Page:The Religion of the Veda.djvu/129

 : 1 7 The Prehistoric Gods I 13 of Saranyu. And, once more, with considerable deviation, they figure in a heavenly marriage in which they themselves are not the principals. They are the wooers in a marriage which their own bride Sürya, according to a later view, enters into with Soma, the Moon. The specific use of the Açvins is that they are the most reliable helpers in need. The hymns harp persistently upon the fact that all sorts of men and women have in the past appealed to them for aid, and have not been disappointed.¹ Even animals are helped or cured by them. In one instance they perform a cure calculated to make green with envy even the most skilled of modern veterinary surgeons, if by any chance he should hear of it. When the racing mare Viçpalā breaks a leg they put an iron one in its place: with that she handily wins the race. Even the most stalwart sceptics in this field have not found it in their hearts to deny the connec- tion of these divinities and their female relative with the Dioscuri, the "Sons of Zeus," Castor and Pollux (Poludeukes), and their sister Helena. The name of the Açvins' mother Saranyū may, according to a suggestion of Professor E. W. Fay, in its first two syllables contain the sound for sound equivalent 1 See Macdonell, Vedic Mythology, p. 51 ff. 2 See Pischel, Vedische Studien, vol. i., p. 171 ff. 8