Page:The Religion of the Veda.djvu/159

 The Prehistoric Gods 14 3

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abandoned the twins Yama and Yam'i', and resumes, we may understand, her independent station as a divinity.

The ﬁnal outcome of these mythic entanglements are two progenitors of the human race: Yama the son of Vivasvant, and Mann the son of Vivasvant. They remind us in a way of Adam and Noah, especially as Mann is the hero of the Hindu ﬂood- legend, which is astonishingly like the account of the book of Genesis. Vivasvant and his double pro- geny all of them are endowed for a good While with purely human qualities. According as the profane or sacred interest preponderates these ﬁrst, and, of course, great men become kings or great sacriﬁcers of yore... Mann is the typical ﬁrst sacriﬁcer. The later sacrificer of the time of the Veda, as he performs on his sacriﬁcial place, fancies himself 3. Mann, doing like Manu (increment), in the house of Mann. In the Avesta Vivanhvant is the ﬁrst mortal who pressed the drink known: (some) in behalf of the corporeal world. His son Yirna and his descendants continued to do so, but Yirna turns rather into a worldly ruler, the king of a golden age, in which there is nor old age nor death; nor heat nor cold; nor want nor disease. He becomes the leading Epic personality in later Persian times. In the Avesta he is called “ Ruler Yima," Yima Khshacta; this ex-