Zoological Mythology Volume I Part 8

[243] In a legend of the Tibetan Buddhists, referred to by Professor Schiefner in his interesting work, _Ueber Indra's Donnerkeil_ (St Petersburg), 1848, we find two valiant heroes who, upon Mount G?idhraku?a (the vulture's peak), strive, in presence of their master, to lift the va?ram (that is, the arm in the form of a wedge, the lever-rod, the thunderbolt of Indras), but in vain; Va?rapa?is alone succeeds in lifting the va?ram with his right hand. Ramas makes a similar trial of strength in the _Ramaya?am_, when he lifts and breaks in pieces a bow, which no one had before been able even to move.

[244] Cfr. the following chapter.

[245] i. 2772-2783.

[246] To the myth of the ravished earrings is almost always joined, even in the popular tales, the story of the horse, which is always especially referred to the Acvinau, as that of the bull to Indras. In the Puranic legends, K?ish?as receives from the earth the earrings of Aditis (whom we already know to be a cow), whilst he frees the princesses from the infernal Narakas.--Cfr. the _Vish?u Pura?a_, v. 29.

[247] v. 17.

[248] Cfr. the chapters which treat of the Wolf, the Fox, and the Serpent; and also the foregoing discussion on the Vedic riddles, where the sun is called _anipadyamanas_.

[249] Aha? ?ala? kimuncami pra?anam hitakamyaya; _Mbh._ i. 3317.

[250] iii. 23, 24.

[251] Dadarca ra?a tam tatra kanyamagnicikhamiva; _Mbh._ i. 3294.

[252] _Mbh._ i. 3379-3394

[253] _Mbh._ i. 3435-3545.

[254] _Mbh._ i. 4193-4211.

[255] _Mbh._ i. 4211-4216.

[256] We shall find the lame goat in the chapter which treats of the Lamb and the Goat.

[257] 1908.

[258] v. 12.

[259] The word _badhiras_ means here the crooked, the crippled one, and not the deaf (from the root _badh_ or _vadh_, to wound, to cut); the more so that here the name of the blind man's companion is Mantharakas, a word which properly means the slow one. The curved line and the slow line correspond; and the curved one, who cannot stand upright, may be the hunchback just as well as the cripple, the crooked, the lame.--Cfr. The chapter on the Tortoise.

[260] For the incident of the hunchback who betrays the blind man, in the same popular tale, cfr. next chapter.

[261] i. 6527.

[262] Saudaminiva cabhreshu tatraevantaradhiyata; _Mbh._ i. 6557.

[263] Tasminn?ipaticardule pravish?e nagara? puna? pravavarsha sahasraksha? casyani ?anayanprabhu?; _Mbh._ 6629, 6630.

[264] i. 6651-6772.

[265] The hundred daughters of King Kucanabhas, and of the nymph Gh?itaci, who walks in curdled milk, recalling to us the mythical cow.--Cfr. _Ramay._ i. 35.

[266] Cfr. Virgil, _aeneid_, I. 65-75, where Juno gives the nymph Deiopea to aeolus.

SECTION III.

THE BULL AND THE COW IN IRANIAN AND TURANIAN TRADITION.

SUMMARY.

