YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE SCIENCE OF MYTHOLOGY VOL. II. HORACE HART, PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE SCIENCE OF MYTHOLOGY Right Hon. Professor F. MAX MULLER, K.M. MEMBER OF THE FRENCH INSTITUTE IN TWO VOLUMES VOL. II LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON NEW YORK AND BOMBAY 1897 All rights reserved CONTENTS. CHAPTEE vr. Vedic M-tthology. In -what sense is the Veda primitive ? . Lettish Mythology ..... The Sky-tree Jason and the Golden Fleece Antecedents of Vedic Mythology . Composite Character of Mythology Character of Vedie Gods predominantly physical Age of Vedie Literature .... Sraddha ....... Eelation between the Vedic and other Aryan Mythologies More Modern Ingredients in Vedic Mythology Ceremonial Ideas in Vedic Hymns Sacrifice and Prayer Magic and Witchcraft . Von Ihering's Eationalism . Atharva-veda .... Mordvinian and Wotjakian Sacrifices Societe Finno-Ougrienne Vedic Deities .... Yaska's Classification of Vedic Devatas Devata Three Classes of Vedic Deities Triad of Vedic Deities . Number of Gods . The Thii-ty-three Gods . I. Agni .... II, Indra .... PAGE 42743° 434 436 440 441444 445 448451452 452453 458 460 461462463472 472 473 473 475475475 480483 CONTENTS. III. Aditya Vedic Deities not restricted to one Locality Gods by Birth and by Creation The Pantheon of the Eig-veda Hymns Yaska's Pantheon Earlier and Later Gods . The Eeign of Dyaus Dyava-pnthivi .... Parallel Development. Zeus TeXiai^ Limits of Mythological Comparisons Manifold Character of the Ancient Gods HereEurope . Kronos . Akmon. Kronos . The Wives of Zeus, i . Eurynome 2. Zeus, Leto, Apollon and Artemis 3. Zeus, LSda, Helena 4. Zeus, Aigina, Aiakos 5. Zeus, KalUsto, and Arkas 6. Zeus, AJkmene, and Herakles. 7. Zeus and Semele . T-win Deities .... 8. Zeus, Antiope, Amphion and Zethos 9. Zeus, Dione, Dia . 10. Zeus, Protogeneia, Asthlios II. Zeus, Elektra, Harmonia, Dardanos, and 12. Zeus, Danae, and Perseus Vedic and other Aryan Mythologies Indian Myths Demeter. Earth Gaia and Demeter Deo. Erinys VaruMa . Varuwa as Moon AdityasAditi . Asvinau and other Dual Gods and Heroes The Eelations of the Asvins . Jasion CONTENTS. -vn Names and Legends of the Asvins The Dawn as the Mother of Twins Yama, the Twin .... Sun and Dawn as Horse and Mare Sarawyu as the Dawn . Meaning of the Old Myth Yama .... Yama as Agni Yama as the Firstborn and the first to die Was Yama = Adam? . Greek and Eoman Tvyins Other Names of the Asvins Nasatya Asvins as Temporal Gods Achievements of the Asvins Vartikaiyavana Atri . Vandana 'Bh.ugju Taugrya Vnka . KaH . Vispala.Paravn^' Eebha . VimadaVadhrimati . GhoshaSayu . Pedu and the Horse Paidva Serpent-worship in the Veda True and undefined Character of the Asvins Eudra and the Eudras . Eudra as Siva Yaska's Mythology Differences and Similarities The Children of Sarawyu Herakles and Iphikl^ Amphitryon . Perseus CONTENTS. Karwa, son of Pntha Labours of Herakles Adversaries of Herakles The Golden Apple The Hind of Keryneia . KerberosThe Two -with the One . Antiope HarmoniaHahn's Sagwissenschaft Mundilfori . Helios .... Surya .... Eohita .... Threefold Character of Surya Olympos ... Poseidon ... Trita and Tnta Trita in Greek Mythology Hermes and Apollon Hermes. Sarama Sarameyau . Cognate Gods Apollon AphroditeAtheneZeus and Maia ApollonIlithyia or Eileithyia Greek and Italian Gods Apollon and Mars . Mamurius Athene Name of Athene . Aphrodite = Chans ArtemisIndra . Importance of Names Indra in the Veda Andra . and Agni CONTENTS. ix PAGE Indra, an Agent Y57 Indra Supreme ........ 757 Vntra, Ahi 758 Dasas 760 Conquest of Cows 764 Cacus and Hercules . . . . . . .766 Indra, Ushas, &c. . . . . . . .769 Indra, as Deliverer of Women . . . . .771 Herakles and his Heroines . . . . . .772 Dawn. Fors . . . . . . . .774 Agni 780 Agni in India and Persia . . . . . .784 The Five Agnis in India and Persia . . . .785 Agni in the Veda ........ 786 Fire in other Mythologies . . . . . .790 Hephaistos. Vulcan . . . . . . .791 BhurawyTi=Phor6neus . . . . . . .796 Vulcanus. Ulka ........ 799 Feronia ......... 800 Hephaistos and YavishW^a . . . . . .801 Fire-totems 804 Atharvan ......... 806 Aiigiras ..... ... 806 Bhngavawa ......... 807 Prometheus ......... 810 Minys, Manu 813 Manu 814 Abstract Deities . . . . . . • .817 Savitri 819 Bnhaspati and Brahmawaspati 825 Comparison of Myths in unrelated Languages . . 830 Belief in another Life .831 Index 835 CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE SCIENCE OF MYTHOLOGY. CHAPTER VI. VEDIC MYTHOLOGY. We now approach the mythology of the ancient Aryan inhabitants of India, to see whether their mytholog}" and likewise those of the other closely related Aryan nations, particularly the Greeks and Romans, will yield to the same solvents and disclose the same elements which we found without much effort in the mythological language of Mordvinians and Fins, people entirely unconnected by blood or language with the Aryan family of speech. In what sense is the Veda primitive ? The chief superiority which Vedic mythology may claim over all mythologies consists in the great wealth of traditional literature handed down to us by an almost miraculous process, and dating from a period during which the mythopoeic process was still in full operation. ' The question of the exact date of Vedic literature, does