Page:The Mythology of the Aryan Nations.djvu/263

Rh " The Dawn rushed off from her crushed car, fearing that Indra, chap. the bull, might strike her. ^.^-

" This her car lay there, well ground to pieces. She went far away." ^

More commonly, however, she is beloved by all the gods, and the Asvins bear her away triumphant in her chariot.

But it is to the phrases which speak of the dawn under the name Sarami. of Sarama, that we must look for the germ of the great epics of the western Aryans. It is indeed only the germ, and no fancy can be more thoroughly groundless than that which would regard the Hellenic representative of Sarama as derived from the dawn-goddess of the Hindu. Identity of names and of attributes can prove nothing more than the afifinity of legends, which, as differing not only in local colour but also in the form of thought, must point to some common source in a past yet more remote. Whatever may be the precise meaning of the name, whether Sarama or Saranyu be taken to denote the storm-cloud or the morning, there is no doubt that the root of the word is sar, to creep or go, w^hich we find in serpent as well as in the Greek Erinys and Sarpedon. In the Rig Veda, Sarama is especially the guardian of the cows of Indra, and as his messenger she goes to the Panis, who have stolen them away. She, too, like Ushas, is said to be the first to spy out the cleft in the rock where the Panis, like Cacus, had hidden the plundered cattle, and, like Herakles, she is the first to hear their lowings. Like Ushas also, she walks in a straight path : but when she comes to the stronghold of the Panis, a conference follows in which we see unmistakably the dawn peering about through the sky in search of the bright clouds, and restoring them in all their brilliance and beauty to the broad pastures of the heaven.

"The Panis said, 'With what intention did Sarama reach this place ? for the way is far, and leads tortuously away. What was your wish with us ? How was the night ? How did you cross the waters of the Rasa?'

'The Panis : 'What kind of man is Indra, O Sarama, what is his look, he as whose messenger thou comest from afar? Let him come hither, and we will make friends with him, and then he may be the cowherd of our cows.'

" Sarama : ' I do not know that he is to be subdued, for it is he himself that subdues, he as whose messenger I came hither from afar. Deep streams do not overwhelm him ; you, Panis, will lie prostrate, killed by Indra.'

' R. V. iv. 30.