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Rh was left on the place of offering belonged to him. Nābhānediṣṭha returned to his father, only to be told that the claim was just, though he was also advised how to obtain an abandonment of it in its full extent. Moreover, as we have seen, it was Rudra who was created from the dread forms of the gods in order to punish Prajāpati when he sinned against the laws of moral order. Even the gods fear him; as Mahādeva he destroys cattle; and he has wide-mouthed, howling dogs who swallow their prey unchewed. He is conceived as separated from the other gods, and at the end of the sacrifice offering of the remnants is made to him, while his hosts receive the entrails of the victim. The Atharvaveda attributes to him as weapons fever, headache, cough, and poison, although it does not identify him with these diseases. He seems most dangerous at the end of the summer, when the rains are about to set in and when the sudden change of season is most perilous to man and to beast. It cannot be said, however, that there is any substantial change in the character of the god from the presentation of it in the Ṛgveda, except that his dreadful aspect is now far more exaggerated. It is certainly not yet possible to hold that a new deity has been introduced into the conception of Rudra, whose close association with Agni is asserted at every turn, Rudra being the fire in its dread form.

In the Yajurveda we find that Rudra has a sister, Ambikā, and we have the assurance of the Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa (II. vi. 2. 9) that the name was due to the fact that he is called Tryambaka ("Three-Eyed"). It is not until the last period of the texts of the Brāhmaṇas (Kena Upaniṣad, iii. 25) that we find Umā Haimavati, who is the wife of Śiva in the later tradition; while in the Taittirīya Āraṇyaka, which is still later, we find Ambikā as a wife, not as a sister, and other names, such as Durgā and Pārvati. This, however, is merely another sign—one of many—of the contemporaneity of the later portions of the Vedic literature with the development of the epic mythology, so that in the Āśvalāyana Śrauta Sūtra (IV.