Page:The Mythology of the Aryan Nations.djvu/403

Rh CHAP. which Hindu art has especially delighted in symbolising, Krishna freed himself from the coils of the snake, and stamped upon his heads until he had crushed them all. The sequel of the myth in its more recent form goes on to relate his death, — how Balarama lay down to sleep beneath the Banyan tree, — how from his throat issued a monstrous snake, like the cobra of Vikram in the modern Hindu story, — how Krishna himself became sorely depressed, — how, as he lay among the bushes with his foot so placed that his heel, in which alone he, like so many others, was invunerable, was exposed, a huntsman, thinking that he was aiming at a gazelle, shot him with an arrow, and the ground was bathed with his blood, — incidents which are at once explained by a reference to the myths of Baldur, Adonis, or Osiris.^ As Endymion sinks into his dreamless sleep beneath the Latmian Se1^n6 and hill, the beautiful Selene comes to gaze upon the being whom she ^^ loves only to lose. The phrase was too transparent to allow of the growth of a highly developed myth. In the one name we have the sun sinking down into the unseen land where all things are forgotten — in the other the full moon comes forth from the east to greet the sun, before he dies in the western sky. Hence there is little told of Selene which fails to carry with it an obvious meaning. She is

thousand and one hundred was the rolling along, and eating it becomes the number of the maidens; and into so mother of their deliverer, who devours many forms did the son of Madhu mul- the iron food in the snake's house, turns tiply himself, so that every one of the the huge beam into dust and ashes with damsels thought that he had wedded a touch of his finger, and slays the snake her in her single person." — Vishnu Fic- himself. — Ralston, Songs 0/ the Russian

rana, il>. 589. This myth is beyond all People, 1 77.

doubt simply that of Prokris in another ' It is, of course, true that these form. The dew becomes visible only myths have been crystallised round the when the blackness of the night is dis- name of Krishna in ages subsequent to pelled, and the same sun is reflected in the period during which the earliest the thousands of sparkling drops: but Vedic literature came into existence; the language of the Iitrana is in sin- but the myths themselves are found in gular accordance with the phraseology this older literature associated with in which Roman Catholic writers delight other gods, and not always only in to speak of nuns as the brides of Christ. germ. Krishna as slaying the dragon In Slavonic traditions, cited by Afana- is simply Indra smiting Vritra or Ahi, sief, the place of Naraka is taken by or Phoibos destroying the Python, a seven-headed snake, which carries off There is no more room for inferring a girl (Kore, Persephone) as she is foreign influence in the growth of any taking food to her two brothers in the of these myths than, as Bunscn rightly forest. These two brothers go in search insists, there is room for tracing Chiis- of her, and find her in the snake's dwell- tian inlluence in the earlier epical lite- ing; but failing to eat the iron bread ralure of the Teutonic tribes. Practi- given to them for food, they are killed cally the myths of Krishna seem to by the snake, who plucks out their eyes have been fully developed in the days of and hangs their bcdies on a beam. As Megasthenes, who identifies him with their mother is weeping one day (the the Greek Ileraklcs. — Nork, s.v. mourning DemCtcr), she sees a pea come Krishna, 398.