not concern us here, though I may as well state for the benefit of those VOL. II. B 428 IN WHAT SENSE IS THE VEDA PRIMITIVE ? [cHAP. who accuse me of having exaggerated its antiquity that among Sanskrit scholars I have always been blamed for assigning far too modern a date to the Veda, about 1200 B.C., while the late Professor Whitney claimed 1500 B.C., others 2000 or even 5000 B.C. as more likely dates. I have gone even further, and have repeatedly declared that I should be extremely glad to be able to escape from the stringency of my own arguments, and to be able to assign a more recent date to the Vedic age. But whatever the chronological date ofthe Veda may be, I have always felt that without a knowledge of the period of mythological fermentation which is pre sented to us in the Vedic hymns and Brihmawas, it would have been almost impossible to understand the mythology of any of the Aryan languages, more particularly of the Greeks and Romans. Does any one deny this now ? Does any one deny that for catching the faint voices of the most distant Aryan antiquity, we have nothing to place by the side of the Veda ? We must not exaggerate, and I am afraid that of late the depth to which the shaft of the Veda can lead us, has sometimes been exaggerated. It may enable us to listen ' to the voices of the earth- born sons of Manu,' if such a metaphor is allowed with reference to the original meaning of Manu ; but it will hardly enable us to hear the inarticulate shouts of the sons of nature, the Naturvolker, who were supposed to lurk closely behind the backs of the Vedic Rishis. This would be claiming too much for the Veda. We may, for instance, learn from the ancient Sanskrit name of daughter, that daughter, duhitn, meant originally milker. But to discover behind this charming Aryan idyll a still more vr] IN WHAT SENSE IS THE VEDA PRIMITIVE ? 429 distant idyll when cows were not yet milked, or, because duhitn is masculine in form, were milked by men only, as the heavenly cows were by Indra, requires a power of vision or imagination that is not given to many. Possibly a future Mannhardt may prove that the daughters of the house were not too proud to milk the cows even in much more recent times, just as unmarried women continue to be called spinsters, even after spinning has long gone out of fashion. Many things which seem incredible to clas sical scholars exist as simple facts in the Veda. What from a Greek point of view is a distant past is here placed before us as still actually present. What to the Greek scholar seems wild and fanciful is simply a matter of fact before the eyes of the student of the Vedic hymns. It has been doubted whether Zeus had anything to do with the sky, ApoUon with the sun, Athene with the morning, but no one could question that in the Veda Dyaus sprang from the sky, Savitri from the sun, Ahan4 from the morning light. Some of the greatest horrors of Greek mythology, incestuous relations between sisters and brothers, nay between mothers and sons, betray their physical origin in the Veda, so as to exclude any possibility of doubt. We must not imagine that Greek and Roman mythology are Vedic mythology in a later stage. There is no such direct continuity between the two, as little as there is between the languages of Greece and India. Greek gods have never been Vedic gods, but both Greek and Vedic gods have started from the same germs, and it is with these germs, not with the full- grown trees, that Comparative Mythology is chiefly B 2 43° IN WHAT SENSE IS THE VEDA PRIMITIVE ? [cHAP. concerned. Looking upon Vedic and Greek mythology as two paraUel streams which start from the same source, we can clearly see that the Vedic stream offers an immense advantage by enabling us to follow it much further back, and much nearer to what seems to have been its source than the Greek stream ; nay, I should say, so far that in the Veda we some times see the stream of mythological thought weUing up before our eyes from its true source, the human heart. The merely chronological antiquity of the Veda is therefore of little consequence to us. For what should we gain if we could date the Veda back to 6000 or 4000 B.C. 1 Beyond 2000 B.C. aU is tohu va bohu, emptiness and darkness, mere vanity and vexation of spirit, without a ray of light from anywhere. The hallucinations about the Vedic poets being separated by a few generations only from a race of Homines alali, ' who had listened to the music of the morning stars and the shouts of the sons of God,' or who can represent to us man in his most primitive state, as he came direct from the mind and the hands of God, or if we may believe Darwin, from the womb of his Simian mother, if they ever existed among scholars, exist no longer, nor is there any valour in once more slaying the slain. All that can be seriously maintained is that we possess nothing more primitive in Aryan litera ture than the Veda, and that it would seem useless to look in any other literature for the antecedents of that intellectual world which is opened before us in the Veda. Lettish Mythology. We should perhaps make one exception in favour of the popular poetry of a smaU branch of the Aryan vi] LETTISH MYTHOLOGY. 