The Religions of India Part 12

As when a charioteer with whip his horses strikes, So drives he to the fore his messengers of rain; Afar a lion's roar is raised abroad, whene'er Parjanya doth create the rain-containing cloud.

Now forward rush the winds, now gleaming lightnings fall; Up spring the plants, and thick becomes the s.h.i.+ning sky.

For every living thing refreshment is begot, Whene'er Parjanya's seed makes quick the womb of earth.

Beneath whose course the earth hath bent and bowed her, Beneath whose course the (kine) behoofed bestir them, Beneath whose course the plants stand multifarious, He--thou, Parjanya--grant us great protection!

Bestow Dyaus' rain upon us, O ye Maruts!

Make thick the stream that comes from that strong stallion!

With this thy thunder come thou onward, hither, Thy waters pouring, a spirit and our father.[30]

Roar forth and thunder! Give the seed of increase!

Drive with thy chariot full of water round us; The water-bag drag forward, loosed, turned downward; Let hills and valleys equal be before thee!

Up with the mighty keg! then pour it under!

Let all the loosened streams flow swiftly forward; Wet heaven and earth with this thy holy fluid;[31]

And fair drink may it be for all our cattle!

When thou with rattle and with roar, Parjanya, thundering, sinners slayest, Then all before thee do rejoice, Whatever creatures live on earth.

Rain hast thou rained, and now do thou restrain it; The desert, too, hast thou made fit for travel; The plants hast thou begotten for enjoyment; And wisdom hast thou found for thy descendants.

The different meters may point to a collection of small hymns. It is to be observed that Parjanya is here the fatherG.o.d (of men); he is the Asura, the Spirit; and rain comes from the s.h.i.+ning Sky (Dyaus). How like Varuna!

The rain, to the poet, descends from the sky, and is liable to be caught by the demon, Vritra, whose rain-swollen belly Indra opens with a stroke, and lets fall the rain; or, in the older view just presented, Parjanya makes the cloud that gives the rain--a view united with the descent of rain from the sky (Dyaus). With Parjanya as an Aryan rain-G.o.d may be mentioned Trita, who, apparently, was a water-G.o.d, [=A]ptya, in general; and some of whose functions Indra has taken. He appears to be the same with the Persian Thraetaona [=A]thwya; but in the Rig Veda he is interesting mainly as a dim survival of the past.[32] The was.h.i.+ng out of sins, which appears to be the original conception of Varuna's sin-forgiving,[33] finds an a.n.a.logue in the fact that sins are cast off upon the innocent waters and upon Trita--also a water-G.o.d, and once identified with Varuna (viii. 41. 6). But this notion is so unique and late (only in viii.

47) that Bloomfield is perhaps right in imputing it to the [later]

moralizing age of the Br[=a]hmanas, with which the third period of the Rig Veda is quite in touch.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: Compare I. 134. 3.]

[Footnote 2: For the different views, see Perry, JAOS. xi.

p. 119; Muir, OST. v. p. 77.]

[Footnote 3: _La Religion Vedique_, ii. pp. 159, 161, 166, 187.]

[Footnote 4: The chief texts are ii. 30. 1; iv. 26. 1; vii.

98. 6; viii. 93. 1, 4; x. 89. 2; x. 112. 3.]

[Footnote 5: Other citations given by Bergaigne in connection with this point are all of the simile cla.s.s. Only as All-G.o.d is Indra the sun.]

[Footnote 6: i. 51. 4: "After slaying Vritra, thou did'st make the sun climb in the sky."]

[Footnote 7: [=A]ditya, only vii. 85. 4; V[=a]l. 4. 7. For other references, see Perry (loc. cit.).]

[Footnote 8: Bergaigne, ii. 160. 187.]

[Footnote 9: Indra finds and begets Agni, iii. 31. 25.]

[Footnote 10: Unless the Python be, rather, the Demon of Putrefaction, as in Iranian belief.]

[Footnote 11: Demons of every sort oppose Indra; Vala, Vritra, the 'holding' snake (_ahi_=[Greek: echis]), cushna ('drought'), etc.]

[Footnote 12: So he finds and directs the sun and causes it to s.h.i.+ne, as explained above (viii. 3. 6; iii. 44. 4; i. 56.

4; iii. 30. 12). He is praised with Vishnu (vi.69) in one hymn, as distinct from him.]

[Footnote 13: Bollensen would see an allusion to idols in i.

145. 4-5 (to Agni), but this is very doubtful (ZDMG. xlvii.

p. 586). Agni, however, is on a par with Indra, so that the exception would have no significance. See Kaegi, Rig Veda, note 79a.]

[Footnote 14: Or 'pluck with beaks,' as Muller translates, SBE. x.x.xii. p. 373.]

[Footnote 15: "Bore them" (gave an udder). In v. 52. 16 Rudra is father and Pricni, mother. Compare viii. 94. 1: "The cow ... the mother of the Maruts, sends milk (rain)."

In x. 78. 6 the Maruts are sons of Sindhu (Indus).]

[Footnote 16: I.e., die.]

[Footnote 17: The number is not twenty-seven, as Muir accidentally states, OST. v. p. 147.]

[Footnote 18: v. 58. 4, 5; I. 88. 1; 88. 5; v. 54. 11; viii.

7. 25; i. 166. 10; i. 39. 1; 64. 2-8; v. 54. 6; i. 85. 8; viii. 7. 34; v. 59. 2.]

[Footnote 19: He carries lightnings and medicines together in vii. 46. 3.]

[Footnote 20: civa is later identified with Rudra. For the latter in RV. compare i. 43; 114, 1-5, 10; ii. 33. 2-13.]

[Footnote 21: vii. 47, and x. 75.]

[Footnote 22: vii. 103.]

[Footnote 23: _Akhkhala_ is like Latin _eccere_ shout of joy and wonder(_Am.J. Phil._ XIV. p. 11).]

[Footnote 24: Literally, 'that has stood over-night,' i.e., fermented.]

[Footnote 25: To this hymn is added, in imitation of the laudations of generous benefactors, which are sometimes suffixed to an older hymn, words ascribing gifts to the frogs. Bergaigne regards the frogs as meteorological phenomena! It is from this hymn as a starting-point proceed the latter-day arguments of Jacobi, who would prove the 'period of the Rig Veda' to have begun about 3500 B.C. One might as well date Homer by an appeal to the Batrachomyomachia.]

[Footnote 26: x. 98. 6.]

[Footnote 27: vii. 102.]

[Footnote 28: Compare Buhler, _Orient and Occident_, I. p.

222.]

[Footnote 29: This hymn is another of those that contradict the first a.s.sumption of the ritualists. From internal evidence it is not likely that it was made for baksheesh.]

[Footnote 30: _[A]suras, pit[=a] nas_.]

[Footnote 31: Literally, 'with _ghee_'; the rain is like the _ghee_, or sacrificial oil (melted b.u.t.ter).]

[Footnote 32: Some suppose even Indra to be one with the Avestan _A[.n]dra_, a demon, which is possible.]