautiful girl as his legitimate wife. The husband and wife live together happily on the mountain of their loves; but as long as King Sa?vara?as remains with Tapati upon this mountain, no rain falls upon the earth; wherefore the king, out of love for his subjects, returns to his palace, upon which Indras pours down the rain, and begins again to fructify the earth.[263]

We said a little ago that Vasish?has himself caused it to rain (_abhyavarshata_); and the mention of Vasish?has reminds us of the particularly rain-giving, cloudy, and lunar function of his cow Kadmadhenus, whose wonderful productions are again described in the _Mahabharatam_.[264] Besides milk and ambrosia, she yields herbs and gems, which we have already referred to, as a.n.a.logous products in mythology. The cow of Vasish?has is, besides her tail, celebrated for her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, her horns, and even her ears ending in a point; whence her name of _cankukar?a_ (the masculine form of which is generally applied to the a.s.s). And in the _Mahabharatam_, also, the wise Vicvamitras is covetous of this wonderful cow; the cow bellows and drops fire from her tail, and radiates from every part of her body armies which disperse those of the son of Gadhis. Vicvamitras then avenges himself in other ways upon the sons of Vasish?has; having, _e.g._, become a cannibal, he eats them.

Vasish?has cannot endure the pain this causes him: he tries to throw himself down from the summit of Mount Merus, but he falls without hurting himself; he throws himself into the fire, but does not burn himself; and, finally, he leaps into the sea, but is not drowned.

These three miracles are accomplished every day by the solar hero, who throws himself down from the mountain into the gloomy ocean of night, after having pa.s.sed through the burning sky of evening.

Vasish?has ends by freeing, with the help of charmed water, the monster Vicvamitras from his curse; and the latter is no sooner delivered from the demon who possessed him, than he begins again to illumine the forest with his splendour, as the sun illumines a twilight cloud. The friends.h.i.+ps, enmities, and rivalries of Vasish?has and Vicvamitras seem to be another version of those of the two Acvinau, whom we shall particularly describe in the next chapter.

Meanwhile, it is high time, as the reader will think, to conclude this part of our study, which treats of the mythical cow of India. We might easily, indeed, have made it much larger, had our design been to chain together, link by link, all the traditions and legends in which the cow plays a primary or subordinate part. But it is better to stop short, lest, by expatiating further, we should lose sight of the essential aim of our work, and be tempted into digressions from the legends relating to beasts to those relating to men; besides, we think that we have sufficiently proved the thesis of this chapter, and shown how the princ.i.p.al mythical subjects of the Vedic hymns are not only preserved, but developed, in the posterior Hindoo traditions. It is not entirely our fault if, from cows, we pa.s.s so often to princesses, and from bulls to princes; the myth itself involves and indicates these transformations. Hence we find the bull Indras, the winner of the cows, become a winner and a seducer of women; we see the bull Wind, who aids Indras in the conquest of the cows, become the violator of a hundred damsels;[265] we read of the bull and G.o.d Rudras, as husband of Uma, given up to sensual indulgence for a hundred years without a pause; that the son of the bull, or of the wind, Hanumant, does prodigies of valour and strength for the sake of a beautiful woman, and receives, as a reward for his zeal, from the king Bharatas, a hundred thousand cows, sixteen wives, and a hundred servant-maids.[266] What could Hanumant have done with so many wives and maids, if he were simply a bull? or what could he have done with so many cows, if he had been an ape? It is these inconsistencies which have caused mythology to be condemned by the crowd of old but prolific pedants, as a vain science; whereas, on the contrary, it is precisely these inconsistencies which raise it, in our esteem, to the rank of a valid science. He who handed down to us the feats of Hanumant, took care also to tell us how he had the faculty of changing his form at will; and this faculty, attributed to this impersonation of a celestial phenomenon, is the fruit of one of the most _nave_ but just observations of virgin and grandiose nature.

FOOTNOTES:

[132] I must, however, observe that competent authorities, such as Professor Weber, consider the phallical wors.h.i.+p of civas to have originated in the beliefs of the indigenous tribes of Dravidian race.

[133] _?igv._ i. 123, 8.

[134] Vidique saepe, sed c.u.mprimis anno 1785 in Malabaria ad flumen templo celebri Ambalapushe proximum, extra oppidum Callureata in silvula, sententia regis Travancoridis Rama Varmer, quinque viros arbori appensos et morti traditos, quod, contra regni leges et religionis praescripta, voluntarie unicam vaccam occiderint; _Systema Brahmanic.u.m_, ill.u.s.tr. Fr. Paullinus a S. Bartholomaeo, Romae, 179.--Cfr.

_Manava-Dharmacastram_, xi. 60, and _Yagnavalkya-Dharmacastram_, iii.

234.

[135] ii. 1, 8.

[136] Pancagavya? piban goghno masam asita sa?yata? gosh?recayo go 'nugami gopradanena cudhyati; _Dharm._ iii. 263.

[137] _Dharm._ xi. 166.

[138] Ibid. iii. 271.

[139] Ka ima? dacabhir mamendra? kri?ati dhenubhi?; _?igv._ iv. 24, 10.

[140] _Dharm._ iii. 27.

[141] _G?ihyasutra?i_, i. 8, 9.--It was, moreover, on the occasion of a marriage, the custom to give cows to the Brahmans; in the _Ramaya?am_, i. 74, the King Dacarathas, at the nuptials of his four sons, gives 400,000 cows.

[142] a na? pra?a? ?anayatu pra?apati?; _?igv._ x. 85, 43.

[143] Gocarmavasano hari?; xiii. 1228.

[144] Cfr. Bohtlingk u. Roth's, _Sanskrit Worterbuch_ s. v. _gocarman_.

[145] acvalay. _G?ihyasu._ iv. 3.

[146] _G?ihyasu._ i. 13.--The commentator _Naraya?as_, quoted by Professor Stenzler, in his version of _acvalayanas_, explains how the two beans and grain of barley express by their form the male organs of generation.

[147] _G?ihyasu._ i. 14.

[148] _G?ihyasu._ ii. 10.--The St Antony, protector of animals, of the Vedic faith was the G.o.d Rudras, the wind, to whom, when the cattle were afflicted by a disease, it was necessary to sacrifice in the midst of an enclosure of cows.--Cfr. the same, _acvalay._ iv. 8.

[149] Yac ca goshu dushvapnya? yac casme duhitar diva? tritaya tad vibhavary aptyaya para vahanehaso va utaya? suutayo va utaya?; _?igv._ viii. 47, 14.

[150] Paya? k?ish?asu rucad rohi?ishu; _?igv._ i. 62, 9.--Cfr. _?igv._ i. 123, 9.

[151] _G?ihyasu._ iv. 3.