The bull the first created in Persian tradition.--The bull of Mithra.--Mithra and Yamas.--The excrements of the celestial cow and bull.--Exorcisms for chasing the evil one away from the beasts of the stable.--The salutary herb, rue.--The heavenly cypress and the mythical forest.--The mountain and the gem.--The mountain of the heroes.--The defenceless soul of the bull recommends itself to the mercy of the G.o.ds.--The moon, as a cow or b.i.t.c.h, guides the hero over the funereal bridge.--The many-eyed G.o.d.--The golden-hoofed bull.--The spinners of the sky.--Friends.h.i.+p between sun and moon.--The Geusurva is the full moon.--The purifying moon.--Ardhvi-cura-Anahita, the Persian aurora, has all the characteristics of the Vedic aurora, elevated, luminous, discomfiter of the demons, deliverer of the hero Thraetaona from the water, having golden shoes, swift, the first to arrive with her chariot, guesser of riddles, revered at the break of day.--The aurora sung to by her own name, the cow-aurora.--Mithra, the shepherd-G.o.d,--Mithra, the hero who fights to recover his cows.--The bull Veretraghna.--Thrita and Thraetaona.--The three brothers in the Avesta.--The two brothers.--The three sisters.--The strength of the solar hero consists in the wind.--The winds have golden shoes and an especial foible for women, as the women have for them.--Indras envious of the Marutas.--Kerecacpa envious of the wind.--The wind, with its whistling and wailing, makes everything tremble; the hero presses him tightly and forces him to be silent.--The bound hero.--The bow-cow, and the birds coming out of the cow in the Avesta.--The darts, horns of the cow.--The rich brother and the poor one.--The poor one, who has a lean ox and a lean horse, makes his fortune.--As.h.i.+s Vag~uhi, another equivalent of the aurora who also frees the hero Thraetaona.--Other names of the three Persian brothers.--Importance of the Avesta on account of its mythical contents.--The hero exposed on the mountain.--The hero-shepherd, the wonderful child, Cyrus.--Feridun.--The three brothers, sons of Feridun; the third brother is the best, and is murdered by the two elder ones.--Sal, with white hair, the hero exposed and nourished by a bird, solves riddles, and receives in reward the daughter of the king.--The hero Rustem, with the mace of a bull's head, with the strong horse that vanquishes the lion, the strong hero, the Persian Orlando, kills and binds demons, monsters, and giants, who fight with rocks.--From black comes white.--The prince Kawus recovers his sight after the death of the monster.--The demon in the mountain, who keeps back the waters, is the same as the demon in the mill.--The hero Rustem unites himself with the daughter of the demoniacal and hostile king.--Sohrab is born of this union, with a demoniacal nature.--Gurdaferid, the Persian amazon princess, a.s.sailed in her white castle by the hero-demon Sohrab.--Rustem fights, wins, and kills his son Sohrab; he then retires from warfare.--Explanation of this myth.--The end of Rustem in an ambuscade.--Sijavush persecuted by his stepmother, whose love he had disdained; the young prince submits to the trial by fire, and comes out safely: the cruel stepmother was to have undergone the same trial, but Sijavush intercedes for her; she continues to persecute him; Sijavush dies in the country of his demoniacal father-in-law, and is avenged by Rustem, who kills the cruel stepmother.--The child-hero Kai Khosru consigned to the care of shepherds; during his childhood he performs prodigies of valour, and pa.s.ses a river with dry feet.--The strength of the hair of the hero Firud.--The two hero-brothers again; one brother avenges the other.--The old hero becomes a penitent, and disappears in a tempest upon a mountain.--The seven heroic undertakings of Isfendiar.--The legend of Iskander.--The Tuti-Name.--The hero who wishes to kill himself for the king's sake; the deity prevents the sacrifice.--The story of the poor man and the rich one again.--The beautiful woman persecuted by her brother-in-law the seducer; the oriental Crescentia or Genevieve.--The sea, invited to the wedding, brings pearls and gold.--The maiden who discovers the thief by means of a riddle.--The girl who gives his eyesight back to the blind man against her will.--The lovers flee upon the bull's back.--The lover forsakes his mistress on the sh.o.r.e after having despoiled her.--The three brothers deliver the beautiful maiden and dispute for her; the maiden takes refuge in a convent.--The wise child who distinguishes false from true, honest from dishonest.--The money of the dead man.--The adulterer condemned to death who bites off the nose of his companion in guilt and dissoluteness.--The wife despoiled of her riches by her husband and thrown into the water.--Romeo and Juliet in the East.--The three brothers: the seer; the strong carrier, or Christophoros; the victorious one.--The disputed bride again.--The little pipkin of abundance; Perrette in the East.--The small porringer of abundance, which the two brothers contend for.--The shoes which take one in an instant wherever one wishes to go.--The little purse which is filled as fast as it is emptied.--The sword which makes a city rise.--The animals which contend for the division of the prey, and the third comer who profits between two disputers.--The four mines of the four brothers.--Why old men have white hair.--Calmuc and Mongol tradition.--The six companions are the same as three.--The bride torn in pieces.--A man unites himself with a cow, which brings forth a Minotaur of a good nature, who fights against the demons in favour of the G.o.ds.--The gem in the cow's litter.--The bull lost.--The three sisters; the third sister marries the monster bird; she loses him, because she has burned the aviary.--The painter and the woodman in Paradise; the painter is burned.--The two brothers, the rich one and the poor one; the rich brother ends badly.