Page:The Mythology of the Aryan Nations.djvu/198

166 BOOK II. Praj^pati. Visva- kamian.

Elsewhere it is said that Brahma and Mahadeva are both sprung from Krishna, the one from the lotus issuing from his navel, the other from his forehead, like Dahana and Athene from the head of Dyaus or Zeus.^

As Prajapati, Brahma offers violence to his own daughter ; and from this myth of Indra and Ahalya a story is produced much resembling that of the Hellenic Erichthonios.^ He is also a wor- shipper of the Linga, and acts as the charioteer of Mahadeva or of Rudra, who springs from his forehead (as he does also from that of Krishna), glorious as the noon-day sun.^

Like Brahma, Visvakarman, the Creator, is one of the many names which may be applied to almost any of the gods at the will of the worshipper. Wise and mighty in act, Visvakarman orders all things, and men desire the attainment of good in the world where "he, the One Being, dwells beyond the seven Rishis."* He is the maker of the region Sutala, where by his will, as in the Greek Elysion, "neither mental nor bodily pains, nor fatigue, nor weariness, nor discomfiture, nor diseases afflict the inhabitants." ^ He is also the son of Bhuvana, the first of all beings who sprang into existence from the earth.® V^^„. , In the conception of the poets known to us by the name of dwelling of Zeus in Homer, the earth on which we tread is covered with a gross and thick air, through which course the clouds, and in which the winds work their will. Above this air rises the serene Aither or Ether, the abode of Zeus, never sullied by mists or vexed with storms. Here he dwells, surrounded by the gods of Olympos ; but while these can

» Muir, Samhrit Texts, p. 193. Mythology, ii. 280. « Muir, Sanskrit Texts, p. 190. Athene in like manner springs fully armed from the head of Zeus ; but in the story of the Vishnu Parana (Muir, ib. 331), Rudra is both sun and moon, as dividing his body into two parts, male and female, like the Greek Hermaphrodites. The portions into which his male form is further divided seem to point to the month of the year which is represented by Rudra himself, as by Aditi. « Jb. 7. * lb. 129. • The name Bhuvana itself is from the same root with the Greek <^jai% and our own words Be and Being. It has been urged with at least some plausi- bility that the Latin Consus is a name of the same kind, and that it is not to be referred to the verb Consulere. It is by no means likely that even the title of the Dii Consentes can be taken as indicating a divine council : and there may possibly be a connexion between the Latin Consus and the Hindu Ganesa. Hence perhaps it is that when Romulus is in need of women for his new city, it is to Consus that he makes his vows and prayers. The Consualia would thus precisely correspond with the Eleu- sinian festival of Demeter. For Ganesa see Max Miiller, Selected Essays, i. 129, ii. 449. Gubematis, Zoological Mytho- logy, ii. 68.
 * lb. 39. Gubematis, Zoological