Page:The Mythology of the Aryan Nations.djvu/401

Rh his wrists, while the cry of the infant rouses the warders, who in their CHAP, turn carry the tidings to the king. At midnight Kamsa enters the dungeon, and Devaki entreats his mercy for the babe. She prays in vain ; but before Kamsa can accomphsh his will, the child slips from his grasp, and he hears the voice of Bhavani, telling him that his de- stroyer is born and has been placed beyond his reach. Mad with rage, the tyrant summons his council and asks what should be done. The answer is that, as they know not where the child is, he should order all the newly-born infants or all children under two years to be slain. More assured than ever that his great enemy was his sister's child, he sets everything in motion to insure his destruction. But the demon Putana, who assaults the child in his cradle, is dealt with as sum- marily as the dragons who seek to strangle the infant Herakles. This demon, finding Krishna asleep, took him up and gave him her breast to suck, the doom of all who do so suck being instant death ; but Krishna strains it with such violence as to drain Putana of all life. As Krishna grew up, he became the darling of the milk- maidens, in whom some have seen the stars of the morning sky, — an inference which seems to be here warranted by the myth that Krishna stole their milk, seemingly as the sun puts out the light of the stars ; and this inference is strengthened by the story which connected the formation of the milky way with the nursing of Herakles by Here.^ When the maidens complained of the wrong, Krishna opened his mouth, and therein they saw revealed his full splendour. They now beheld him seated in the midst of all created things, receiving adora- tion from all. But from this glimpse of his real glory the legend returns to the myths told of swan-maidens and their lovers. In the nine days' harvest feast of Bhavani (the nine da3's' festival of Demeter) the Gopias, each and all, pray to the goddess that they may become the brides of Krishna.^ As they bathe in a stream, Krishna takes their clothes and refuses to surrender them unless each comes separately for her raiment. Thus the prayer is fulfilled, and Krishna, playing on his flute among the Gopias, becomes the Hellenic ApoUon Nomios,'

' See page 289. Tylor, Primitive gloaming, as it were by a more serene Culture, x. T)^^. repetitionof the dawn. The Dawn her-

with the old Vedic phrase addressed to expression ' husband of the wives ' is in the Sun as the horse: "After thee is another passage clearly applied to the the chariot ; after thee, Arvan, the man; sinking sun, R. V. ix. SO, 32: 'The after thee the cows ; after thee, the host husband of the wives apjiroaches the of the girls." Thus, like Agni, Indra, end.'" — Lectures, second series, 513. and Yama, he is the husband of the ' The parallel is exact. Phoibos wives, an expression which, in Professor giving to Hermes charge over his cattle Max Miiller's opinion, was probably is represented by Indra, who says to "meant originally for the evening sun Krishna, " I have now come by desire of as surrounded by the splendours of the the cattle to install you as IJpendra, and
 * This myth is in strict accordance self is likewise called the wife ; but the