43I family of speech which has hitherto been too little regarded by students of mythology, but the im portance of which was pointed out many years ago by Mannhardt — I mean the Lettish. The Lets who with the Lituanians represent an independent divi sion of the Slavonic branch, show, as was pointed out by Bopp and Pott, several remnants of a very primitive character in their grammar, though mixed up with formations of a much later age. These primitive forms preserved in the language of the Lituanians have misled several scholars into a belief that the whole of that language has retained its primitive stamp. This, however, is not the case, and we must guard against committing the same mistake with regard to the mythological elements preserved in the popular songs of the Lets. It cannot be denied, however, that by the side of much that is decidedly modern, full of Christian and even Mohammedan ideas, we meet there at the same time with thoughts and expressions which are not only Vedic in their simplicity, but seem to carry us in some cases to a stage more simple, more primitive, and more intelligible than the mythological phraseology of those ancient hymns. We must not exaggerate, and not knowing much of Lettish myself, I ought to speak with great reserve. It seems to me a very great loss that the Collectanea which Mannhardt left on Lettish and Lituanian mythology, which Dr. Berkholz of Riga undertook to publish (see Quellen und Forschungen, p. xxix), have never appeared. His Lituanian researches would of course be more valuable even than what he has left us on the Lettish Solar Myth, for Lituanian is to Lettish what Old Norse is to Middle High German, and 432 LETTISH MYTHOLOGY. [cHAP. would probably give us the key to many secrets not only in Lettish, but also in Greek and Roman mytho logy. A great treasure lies hidden there ; will no one lift it ? Trusting in Mannhardt's statements, I may at least say so much, that there are cases in which the phraseology of the Veda seems strange or bold to us, but where it is nevertheless supported by the phraseology of Lettish and other Slavonic popular songs. It has been doubted whether when the Vedic poets speak simply of the cow, or the mother of the cows (Rv. IV, 52, 3), we are justified in translating these names by the Dawn ; and whether instead of saying ' it is morning,' anybody in his senses could have said, ' the red cow lies among the black cows.' But in Russian songs (see Mann hardt, p. 308), the black cow is simply a name for the night, the day is called the grey or the white ox, and the twilight the grey bull ^. The Dawn in the Veda is constantly called Divo duhitn, the daughter of Dyaus or the Sky. If we could doubt as to the meaning of this name, the Lettish name for the Dawn, Diewodukte, would certainly remove all uncertainty. She is distinctly said to be Saulyte, the sun (i. e. of the morning), or Saules meita. In the Veda we often hear of many Dawns or Dawn-maidens, and the poets of the Lets speak likewise of many beautiful Sky-daughters or God-daughters, Die wo ' Afanasieff in his Poetische Naturanschauungen, I, 659, gives a number of riddles, full of mythological germs, such as : The black cow has tossed and kUled the people, the white cow has made them alive again ; the black cow has imprisoned the people, the white cow has brought them out again ; the black cow has barricaded the door ; the grey bull looked through the window, &c. Mannhardt, p. 308, note. vi] LETTISH MYTHOLOGY. 433 Dukruzeles. It has been doubted whether this daughter of Dyaus, the Ushas of the Veda, could be represented in Greece by Charis or Aphrodite. But the Lettish songs tell us of the Dawn brilliant in her golden crown, and holding her golden horses with her golden rays. She has clearly in the eyes of the Lets become a goddess of beauty and love, wooed by the Moon and the God-sons. In the morning, we are told that her fire is lit by the Morning Star, in the evening the Evening Star is said to make her bed. She is also represented as crying over the golden apple that has fallen from the apple-tree, and over the golden boat that has sunk into the sea. These are some of the mythological germs out of which grows in time the rank vegetation of mythology. What the golden boat is that sinks into the sea and is mourned for by the daughter of the sky (No. 33), however doubtful it may be elsewhere, is not to be mistaken in the mythology of the Lets. It is the setting sun which in the Veda has to be saved by the Asvins ; it is the golden boat in which Helios and Herakles sail from West to East. Sometimes it is the Sun-daughter herself that is drowned, like .ffyav^na in the Veda, and as ^yav4na and similar heroes have to be saved in the Veda by the Asvins, the Lets also call upon the God-sons (Aioo-Kopot) to row in a boat and save the Sun-daughter (No. 35). All these are only disjointed elements of mythology, but that is their greatest interest ; they are still chaotic, but they afterwards gather round a centre and are reduced to some kind of order, regardless often of their original character and intention. We may observe contradictions between these mytho logical aphorisms from the very beginning. How 434 LETTISH MYTHOLOGY. [cHAP. could it be otherwise when it was open to every poet to interpret the phenomena of nature according to his own sweet will 1 Thus the Lettish songs tell us that the God-son who woos the Sun-daughter has grey horses. But these grey horses are elsewhere caUed the horses of the Moon, and