Page:The Mythology of All Races Vol 6 (Indian and Iranian).djvu/81

Rh Aśvins she gave refreshment to Indra, and she is invoked together with the Iḍā (or Iḷā), or sacrificial food, and Bhāratī, who seems to be the Iḍā of the Bharatas living along her bank. Sacrifices are mentioned as performed in the Sarasvatī and Dṛṣadvatī; and with her is invoked Sarasvant, who seems no more than a male Sarasvatī, or water-genius. The precise identification of the Sarasvatī is uncertain. The name is identical with the Harahvaiti of the Avesta, which is generally taken to be the Helmund in Afghanistan, and if the Sarasvatī is still that river in the Ṛgveda, there must have been Indian settlements in the Vedic period much farther west than is usually assumed to be the case. On the other hand, the description of the Sarasvatī as of great size with seven streams and as sevenfold accords better with the great stream of the Indus, and the word may have been a second name of that river. When, however, it is mentioned with the Dṛṣadvatī, a small stream in the middle country, it is clear that it is the earlier form of the modern river still bearing the same name, which at present loses itself in the sands, but which in former days may well have been a much more important stream running into the Indus. It was in the land near these two rivers that the Vedic culture took its full development, at least in the subsequent period, and it is not improbable that as early as the Ṛgveda the stream was invested with most of its later importance.

The earth receives such worship as is hers in connexion with the sky, but only one hymn (v. 84) is devoted to her praise alone, and even in it reference is made to the rain which her spouse sends. She bears the burden of the mountains and supports in the ground the trees of the forest; she is great, firm, and shining. Her name, Pṛthivī, means "broad," and a poet tells that Indra spread her out.

Apart from the obviously concrete gods we find a certain number who may be described as abstract in that the physical foundation has either disappeared or has never been present. The great majority of these gods belong to the former type: