Page:The Mythology of All Races Vol 6 (Indian and Iranian).djvu/69

Rh may also be a solar phenomenon. With Apāṁ Napāt and Aja Ekapād occurs the "Serpent of the Deep" (Ahi Budhnya), who is born in the waters and sits in the bottom of the streams in the spaces, and who is besought not to give his worshippers over to injury. Such an invocation suggests that there is something uncanny about the nature of the god, and his name allies him to Vṛtra, whose beneficent aspect he may represent, the dragon in this case being conceived as friendly to man.

The other great aspect of the air, the wind, is represented by Vāta or Vāyu, the former being more markedly elemental, the latter more divine. So Vāyu is often linked with Indra, being, like him, a great drinker of soma, but Vāta is associated only with Parjanya, who is, like himself, a god of little but nature. Vāyu, the son-in-law of Tvaṣṭṛ, is swift of thought and thousand-eyed; he has a team of ninety-nine or even a thousand horses to draw his car; he drinks the clear soma and is connected with the nectar-yielding cow. Vāta rushes on whirling up the dust; he never rests; the place of his birth is unknown; man hears his roaring, but cannot see his form. He is the breath of the gods; like Rudra, he wafts healing and he can produce the light. The identification with the Eddie Wodan or Odhin is still unsubstantiated.

Parjanya personifies the cloud, flying round with a watery car and drawing the waterskin downward. He is often viewed as a bull or even as a cow, the clouds being feminine. He quickens the earth with seed, and the winds blow forth and the lightnings fall; he is a thunderer and a giver of increase to plants, to grass, to cows, mares, and women. He is even called the divine father whose wife is the earth, and he is said to rule over all the world; he produces a calf himself, perhaps the lightning or the soma. He is sometimes associated with the Maruts and is clearly akin to Indra, of whom he later becomes a form. It is doubtful if the Lithuanian thunder-god Perkúnas can be identified with him.

The waters are also hailed as goddesses on their own account and they are conceived as mothers, young wives, and granters of