ridden by the God-sons when wooing the daughter of the Sun (Siiry4). Then again we are told that the Moon has no horses of his own, or that the Moming and Evening Stars are his horses. In other songs the stars are called the suitors of the Sun-daughter, and they also seem to carry her off, while the Moon, after having carried her off, seems to have forsaken her, and to have been punished by Perkun for his faithlessness. There are similar contradictions with reference to the suitors of Si&rya, the Sun-daughter, in the Veda, and some of these contain the germs of those very tragedies whieh surprise us in most mythologies. When the Sun had promised her daughter to the God-son, and afterwards given her to the Moon, Perkun, who was invited to the wedding, cut the Moon in pieces and destroyed the great oak-tree. In other songs the Sun is repre sented as having cut the Moon in pieces because he had taken away the betrothed bride from the Morning Star (No. 716). But after the Moon had wedded the Sun he is said to have faUen in love with the Morning Star, and for that to have been cut in two by Perkun (No. 77). The Sky-tree. There is a great oak-tree or apple-tree or rose-tree, often mentioned in the Lettish songs, and there seems to me little doubt that it was meant for an vi] the sky-tkee. 435 imaginary tree on which every day the sun was supposed to grow up in the East. The sun is called the rose as well as the golden apple, and as a rose or an apple always requires a stem to grow on, an invisible tree was supposed to spring up every morn ing, to grow higher and higher till noon, and then to come down again or to be cut down in the evening, so that all its branches were scattered about. This would lend some meaning to what has hitherto been a great puzzle to many students of mythology, namely the Weltbaum, of which Kuhn and other scholars speak as if everybody knew what it meant, while it has always seemed to me very diffictilt to connect any clear idea with that name. If the clouds also were supposed to belong to that tree, it would come very near the German Wetterbaum, the tree of the thunderclouds, which seems to have been imagined because the clouds also, like the foliage of a tree, presupposed a support, or a stem from which they could spring and on which they were supposed to rest. If then we accept this Lettish conception of a sun- tree, whether a rose (No. 84) or an apple-tree or an oak, we shall understand how the Sun-daughter could have been fabled to ascend on the rose-tree to the sky (No. 83), like Jack on the beanstalk, and how the same Sun-daughter should have cried over the apple that fell from the tree (No. 28), that apple being the daily sun which drops in the West, and was supposed to lie there till it could be recovered by some god or powerful hero ^ ^ The Sun-daughter is told not to cry over the apple, because the God-sons will come in the morning to roll the golden apple (No. 29), or to hurl it on high. 436 the sky-tree. [chap. Here it seems to me we get an intelligent back ground for the apple or the apples of the Hesperides, which had to be brought back by Herakles, as the heroic representative of the sun. The story would have been originally no more than that the sun of the morning was the apple that had fallen from the tree in the evening, and which no one could bring back except some powerful hero, some Herakles, himself of solar origin. This outline once given, anything else that we hear of the labours of Herakles in recovering the apple or even the apples of the Hesperides would become more or less intelligible. Jftson and the Golden Fleece. The same tree as the great oak-tree, watched by dragons, may help us to interpret the exploit of another hero, namely J4son (ida-cjv). We must of course distinguish, as the Greeks did, between '\a(7L03v, the son of Zeus and Electra (or Hemera) and brother of Dardanos, who on the thrice-ploughed field begat with Demeter Plouton or Ploutos, and was killed by the thunderbolt of Zeus, and 'lacrwv, the son of Aison and Polym^de, the grandson of Kretheus of Jolkos, and the famous conqueror ofthe golden fleece and of M^deia, the daughter of Ai^tes. But the names and their varieties are difficult to keep apart, except that 'idcruiv, the Argonaut, has short i and long k, while (if I am not mistaken), 'laa-ioiv, 'lacros, 'la(Tto5, 'lacrevs have long i and short a, because the name corresponds to Sk. Vivdsv^n, the sun, which transliterated into Greek would become FiFdcrFcDv, i. e. 'Idcrcov or 'laaCcov. The tradition was that J^son had been instructed by Cheiron, and had Vl] JASON AND THE GOLDEN FLEECE. 