--The husband who despoils his wife and hides her in a chest in the sand of the desert.--The gem of the prince falls to the ground; his nose bleeds and he dies; explanation of this myth.--The wonderful hammer, which, when used, brings one whatever is wished for.--The rich and poor brothers; the poor one becomes rich.--The lengthened nose and the corresponding Italian proverb.--The wife kills her husband with the hammer, wis.h.i.+ng to knock a protuberance off his nose.--The old man who eats his last cow; his wife continues, even after its death, to nourish and protect him until the wild beasts in the cavern devour him.--The woman disguised as a solar hero.--The lion and the bull friends, or foster-brothers; their friends.h.i.+p is put an end to by the fox.--The projects of Perrette again.--The horns of the dead buffalo.--The grateful animals.--The laughing princess.--The wise herd-children.--The wise puppets.--The prince born of a cake.--The boy learns in the forest every art, even devilish ones.--The son of the wolves who understands their language.--Heroes and demons cut in pieces multiply themselves.--The hero has good luck, because he has performed funeral services to the dead.--Four young shepherds, a new form of the ?ibhavas, make a beautiful maiden of wood, and then dispute for her.--The wife throws her husband into the fountain out of jealousy, having heard another voice, perhaps the echo of her own.--The princess Light of the sun, who must be seen by no one, and who is visited by the minister Moon.--Turanian tradition in Siberia.--The three brothers dream upon the mountain; the third brother is persecuted on account of his dream; he finds the blind woman and lame man, and induces them to adopt him; he hunts, fights against the devil, and vanquishes him; from the body of the demon come forth animals, men, and treasures; he fishes up in the sea of milk the casket which contains the eyes of the blind woman; receives extraordinary gifts, and above all the faculty of transforming himself; wins his predestined bride, and kills his own cruel father.--The hero who solves enigmas.--Ancient and modern riddles.--The cow devours the wolf, and the wolf devours the cow.--The bow of horn.--The wolves fastened to the calf's tail.--The soul of the black bull in the rainbow, the bridge of souls, wounded by the young hero, who then espouses the daughter of the sky, after attaining the third heaven, and accomplis.h.i.+ng heroic undertakings to merit her.--The sleeper in the cup, the gem in the fish.--The Argonauts and Medea in Turan.--The Finnish Diana.--The Finnish thundering G.o.d, Kave Ukko.--The little sun, the Finnish dwarf-hero.--The second of the three brothers.--The strong bear.--The monster giant darkness or cloud.--The Orpheus and the lyre of the Finns; grief the inspirer of song.--Finnish and Aryan myths.--The Sampo.--Esthonian tradition.--The three sisters; the third is the most beautiful, and is persecuted by her stepmother, and delivered by the prince.--The bird of light.--The maiden transformed into a pond-rose, and delivered by her husband in the shape of a shrimp.--The witch is burned in the form of a cat.--The gold of the witch.--Explanation of several myths.--The third brother is the swiftest.--The wise maiden.--The golden fairy.--The puppet.--The magical rod makes the c.o.c.k come out of the mountain.--The fairy is good towards the good, and punishes the wicked.--The cow lost.--The old hospitable dwarf.--The leaf which carries the hero across the waters.--Heroic undertakings against the serpent and the tortoise.--The third brother, expelled from home, travels and solves riddles on the way.--The rod which makes a bridge.--In heaven and in h.e.l.l time pa.s.ses quickly.--The hero under-cook.--The golden birds and the voyages to h.e.l.l.--The brothers punished, and the bride won by the magical sword.--The son of thunder.--The weapon carried off from the G.o.d of thunder.--The weapon recovered.--The fisherman-G.o.d.--The marvellous musical instrument; the magical flute.--The three dwarfs.--The hat that makes its owner invisible, made of men's nails; the shoes which carry one where-ever one wishes, and the stick which fights of itself.--The proverb of the third who profits between two disputers again.--The third brother is the son of a king, exposed when a child; he awakens the princess who sleeps in the gla.s.s mountain; _non est mortua puella, sed dormit_.--Pa.s.sage from the dawn of the day to the dawn of the year.--The child sold by his father without the latter's knowledge.--The boy exchanged.--The boy sets out to deliver the maiden from the demon.--The pea, the kidney-bean, the cabbage, and the pumpkin of funerals accompany the solar hero in his nocturnal voyage.--The symbol of abundance, of generation, of stupidity.--The nuptial beans.--Meaning of the myth concerning vegetables.--The region of silence.--The region of noise.--The wise girl helps the hero.--The cow milked and the calf bound.--The luminous ball comes out of the calf.--The ant.i.thesis of white and of black.--Hungarian proverbs.--The luminous ball comes out of the stone.--The luminous ball and the ring.--The fearless hero frees the castle from spirits.--The Esthonian story of Blue Beard.--The charivari in the nuptials of widowers.--The widow who burns herself.--The hero exposed, and then brought up among cowherds, feels himself predestined to reign, and learns the art by guiding herds.--The German (or Western) witch endeavours to take the red strawberries from the Esthonian hero.--The boy avenges this injury by causing her to be devoured by wolves, who will not touch her heart.--The gardener's daughter.--The broken ring; the two parts of the ring unite again; the husband and wife find each other once more.--The maiden born of the egg in the shape of a puppet.--The casket which brings good luck disappears when the young couple are married.

