Page:History of India Vol 1.djvu/214

168 Prajapati, the Lord of Creation, is a name of the sun; and he is so called because he protects all creatures. His daughter Ushas is the dawn. And when it is said that he was in love with her, this only means that at sunrise the sun runs after the dawn, the dawn being at the same time called the daughter of the sun because she rises when he approaches. In the same manner it is said that Indra was the seducer of Ahalya. This does not imply that the god Indra committed such a crime; but Indra means the sun, and Ahalya the night; and as the night is seduced and ruined by the sun of the morning, Indra is called the paramour of Ahalya."

There is another legend of creation in the Taittiriya Brahmana. In the beginning there was nothing except water and a lotus leaf standing out of it. Prajapati dived in the shape of a boar and brought up some earth and spread it out and fastened it down by pebbles. This was the earth.

A similar story is told in the Satapatha Brahmana that, after the creation, the gods and demons both sprang from Prajapati, and the earth trembled like a lotus leaf when the gods and their foes contended for mastery.

Another account of the creation is given in the same Brahmana: "Verily in the beginning Prajapati alone existed here." He created living beings and birds and reptiles and snakes, but they all passed away for want of food. He then made the breasts in the fore part of their body teem with milk, and so the living creatures survived. And thus the world was originally peopled.