437 received from him the name of J4son, i. e. the healer, instead of his former name of Diomddes. Here therefore the long a of lacrOai would be right, though it does not follow that 'Idcrcov was originally meant for healer. But the beloved of DSm^ter who is called not only Jasion, but Jasos and Jasios, had originally a short a, and its i was lengthened in order to make the name possible in hexameters. This Jasion then, originally Jason, would be meant for Vivasvan the sun, and who could with Demeter beget the wealth of the fields, if not the sun ? As to the other Jison, unless originally he was likewise Vivasvin, the sun, and afterwards mis interpreted as a healer, lar/jos, he would lend himself readily as the chief actor in several of the adven tures of the Argonaut Jason. Let us remember that Phrixos, after losing Helle (another Surya), had carried the golden fleece to Aia, the country ruled by Aietes, who was the husband of Idyia (the knowing, another name of Hekate), and the father of M§deia (the wise). It is true it is diffi cult to suggest an etymology for Aia. Even if it could stand for Gaia, that would help us very little. Mimnermos, however, as quoted by Strabo, i, 2, gives us an important hint by telling us that Aia was the country where the rays (d/crii^es) of the swift Helios are kept in a golden chamber on the shore of Okeanos. If this was the popular belief in his time, then Aia was the West where H61ios deposits every day his rays, as the Sun-daughter deposits her crown, and where he dwells till he appears again with his rays in the East. Later poets speak of one Aia in the West which they assign to Kirke, and another Aia in the East which 438 JASON AND THE GOLDEN FLEECE. [cHAP. belongs to the brother of Kirke, Ai^tes,both children, it should be observed, of Helios and Perse. In the Odyssey Aia is clearly the Aia ^ in the West. The next question is, what could be meant by the golden fleece ? It was the fleece of the golden ram on which Helle and Phrixos, children of Nephele, had crossed the Hellespont. Helle (SliryEi) was drowned, like the Sun-daughter, whUe her .brother Phrixos (ripple) when arriving in Aia hung the fleece of the ram ^ on which he and his sister had been riding on a great oak-tree which was guarded by a dragon. The Lets seem to know nothing of the dangerous journey of Phrixos and Helle, but they know of a wooUen cloth which Maria, here the Sun- daughter, had hung on the great oak-tree, and which had been bespattered with the blood of the oak-tree when it was struck down by Perkun (No. 72). This woollen cloth is often mentioned in the Lettish songs, it had to be cleaned, washed, and dried. We have seen already that the great oak-tree which grew in the West is really the same as the sun-tree ^ that springs up in the morning and is cut down every evening. The branches of it were not to be gathered, but the Sun-daughter is said to have carried off one golden bough (Nos. 45, 82)*. The ' There is a name of the dark half of the moon which occurs in the Satapatha-brahmaMa VIII, 4, 2, 11, and might be identi fied with aia^ namely ayava. But even if phonetically possible, it would not help us for discovering the original conception of the country of Aietes. '^ Cf. Babr. 93, 7, (cptoi ^aBeirj (ppiKi fiaWov opBaxras. ^ Sun-beam =Zounenboom (Willams, Belg. Museum, i, 326). * The same tree is called in Finnish puu Jumalan, the tree of God, in Est. Taara tamme, the oak of Taara, planted by the Sun-son, Eston. Paiwapoega or by Taara's son. When, how- vi] JASON AND THE GOLDEN FLEECE. 439 red woollen cloth that was hung on it by the Sun- daughter can hardly have been meant for anything but the red of the evening or the setting sun, some times called her red cloak. When it is said that this woollen cloth when gathered up was fuU of silver pieces (No. 37), this can only have been meant for the silver stars which had risen where the red of the evening had been spread out before. If then we take this red cloth on the oak-tree for the original form of the fleece hung on the oak-tree in Aia, i.e. in the West, its recovery by some hero would simply be the repetition of the recovery of the golden apple by Herakles. This recovery could only be the work of a solar hero, who brings the next day, and might well have been called Vivasvin or Jason, the sun (not yet J4son, the healer), being the father of the two Asvins, and the husband of Erinys (Sarawyd). The fundamental idea of this expedition of Jason as of several of the labours of Herakles, such as the fetching of the apples of the Hesperides, the recovery of the girdle of Hippolyte (the Sun-daughter also has her girdle), the chase of the golden-horned Kerynean doe (generally taken for a representative of the moon), seems to have always been the same, the bringing back of the western sun. At first we must suppose that there were ancient sayings among the people such as 'the great oak-tree has been cut down,' ' the red woollen cloth has been spread out,' 'the girdle has been brought back,' ' the golden apple in the West has ever, it is said that this tree overshado-ws the whole sky and does not allow sun and moon to shine, it would seem to be the Wetterbaum, thunder- tree, rather than the sun- tree. 44° JASON AND THE G0LD2N FLEECE. [cHAP. been found,' ' the gold-horned doe has been caught ' — all meaning no more than what we mean when we say the bright sunlight has come back. As this return or recovery could not be achieved by itself, some agent had to be supplied to do the work, and the agent could only be the sun again in his diurnal and half-humanised character. All this may sound very strange, but to the student of ancient language it is so by no means, only we must wait till we get more light from ancient Lituanian sources in addition to what Mannhardt has already obtained from more modern Lettish poetry. What with proverbial say ings and popular riddles, mythology would spring up in abundance, and answers would readUy be given by imaginative grannies to any questions that might be asked. If, for instance, the old people were asked who made crowns and girdles for the Sun-daughter and the God-sons, they would soon tell of a Heaven- smith who makes crowns and girdles and rings and spurs, while they would point to the stars as the sparks that come flying from his smithy, and fall into the great waters ^. Antecedents of Vedie Mythology. This must sufiice to show in what sense Lettish sagas may be said to allow us a glance into the antecedents even of Vedic mythology. If that is so, we shall of course be told that the study of the mythology of Tasmanians or Andaman islanders wUl carry us stiU further back. This may be quite true, though we must never forget that the Litua nians are Aryas, the Mincoupies are not. But ' See Mannhardt, Lettische Sonnenmythen, Nos. 36-38. Vl] ANTECEDENTS OF VEDIC MYTHOLOGY. 