Moving now from India westwards, we find on one side the Iranian, and on the other the Turanian traditions. We cannot pa.s.s into Europe without at least indicating the general character of each.

In the Persian cosmogony, the bull (_gaus aevo dato_) is one of the first of created existences, being as old as the elements. It is, moreover, well known how much importance was ascribed to the bull among the Persians in the mysteries of the solar G.o.d Mithra, who is represented as a beautiful youth, holding the horns of a bull in his left hand, and having the knife of sacrifice in his right. Mithra sacrificing the bull is just the solar hero sacrificing himself in the evening. Indeed, in the Persian tradition, Mithra, like the Hindoo Yamas, holds the office of G.o.d of the dead, and as such, like Yamas, is of a monstrous aspect, and is found in the _Yacna_ represented with a thousand ears and ten thousand eyes.

As in India, so in Persia, the urine of the cow is used in ceremonies of purification, during which it is drunk.[267] We have already seen in the story of Utankas how the excrement of the bull, upon which Utankas fed, was ambrosia itself; and, indeed, all is beneficial which is given by the cow of abundance (the moon, the cloud, and the aurora), and by the divine bull (the moon and the sun). The mythical belief was natural, however disgusting when we insist on literal interpretation.

And even in the Persian tradition itself, a distinction already exists between common bulls or oxen and sacred or privileged ones. This distinction appears in the legend of Gems.h.i.+d, whose bulls were all devoured by the devil, as long as they were protected by no magical rites; whilst, when he was given a red ox (or bull) cooked in old, that is strong, vinegar, to which was added garlic and rue (famous for its potency in exorcism), he disappeared and was never seen again.[268] The rue is probably the fabulous plant which the Zend tradition surmises to have sprung from the sea _Vouru-Kasha_, whence Ahura Mazda draws the clouds, from which all healthful water is derived, and which corresponds to the sea of milk of Hindoo tradition, in which the ambrosia is agitated.

