Page:The Mythology of the Aryan Nations.djvu/549

Rh in her perplexity, Surya, peering over the walls of the nest, sees smoke curling up afar off, and going towards it, finds herself at the house of a Rakshas, or evil demon, whose mother tries to keep her that she may serve as a feast for her son. Surya Bai, however, will not stay ; and when the Rakshas, learning from his mother what a prize he had missed, comes to the nest, he finds the little maiden asleep, and in his frantic efforts to break open the walls, leaves a piece of his claw sticking in the crack of the door. This nail is, of course, the spindle which wounds Briar Rose and the narcissus which stupifies Perse- phone ; and thus Surya, placing her hand unwittingly upon it, loses all consciousness. In this state she is found by a Raja, who, after gazing long upon her, feels sure that her slumber is not the sleep of death, and spies the claw sticking in her hand. As soon as it is taken out, Surya revives, and becomes the bride of the Raja, thus rousing the jealousy of his other wife, as Id rouses the jealousy of Here ; and like 16, Surya is made to disappear, not by the stinging of a gadfly, but by the fate which Here had designed for Semele and her child Dionysos. Surya is enticed to the edge of a tank and thrown in ; but on the spot where she fell there sprang up a golden sunflower, which the Raja sees as he wanders about in his inconsolable agony. The flower bends lovingly towards him, and he lavishes on it the wealth of affection which he had bestowed on Surya, until the jealous wife has the flower carried into a forest and burnt. From its ashes a mango tree rises, with one fair blossom on its topmost bough, which swells into a fruit so beautiful that it is to be kept only for the Raja. This mango, when ripe, falls into the can of the poor milkwoman, who carries it home, and is astonished to see that the can contains not a mango, but a tiny lady richly dressed in red and gold and no bigger than the fruit. But she grows with wonderful quickness, and when she reaches her full stature, she is again seen by the Raja, who claims his bride, but is repulsed by the milkwoman. The truth, however, cannot be hid : and the Raja and the milkwoman each recognise the lost maiden, when Surya tells her own tale and con- fesses that an irresistible impulse made her throw herself into the milk- can, while her form was yet that of the mango.

The milkwoman of this myth is simply Demeter in the aspect The with which the Vcdic hymn-writers v/ere most familiar. To them the Earth. '"^ earth was pre-eminently the being who nourishes all living things with heavenly milk, who satisfies all desires without being herself ex- liausted.^ The eagles which carry the child are the clouds of sunrise

^ I can but follow here the writer Deccan Tales, which appeared in the of a very able review of Miss Frcre's Sfeclator for April 25, 1S68. Tho