44 1 I have not a word to say against any attempts to find the right key to mythological riddles, wherever it can be found. I have fully dealt with these speculations and I shall only add here, that what seems to me sur prising is that no one who holds those views should have perceived the necessity of first proving that the palaeolithic savages of to-day or yesterday began their life or their historical development on earth one day, nay one hour, later or earlier than the Aryas of India or Lituania. We know from the lan guages and from some of the complicated customs of uncivUised races that those so-called sons of nature have had many ups and downs before they became what they are now, yet no one has attempted to prove that their ups and downs were exactly the same as the ups and downs of the Aryas. We must try to think clearly, and must not allow ourselves to be carried away by mere plausibUities. Granted that the Aryas must have been savages, does it really foUow that all savages, any more than all civilised races, were alike, or that the Aryan savages in their elaboration of myths and customs acted exactly like other savages ? Even modem savages differ most characteristicaUy from each other. As Dr. Bleek has pointed out, the mere fact that the B^ntu languages have no masculine and feminine gender, accounts for the poverty of their mythology. Who then is to determine what phase of savagery, Red Indian, African, Tasmanian, or Andaman, underKes, directly or indirectly, the chUdhood of the Aryas ? Composite Character of Mythology. Ancient languages, ancient beliefs and customs 442 COMPOSITE CHARACTER OF MYTHOLOGY. [cHAP. were not formed according to rule. Even if we were to admit that all human beings were born alike, their surroundings have always been very diflferent, and their intellectual productions must have differed in consequence. Mythology is not a thing that is what it is, by necessity. It is determined in its growth by ever so many accidental circumstances, by ever so many known and unknown influences, even by individual poets or sages. When it reaches us, it has passed through ever so many hands. It forms then an immense conglomerate which excludes hardly anything that has ever passed through the mind of man. What should we say if some geolo gists, after discovering shells or flakes of flint in one of their pudding stones, were to say that these conglomerates consisted by necessity of sheUs and flints ? Yet, that is exactly what many of our comparative mythologists have lately been doing. When they had discovered, for instance, that some mythological gods and heroes were historical charac ters, at once they started a theory that all gods and all heroes were originally real men and women. We saw how the story of Daphne fleeing before Phoibos was explained as the recollection of an adventure, such as might happen any day, of a damsel of the name of Miss Dawn being pursued by a ruffian of the name of Mr. Sun. When ethnologists saw that reverence was paid by certain tribes to a stone or a shell or the tail of a lion, at once fetishism was made the sol vent of all mythological and religious puzzles. The diflference that fetishes are objects worshipped, as far as the worshippers are concerned, without any rhyme or reason, whUe other objects, now often vr] COMPOSITE CHARACTER OF MYTHOLOGY. 443 classed as fetishes, such as amulets, crosses, relics, palladions, ylipas, or maypoles, if they are worshipped at all, are worshipped for a very intelligible reason, was completely ignored. As soon as it became known that in several languages, both ancient and modern, the names of some divine or half-divine beings meant originaUy lions or bulls, totemism became the order of the day, and was preached most persuasively as the founda tion of all religious and mythological worship. The objection that a totem meant originally a clan-mark was treated as scholastic pedantry, till at last the totemistic epidemic attacked even those who ought to have been proof against this infantile complaint. It is a well-known and easily understood fact that many nations, both civilised and uncivilised, preserve the memory of their fathers, grandfathers, and great-grandfathers, that they revere their names, and often at their meals and on other occasions honour them with simple offerings. All this is human, and intelligible, and, in that sense, primitive. If earlier traces of such customs can be found among modern savages, by all tneans let us have them. Only we must not allow our selves to be carried away into a blindfolded acceptance of ancestor-worship, as