Thus the funereal cypress of Kishmar (planted by Zarathustra, with a branch from the tree of Paradise), under which more than two thousand cows and sheep could pasture, and the innumerable birds of which darkened the air, obscuring the light of the sun, reminds us of the celestial forest of the Vedas, in which the shepherd-hero and the hunter-hero wander and are lost.

The idea of the funereal tree recalls to us that of the Persian mountain Arezura or Demavend, where the demons met together to plot evil, and where was the gate of h.e.l.l.[269]

The Zend word _acma_, which signifies stone and heaven, yields us, in its double meaning, the key to the interpretation of the myth. This stone, inasmuch as it is dark, is of evil omen; inasmuch as it s.h.i.+nes, it is a gem, or gives the gem (the moon or the sun); whence, according to the _Minokhired_, the sky is the progeny of a precious stone.[270]

Thus to the mountain of the demons (where the sun goes down), is opposed in Persian tradition the glorious mountain, out of which are born the heroes and the kings (or from which the sun rises and the moon); because Haoma is born there (the Hindoo Somas), the ambrosial, golden, and health-bringing G.o.d, who gives them the divine nourishment, and because the sacred bird, which stays on that mountain, feeds them with ambrosia, whence the _Yacna_[271] invites Haoma to grow on the road of the birds.

In a rather obscure pa.s.sage of the _Gatha Ahunavaiti_, confirmed by the _Bundehesh_, the soul of the bull (or of the cow, as the case may be), despoiled of his body by the evil one, complains to the Supreme Creator that he is without defence against the a.s.saults of his enemies, and that he has no invincible protector. Ahura Mazda seems to wish only to give him spiritual help, but the bull continues to declare himself unsatisfied, until Zarathustra, the defender, accords it, and he receives the gift of efficacious favours which Ahura Mazda alone possesses.[272] Zarathustra is himself also born upon a mountain;[273]

while his son caoshyanc, the deliverer, comes out of the waters.

A sacred cow, or at least a b.i.t.c.h which guards the cows (_pacuvaiti_), seems, besides a good fairy, to be, in the _Vendiad_ itself,[274] the conductor of the souls across the bridge Cinvat, created by Ahura Mazda, to the kingdom of the blessed. The cow, as the guide of the souls[275]

lost in the kingdom of the dead, and placed upon the bridge, is probably the moon; the b.i.t.c.h (also the moon) reminds us of the Hindoo Sarama, the b.i.t.c.h which aids the heroes who have lost themselves in the nocturnal forest, grotto, or darkness. In the same chapter, after accounts of the bridge, we read the praise of the good caoka, who has many eyes (like the brahmanic Indras, disguised as a woman, having a thousand eyes, and, after the adventure of Ahalya, a thousand wombs--the G.o.d hidden in the night, who looks at the world through a thousand stars); after caoka, of the splendid Veretraghna (who corresponds to V?itrahan, properly the discomfiter of the all-covering darkness); and after him, of the luminous star Tistar, which seems a bull with golden hoofs,[276] which again must refer to the moon; as the Gahs, who, according to Anquetil, "sont occupees a filer des robes pour les justes dans le ciel," like the cows and Madonnas in our popular tales, cannot be very different from the fairy, or at least from the stars which form her crown. The _Khorda Avesta_, in its hymns in praise of Mithra, celebrates the perfect friends.h.i.+p which reigns between the sun and the moon, and sings of the moon immediately after singing of the sun Mithra, and the splendid Tistar immediately after the moon, whose light is said to come from the constellation Tistrya.

