Page:The Mythology of All Races Vol 6 (Indian and Iranian).djvu/137

THE MYTHOLOGY OF THE BRAHMANAS 93 anything of mystery which may have been hers in the Rgveda and is constantly identified with the cow at the sacrifice. Sarasvatl appears as in the Rgveda, and sacrifices on the banks of the Sarasvati of special holiness are mentioned in the Brahmanas and described at length in the ritual texts. She is also seen, however, in a new light: when Indra is compelled to resort to the Sautramani to be cured from the ill effects of drinking soma, she, together with the Asvins, aids his recovery; and the fact that her instrument was speech seems to have given rise to her identity with Vac ("Speech"), as asserted by the Brdhmanas, as well as to her later elevation to the rank of a goddess of learning and culture. The prominence of the moon in the mythology of the time may explain the appearance of the names Anumati and Raka, Sinlvali and Kuhu as the deities presiding over the two days of full and new moon respectively.

Of the gods who may be called personifications of abstractions Tvastr remains active as the creator of the forms of beings and the causer of the mating of animals. His chief feature is his enmity with Indra, who steals the soma when Tvastr seeks to exclude him from it and slays his son Visvarupa of the three heads, who has been interpreted (though with little likelihood) as the moon, but who seems to be no more than proof of the cunning of Tvastr' s workmanship. His creation of Vrtra for vengeance on Indra is likewise a failure. His ultimate fate, as shown by the Kausika Sutra, is to be merged in the more comprehensive personality of Prajapati, and the same doom befalls Dhatr, Visvakarman, and Hiranyagarbha. The Atharvaveda, with that curious mixture of theosophy and magic which characterizes it, creates some new gods, such as Rohita ("the Sun"), Kala ("Time"), Skambha (the "Support" which Prajapati used for fashioning the world), Prana ("Breath"), the Vratya (possibly Rudra under the guise of non-Brahmanical Aryans), and others. The really important figures thus created, however, are Kama and Sri. The former, "Desire," perhaps has its origin in the cosmogonic hymn of