explained by Mr. Herbert Spencer, or of totemism or fetishism or animism, when used as the solvents of aU the problems of religion and mythology. On the other hand, after we have once understood the comprehensive character of mythology, it would be folly to deny that there may be instances of what by these most ill-defined terms are called fetishism, totemism, and ancestral spiritism in the Veda, in VOL. II. c 444 COMPOSITE CHARACTER OF MYTHOLOGY. [oHAP. Homer, or even in the Bible ; but if there are such, they must be treated each on its own merits. It would be altogether begging the question to say that these isolated instances are remnants or so- caUed survivals from a complete period of ancient thought and worship, which consisted of nothing but fetishism, totemism, or spiritism, as practised by the ancestors of all the Aryan races, nay of all mankind. It would be easy to produce instances even in our own times of what we are invited to comprehend under these vague terms. Are there not priests and nuns among us who wear amulets (fetishes) ? Are there no soldiers ready to die for their colours (totems) ? Are there no commemorative services in honour of ancestors departed long ago 1 But the truth is that even among the most backward savages we never find a religion consisting exclusively of a belief in fetishes, in totems, or in ancestral spirits ^. A closer study has always shown that these are ingredients or accretions or excrescences of a more comprehensive and compre hensible faith, and that the influence of natural phenomena is visible in the religious traditions of most, if not of all so-called fetish-worshippers, totemists, and spiritists ^. Character of Vedic Gods predominantly physical. I do not believe, though we have been told so, that any serious students of Vedic literature have ever denied the physical origin of the Vedic gods, ^ Hibbert Lectures, 1878, p. 107 : 'No religion consists of fetishism only.' ^ See M. M., Presidential Address at the Anthropological Section ofthe British Association in 189 1, p. 12. VI] VEDIC GODS PHYSICAL. 445 and have joined the ranks of those who represent them as ancestral spirits, as fetishes, or totems. Professor Tiele has strongly protested against the supposition that he had ever joined the school of M. Gaidoz. As to M. Barth, he declares in no uncertain tone : ' No one contests any longer that myths are from the first the natural and popular expression of very simple facts, that particularly the most ancient have reference to the most common phenomena of nature, and that they depend very closely on language ^ ; ' while Professor Oldenberg in his Religion des Veda, p. 5 3, though he seems to me in some places far too sanguine in his hopes of finding antecedents and explanations of Vedic myths and customs among the lowest of the low, states without hesitation that 'the fundamental stock of Vedic myths may be expected to consist of physical events.' What more can we want ? At a later time Professor Oldenberg has guarded him self even more carefully against being supposed to have joined our so-called adversaries. He shows clearly the evolution of Aryan mythology through the three successive historical periods, the Indo- European, the Indo-Iranian, and the Vedic, and if he admits a more distant stage of savagery before the beginning of the Aryan period, this is what no one would deny as a possibility, though as yet it seems outside the sphere of practical politics, and need not disturb us for the present. Age of Vedic Literature. There are many things which are perfectly under stood among Sanskrit scholars, though they are not ' Anthropological Eeligion, p. 424. C 2 446 AGE OF VEDIC LITERATURE. [cHAP. often discussed in public, for the simple reason that there are no definite facts on which these under standings could be shown to rest. We speak, for instance, of the date of Vedic poetry as about 1 200 to 1500, but all we mean by this is that we have no authority to enable us to fix on any earlier or later date. But whoever knows the Vedic hymns knows that they presuppose, nay that they necessitate, indefinite periods of intellectual and linguistic growth which no merely chronological plummet can ever fathom. It may be said that children learn quickly to perceive, to conceive, and to speak, and that the same may have been the case in the childhood of our race. But it is not a question of years, it is a question of vast periods of intellectual growth, that must have passed before any noun could be formed and declined, before any verb could have been elaborated and conjugated. As to the growth of religious thought, we can clearly see how in the Vedic hymns a race of old gods, the Asuras, such as Dyaus and Varuna, are vanishing, and the new gods, the Devas, are still uncertain between their physical and their moral meaning. Some of the commonest words, such as jsugna, sacrifice, brahman, word and prayer, rita, law and order, Aditi, the Beyond, have already in the Veda lost their etymological meaning, and leave on us the impression that even their traditional meaning had become very uncertain. The period during which these words spoke, as it were, for themselves, lies far beyond the period of the Vedic i^ishis. There is besides a whole stream of thought and language in India, which in its literary embodi ment is treated and rightly treated as post -Vedic, Vl] AGE OF VEDIC LITERATURE. 