We can thus divine the meaning of Geusurva (the soul of the bull or the cow), of which, besides the soul, the body also is invoked in the _Yacna_.[277] The Geusurva appears in the _Yacna_ itself[278] as the protectress of the fourteenth day of the month, or of the full-moon, viewed as a full cow. And when it is said in the _Khorda Avesta_[279]

that one must not sacrifice to the Geusurva at the time when the Daevas, or demons, are practising their evil-doings, it seems to me to indicate clearly enough that the sacrifice was to take place while the moon was increasing, and not while it was diminis.h.i.+ng. Thus Asha Vahista, who reminds us of the Hindoo Vasish?has and his marvellous cow, has the power of conjuring away illness, north winds--in a word, evil of every kind--only when Ag~ro-mai?yus appears without help.[280]

We have seen in the legend of Utankas how, as the youth is on his way to take the queen's earrings, he meets a bull, upon the excrement of which he feeds, as upon ambrosia; that this ambrosial bull stays near Indras, as Indras and Somas are invoked together; and we noticed that from this mythical belief was derived the superst.i.tious Hindoo custom of purifying one's self by means of the excrement of a cow. The same custom pa.s.sed into Persia; and the _Khorda Avesta_[281] has preserved the formula to be recited by the devotee, whilst he holds in his hands the urine of an ox or cow, preparatory to was.h.i.+ng his face with it:--"Destroyed, destroyed be the demon Ahriman, whose actions and works are cursed. His actions and works do not come to us. May the thirty-three Amshaspands (the immortal saints, who correspond to the thirty-three Vedic devas), and Ormazd, be victorious and pure!" It is said this remedial formula was used for the first time by Yima, when, from having touched Ahriman, in order to extricate from his body, by fraud, Takh mo Urupa, whom the demon had devoured, he had an eruption on his hand. Finally, it is interesting to learn that one of the Zend names of the moon is _gaocithra_, which means he that contains the seed of the bull, since, according to the _Bundehesh_, the seed of the primitive bull pa.s.sed into the moon, who, having purified it, used it to procreate other cattle (_pouru caredho_).

As to the aurora, there seems to be no doubt but that she was represented in ancient Persia by Ardvi cura Anahita, the elevated, the strong, the innocent or pure, according to the interpretation of Professor Spiegel; she also drives a chariot drawn by four white horses, which she guides herself; she has a veil, a diadem, and bracelets of gold, beautiful earrings (the Vedic Acvinau), a dress of beavers' skin, and prominent b.r.e.a.s.t.s; she is beautiful, and she is a good young girl who protects men and women. She is often invoked in the _Khorda Avesta_, like the Vedic aurora, to exorcise the demons, and to help the heroes who combat them; she herself has the strength of a thousand men, and is a marvellous heroine, like the Vedic amazon whom Indras fought with; her body is girt round with a girdle. The probability of this comparison seems to pa.s.s into certainty after reading a hymn of the _Khorda Avesta_,[282] even in the version of Professor Spiegel, who perhaps would have introduced some little variation if he had recognised the aurora in Ardvi cura Anahita. In this hymn, the victorious and mighty Thraetaona, in the form of a bird, flies for three days and three nights, which reminds us of the fugitive Indras of the _?igvedas_, who wades across the rivers after his victory; at the end of the third night he arrives near the aurora, and beseeches Ardvi cura Anahita (that is, as it seems to us, the aurora herself, elevated, mighty, and innocent) to come and help him, that he may pa.s.s the waters and touch the ground at her habitation.

