Page:The Mythology of the Aryan Nations.djvu/239

Rh CHAP, two deified kings. But when he adds that their time is after mid- night, whilst the break of day is yet delayed, all room for doubt — — seems taken away.^ The two Ahans, or Dawns, Day and Night, are born, it is said, when the Asvins yoke their horses to their car. The twins are born " when the Night leaves her sister, the Dawn, when the dark one gives way to the bright." After them comes Ushas, the Greek Eos, who is followed first by Surya, a feminine, or sister of Surya, the sun, then by Vrishakapayi, then by Saranyu,^ and lastly by Savitar. They are ihehajdte.) born here and there, either as appearing in the East and in the West, or as springing up on the earth and in the air ; and this epithet may explain the alternate manifestations of the Dioskouroi, who stand to Helen in the same relation which the Asvins bear to Sarama or Ushas.

The Asvins are thus the conquerors of darkness, the lords of Parentage light: ever youthful, swift as thought, and possessed, like Indra, Asvins Agni, and Phoibos, of a profound wisdom. If the poet needs to give them a father, he must assign them a parent in the clear heaven, or say that they are the children of Prajapati, Tvashtar, or Savitar, names for the Creator. Their mother must be the East or West, from which they spring, regarded not as a place, but as the being who imparts to them their mysterious life.* As ushering in the healthful light of the sun, they are, like Asklepios and his children, healers and physicians, and their power of restoring the aged to youth re- appears in Medeia, the daughter of the Sun. They are adored at morning and evening tide as Rudrau, the terrible lords of wealth, and are thus identified or connected with another deity who became of supreme importance in the later Hindu mythology.* Like the Kou- retes and Telchines, like Proteus, Thetis, and the other fish-gods, they have the power of changing their shape at will.

"The twin pair adopt various forms; one of them shines brightly, the other is black ; twin sisters are they, the one black, the other white," ^ — phrases which bring before us the rivalry not only of the Dioskouroi, but of the Theban Eteokles and Polyneikes, and perhaps the black and white eagles in the Agamemnon of ^schylos." Like Phoibos the healer, and like Asklepios and his sons Podaleirios and Machaon, the Asvins are "physicians conversant with all medica- ments."^ In the Norse tale of Dapplegrim we have the Asvins in their original form as horses ; for when the lad, who, having won on

' Tylor, Primitive Culture, i. 314. * Muir, Sanskrit Texts, part iv. ch.

second series, 498. * H. H. Wilson, R. V. S. iii. 97,
 * lA'XTf.^WxWftx, Lectures on Language, iii. sect, i, p. 265.

' lb. 492. • lb. 103. ' Jb. 10:.