Page:The Mythology of the Aryan Nations.djvu/452

420 BOOK II.

The in- fant Agni. Agni the Psycho- pompos.

"Adorable and excellent Agni, emit the moving and graceful ' smoke. " The flames of Agni are luminous, powerful, fearful, and not to be trusted : " ^ phrases which bring before us at once the capriciousness and sullenness of Meleagros and Achilleus. Like Indra, Agni is also Vritrahan.

"I extol the greatness of that showerer of rain whom men cele- brate as the slayer of Vritra : the Agni, Vais'wanara, slew the stealer of the waters." °

Like Indra, again, and the later Krishna, he is " the lover of the maidens, the husband of the wives."* He is "black-backed" and " many-limbed ; " " his hair is flame," and " he it is whom the two sticks have engendered, like a new-born babe." "Thou art laid hold of with difficulty," the poet truly says, "like the young of tortuously twining snakes, thou who art a consumer of many forests as a beast is of fodder." *

As the infant Hermes soon reaches his full strength, so the flames of Agni, who, puny at his birth, is kept alive by clarified butter, roar after a little while like the waves of the sea. But Agni consumes that which Hermes is constrained to leave untasted, and scathes the forest with his tongue, shearing off the hair of the earth as with a razor.

As the special guardian and regulator of sacrifices, Agni assumes the character of the Hellenic Hestia, and almost attains the majesty of the Latin Vesta, He is the lord and protector of every house, and the father, mother, brother, and son of every one of the worshippers.* Lie is the keeper of hidden treasures, and all blessings proceed from him as the giver. He is Vasu, the lord of light.^ During life he

» H. H. Yilson, Rio Veda S. vol. i. pp. 102-104. " 2 Jd. ii. 158. » lb. i. iSo. 569-
 * /b. iii. 253.
 * Muir, Principal Deities of R. V.

shine, there can be, of course, no doubt. It is sufficiently shown by its derivatives 4>oov, (paivQ), (^Wi 'Pv^'-Vi fof) fatuni, (S:c, Ilencc Professor Max Miiller naturally refers to this root the Sanskrit vasar, Lat. ver (for vesr), the Greek dap, tap, 9jp, the spring-time, and other words denoting the j'ear, which seem to be akin to it. It is thus the shining gleaming time when nature displays herself in her beauty : but in Mr. Peile's judgment the meaning is never- theless very uncertain. " There are three distinct roots," he remarks, " of the same form VAS. . . but none gives a satisfactory meaning ; the best perhaps is that which means to clothe, so that spring should be the reclothing of nature ; but this may be thought fanciful." — Introd. to Gr. and Lat. Etymology, 89. Meanwhile we have the facts that other names for one season of the year have been used to denote the year itself. "Man erinnere sich nur an sarad, herbst, Pers. sal, jahr : varshah, regenzeit, oder pravrish im 'eda, dann varsha, jahr ; hima, w inter, im bimus, zwei wintrig. i.e. zweijiihrig." Thus also, Professor Miiller adds, we have the modified form vat in Skr. samvat, as well as in vatsa, vatsara, and samvatsara, and in the Greek, %ros, FfTos, the year ; thus too the .Sanskrit parat for para-vat, in the previous year, explains the Greek trfp-
 * Of the existence of the root vas, to