447 but which requires antecedents which, as they are not found in Vedic literature, must be allowed to have existed elsewhere, and to have passed through a parallel development, going back to Vedic or even pre -Vedic times. The epic elements collected in the Mahabharata and Ramayana required time to grow up before they could have been gathered in these gigantic poems. And the same applies to the laws, and to many popular stories which meet us for the first time in the >Sastras of the Brahmans and the (jatakas of the Buddhists, not as recent pro ductions, but as old, or, as what is called Smnti, re-coUection, as distinct from /Sruti, revelation. But even this is not all. We know that there was a time when the Aryas of India and Persia were not yet separated, and we have historical remains of that period in what the Veda and Avesta share in common, whether in language, in religion, ceremonial, or mythology. In that period the old name of god, asura, must have been the recognised name for gods, ahura = asura being the principal element in the name of the supreme deity Ahur6-mazdao, while deva was not used at all as a name of god or gods. Then again, before that Indo-Iranian period there was that equally real period which preceded the Aryan Separation, and which has its history in the annals of words common to the two great divisions of that family, the Southern and the Northern. If we consider the intellectual work assigned to that period, we shall hesitate indeed before assigning to it any definite chronological limits. And if then we ask ourselves the question whether that Pan-Aryan period could have been immediately preceded by a period of what is called savagery, or 448 AGE OF VEDIC LITERATURE. [cHAP. rather by any special kind of savagery, whether North American or South African, I feel sure that 9,11 true scholars wUl hesitate before committing themselves to any of these far-reaching theories. ^S'raddha. An instance will explain what I mean. If we take such a word as faith, or ' to believe,' it may seem to us very simple and natural ; but that the idea of believing, as different from seeing, knowing, denying, or doubting, was not so easily elaborated, is best shown by the fact that we look for it in vain in the dictionaries of many uncivUised races. Even the Greeks do not say much of faith, though they have the word. What they recommend is eiicre/Beia, reverence, piety, rather than ttCcttli;, faith. Mere vague belief, oitjo-is, was called by Heraclitus lepa vova-o<;, a sacred malady. Now when we find in Sanskrit >Srad-da-dhamas and in Latin crddimus, in Sk. srad-dadhau and in Latin cr^didi, in Sk. srad-dhitam and in Latin cr^ditum, we cannot doubt that these words existed before the Brahmans came to India, before the Aryas of India and Persia separated, nay before the original Aryan famUy broke up into its two branches. And if the word had been elaborated, the idea of faith also, in its simplest form, must have been realised before that early date. But what was meant by this srat in srad-dadhau, i. e. I make or take as srat, a word of which little trace is left in cr6do for cred-do ? Darmesteter identified srat or srad with hrid, heart, Lat. cor, Gr. KapBCa, Goth, hairto, Irish, cride, which would give us the original concept of putting in the heart or taking to heart. But is this the germ of the idea expressed by ' to believe ' ? The phonetic vi] sraddhA. 449 difficulty of s (srat) taking the place of h (hnd) in two contemporaneous words in Sanskrit might possibly be got over, but there is a passage in the Rig-veda, not considered by Darmesteter, which makes it impossible to assign to srat the original meaning of heart. In Rv. VIII, 75, 2 : srat visvi varya kndhi, ' Make all things wished for, true, O Agni.' Here the meaning of heart would be clearly impossible ; srat seems to mean true, sratkr^ to make true, srat-dha, to hold true. In some passages sraddha would bear the meaning of promise or troth, for instance, Rv. I, 108, 6 : — Yat abravam prathamam vam -vrinknih Aydm s6maA^ asurai/i nah vihavya^ I TKm saty^m sraddham abhi K hi yatam Atha s6masya pibatam sutasya || ' What I said, when first adoring you, " this Soma of ours is to be called for by the gods," on this true promise come near, and then drink of the Soma that has been pressed for you.' In VI, 26, 6, also, tvam sraddhabhiA^ mandasina^ somaiA, the only sense possible seems to be, ' Thou, rejoicing in our vows and offerings of Soma.' Most frequently both the verb and the substantive are used in the sense of trusting and believing in the gods and in their power, and are construed then with the dative. Rv. I, 55, 5 : — Adha ^ana srat dadhati tvishimate Indraya va^ram nighanighnate vadham. ' Then indeed men believe in Indra, the fiery warrior who again and again hurls down the thunderbolts.' In Latin we have already the accusative in 'Alte tonantem credidimus Jovem.' The Vedic poets 450 ;&'RADdha. [chap. actually appeal to the mighty works of Indra to make people believe in him. Rv. I, 103, 5 : — Tat asya idam pasyata bhiiri push^am Sr&t indrasya dhattana viryaya. ' Look at this, his great and mighty work, and be lieve in the power of Indra.' The regular succession of the heavenly phenomena is sometimes pointed out as a warrant for seeing and believing. Rv. I, 102, 2 : Asme s