Page:A history of Sanskrit literature (1900), Macdonell, Arthur Anthony.djvu/104

 the phenomenon of the rain-storm, in which the rain-cloud itself becomes an udder, a pail, or a water-skin. Often likened to a bull, Parjanya is characteristically a shedder of rain. His activity is described in very vivid strains (v. 83):—


 * The trees he strikes to earth and smites the demon crew:
 * The whole world fears the wielder of the mighty bolt.
 * The guiltless man himself flees from the potent god,
 * What time Parjanya thund'ring smites the miscreant.


 * Like a car-driver urging on his steeds with whips,
 * He causes to bound forth the messengers of rain.
 * From far away the lion's roar reverberates,
 * What time Parjanya fills the atmosphere with rain.


 * Forth blow the winds, to earth the lightning flashes fall,
 * Up shoot the herbs, the realm of light with moisture streams;
 * Nourishment in abundance springs for all the world,
 * What time Parjanya quickeneth the earth with seed.


 * Thunder and roar: the vital germ deposit!
 * With water-bearing chariot fly around us!
 * Thy water-skin unloosed to earth draw downward:
 * With moisture make the heights and hollows equal!

The Waters are praised as goddesses in four hymns of the Rigveda. The personification, however, hardly goes beyond representing them as mothers, young wives, and goddesses who bestow boons and come to the sacrifice. As mothers they produce Agni, whose lightning form is, as we have seen, called Apāṃ Napāt, "Son of Waters." The divine waters bear away defilement, and are even invoked to cleanse from moral guilt, the sins of violence, cursing, and lying. They bestow remedies, healing, long life, and immortality. Soma delights in the waters as a young man in lovely maidens; he approaches them as a lover; they are maidens who bow down before the youth.

Several rivers are personified and invoked as deities