Page:The Mythology of the Aryan Nations.djvu/373

Rh kingdom should belong to the man who could shoot a ring from the breast of a child without hurting him. The tale is here inverted, and the shot is to be aimed at the child who lies exposed like Oidipous on Kithairon, or Romulus among the reeds of the Tiber, but who is as sure to escape the danger as Tell and the others are to avoid the trap in which their enemies think to catch them.

To say more is but to slay the slain, "William Tell, the good archer, whose mythological character has been established beyond god?""^ contradiction, is the last reflexion of the sun-god, whether we call him Indra, or Apollo, or Ulysses."^

In strictness of speech the Vedic Vishnu is nothing but a name. Flexible The writers of the Aitareya-brahmana could still say, " Agni is all the ch:iracter deities, Vishnu is all the deities."^ Hence he rises sometimes to a dignity greater even than that of Dyaus and Indra, while at others he is spoken of as subordinate to them, or is regarded as simply another form of the three deities Agni, Vayu, and Surya. In some hymns he is associated with Indra as Varuna is linked with Mitra, and Dyaus with Prithivi. " All divine power, like that of the sky, was completely communi- cated to thee, Indra, by the gods (or worshippers), when thou, O inpetuous deity, associated with Vishnu, didst slay Vritra Ahi, stopping up the waters."^ In truth, it may almost without exaggeration be said that the whole Vedic theology may be resolved into a series of equations, the result being one quite consistent with a real monotheism.'* Thus Vishnu is himself Agni and Indra. "Thou, Agni, art Indra, bountiful to the excellent; thou art Vishnu, the wide-stepping, the adorable."^ These are again identified with other gods : " Thou, Agni, art Varuna, when thou art born ; thou art Mitra, when thou art kindled ; son of strength, in thee reside all the gods : thou art Indra to the man who sacrifices."


 * Max Miiller, Chips, &c., ii. 233. condition of mind which, owning a


 * Max Miiller, 6'a;w/C'r/> Z?y. 391. multitude of Gods, addresses each

' R. V. vii. 20, 2; Muir, Sanskrit separately in the language of mono- Texts, part iv. ch. ii. sect. I. theism. — Hibbert Lectures, 286, et seq.
 * Professor Max Miiller now prefers ' R. V. ii. i, 3; Muir, ^A the term Henotheism to denote the