Then Ardvi cura Anahita appears in the shape of a beautiful, strong, and splendid girl, having a golden diadem and wearing shoes of gold (cfr. the _Yast_, xxi. 19) on her feet (this is perhaps another feeble foreshadow of Cinderella's slippers); the beautiful girl takes him by one arm (the bird has, it seems, become a hero), and gives him back health and strength. But the certainty increases still more when, as the Vedic aurora is the first of those who arrive, winning the race in her chariot, the so-called Ardhvi cura Anahita appears in the _Khorda Avesta_ as "the first who guides the chariot;"[283] and we are recommended to offer up sacrifices to her at break of day, before the sun rises.[284] We have seen the Vedic aurora and the sun propose and solve riddles; we have seen the Hindoo solar hero free himself from the monster by proposing or solving insoluble enigmas; in the same way, in the _Avesta_, the hero Yacto Fryanananm asks Ardvi cura Anahita to help him to solve ninety-nine enigmas, in order that he may free himself from the monster Akhtya.

Add to this that Ardvi cura Anahita, like the Vedic aurora, is a giver of cows and horses, and that these animals are offered to her by her devotees. The aurora herself, in the invocation made to her in the sixth prayer of the _Khorda Avesta_, is also called "elevated," and furnished with swift and splendid horses.[285] The fact of finding the Anahita drawn by four white horses, like the sun Mithra, enhances the evidence of this ident.i.ty. And if the aurora is not explicitly represented in the _Avesta_ as a cow, we infer that it was so conceived of, from the wors.h.i.+p of Mithra, who was adored from the first streak of daylight till midday. Mithra often receives the epithet of "he who possesses vast pasture-lands;" the morning sun is therefore a pastoral G.o.d; and if so, we are constrained to think of the Persian aurora too as, if not a cow, at least a female cowherd.

But Mithra is not a G.o.d of mere idyllic exploits, he is also a hero; the _Vendidad_[286] salutes him as "the most victorious of the victors." The booty of his victory [essentially due to his immediate predecessors Veretraghna (V?itrahan) and craosha][287] must have been the cows of the aurora, without which his immense pasture-lands would have been of no use to him. Indeed it is said that Mithra enables owners of herds to recover their lost oxen.[288]

But Mithra is not the only prominent hero of the _Avesta_. Besides him, the above-cited Veretraghna, with all his secondary and tertiary reflections, plays an important part in it. Now, this Veretraghna, who offers numerous a.n.a.logies to the Vedic Indras, killer of V?itras, is, like Indras, now a hero, now a horse, now a bird, now a sheep, now a wild boar, and now a bull.[289] As the bull Indras a.s.sists Tritas, Traitanas, and Kavya Ucanas[290] in the _?igvedas_, so the bull Veretraghna in the _Avesta_, partaking of the nature of one Thrita[291]

who is rich, splendid, and strong, and who, like Indras, cures maladies by the help of the guardian of the metals (the usual co-relation between the hero and the magic pearl), a.s.sists Thraetaona, the killer of the serpent Duhaka (Azhi Dahaka) and the hero Kava Uca, of which Kava Haocrava is another name rather than another form. The Thrita and Thraetaona of the _Zend_ are peculiarly interesting, because they remind us, though vaguely, of the Vedic myth of the three brothers. Only the _Avesta_ names Thrita and Thraetaona as two distinct divine heroes; it attributes to Thraetaona the second place among the three brothers; and as in the _Mahabharatam_, it is the second brother, the strong Bhimas, who falls into the waters, whilst the third brother, Ar?unas, delivers others from the marine monster by his valour, so in the _Avesta_ it is Thraetaona who comes out of the waters, or who is the son of Athvya (-aptya). But every one can see the point of contact, connection, or identification between the two hero-brothers. It is Bhimas who comes out of the waters, and Ar?unas who extricates him, that is, who extricates his own strength, expressed in Bhimas (the subject, and his virtue, become the object, being inclosed in one person). They are confounded together, inasmuch as Thraetaona, son of him who stays in the waters, or of the watery one, or he who comes out of the waters, and kills the demon, must be the same as Thrita, the third one, who has the virtue of curing demoniacal diseases. Thraetaona, the killer of the serpent, and Thrita, who destroys the evil-doing ones, are found again, with a different splendour, in the same heroic adventure. Scarcely an instant transpires between the time when the hero was a victim and that in which Veretraghna, or Thraetaona, or Thrita, the hero, triumphs in his own liberation.

