Page:The Mythology of the Aryan Nations.djvu/264

232 BOOK " The Panis : ' Those cows, O Sarama, which thou desirest, fly about the ends of the sky, O darhng. Who would give them up to thee without fighting ? for our weapons too are sharp.'

" Saj-afnd : ' Though your words, O Panis, be unconquerable, though your wretched bodies be arrowproof, though the way to you be hard to go, Brihaspati will not bless you for either.'

"The Funis : 'That store, O Sarama, is fastened to the rock, furnished with cows, horses, and treasures. Panis watch it who are good watchers ; thou art come in vain to this bright place.'

" Sarama : ' Let the Rishis come here fired with Soma, Ahasya (Indra), and the ninefold Angiras • they will divide the stable of cows ; then the Panis will vomit out this speech.'

'^ The Tanis: 'Even thus, O Sarama, thou art come hither driven by the violence of the gods ; let us make thee our sister, do not go away again ; we will give thee part of the cows, O darling.'

" Sarama : ' I know nothing of brotherhood or sisterhood : Indra knows it, and the awful Angiras, They seemed to me anxious for their cows when I came : therefore get away from here, O Panis, far away.

" ' Go far away, Panis, far away ; let the cows come out straight, the cows which Brihaspati found hid away, Soma, the stones, and the wise Rishis.' " ^

The cows This hymn, seemingly so transparent in its meaning, becomes of Indra. unintelligible if interpreted of any other being than the Dawn in her struggle with the powers of darkness : and hence it seems a super- fluous task to show that all the essential features of Ushas reappear in Sarama ; that like Ushas Sarama is followed by Indra, and that walking first she reveals the treasures which had been hidden away ; that both alike go to the uttermost ends of heaven ; that both break the strongholds of the Panis ; both are the mothers and deliverers of the cows ; both drive forth their cattle to the pastures ; both walk in the right path and bestow wealth and blessings upon men. Every phrase tells us of some change in the heaven from the time when the sun sinks to sleep in the west to the moment when his face is first seen again in the east. As the light of evening dies away, the power of the darkness is restored, and the Panis extinguish the bright-coloured clouds which have looked down on the death of the Sun, or in other words they steal the cows of Indra, the cattle which Phaethousa and Lampetie feed in the rich pastures of Helios. During the weary hours of night they are shut up in the demon's prison-house ; but at length the messenger of the day comes to


 * Max Miillcr, Lectures on Laugua^, second series, 465.