In the _Yacna_,[292] we find three men who, by their piety, win the favour of the G.o.d Haoma (Soma, the lunar G.o.d, the moon, the good magician, the good fairy). The first is Vivaghao, the second athvya, and the third Thrita; from which we are led to conclude that Vivaghao is the eldest brother, athvya the second, and Thrita the youngest. On account of their piety, they obtain sons; the son of Vivaghao is Yima (the Vedic Yamas), the wise, the happy, the heavenly; the son of athvya is Thraetaona, the warrior who discomfits the monster; the third, Thrita, called the most useful, has two sons, Urvaksha and Kerecacpa, who remind us of the Acvinau. athvya's son and Thrita being confounded in one person, Thraetaona, or Thrita, forms a new triumvirate with Urvaksha and Kerecacpa, as the Vedic Indras with the two Acvinau. The story of the three brothers and that of the two brothers seem to be interwoven even in the myth, as they certainly are afterwards in the legend. To the three brothers, moreover, correspond, in the _Avesta_, the three sisters, the three daughters of Zarathustra and of Hvovi: Freni, Thriti, and Pourucicsta.[293] The first seems to correspond to Yamas, the second to aptya and his son Thraetaona (or Thrita), the third, the luminous, the beautiful (as being the aurora), to the two handsome brother hors.e.m.e.n, Urvaksha and Kerecacpa (the Acvinau).

The solar hero comes out of his difficulties, and triumphs over his enemies, not only by force of arms, but by his innate strength and prowess. This extraordinary strength, by which he moves and is borne along, and which renders him irresistible, is the wind, invoked by the heroes in the _Avesta_ under the name of Raman. The wind, according to the _Avesta_, is not only the swiftest of the swift, but the strongest of the strong (like the Marutas, Hanumant, or Bhimas, Hindoo winds, or sons of the wind). Even in the _Avesta_, he fights and a.s.sures the heroes of victory, and is dear to woman and girls. (In the same way, Sita has a leaning for Hanumant, and Hidimba, of all the Pa??avas, gives the preference to Bhimas.) Moreover, in the _Avesta_, girls invoke the wind in order to obtain a husband.[294]

A hymn of the _?igvedas_, however, celebrates a kind of quarrel between the winds Marutas and the G.o.d Indras, prompted by rivalry; a quarrel which ends in Indras having the advantage. It is interesting to find in the Persian tradition[295] the same rivalry between the wind (vata) and the son of Thrita, the hero Kerecacpa. An evil genie informs the wind that Kerecacpa boasts of being superior to him in strength. Thereupon the wind begins to howl and rage in such a terrifying manner that nothing can resist him, and the very trees are cleft in two or torn up, till Kerecacpa comes and squeezes him so tightly in his arms that he is obliged to cease. This interesting mythical incident is a prefigurement of the loud whistle of the heroes and the monsters in fairy tales, which is brought to an end in a summary fas.h.i.+on, similar to that of the Persian legend; which also leads us to suppose that Thraetaona vanquished the serpent Dahaka, merely by tying him to the demoniacal mountain Demavend.[296] This style of vanquis.h.i.+ng the enemy by binding him occurs often enough in the Persian legends and in the _Avesta_ itself;[297] and is also mentioned in the Hindoo traditions. The arrows of the monsters hurled against the heroes of the _Ramaya?am_ bind them; the G.o.d Yamas and the G.o.d Varu?as bind their victims; the first draws tight, tightens the reins (_i.e._, the evening sun shortens his rays); the second envelops, covers and binds with the darkness that which Yamas reined in. The solar ray which shortens itself, the shadow which advances, are images of the ensnarer of heroes; whereas the solar ray which lengthens itself, the thunderbolt which traverses all the heavens, surrounded by clouds and darkness, represents the hero who grasps around, presses tightly, and strangles the monster.