Page:The Religion of the Veda.djvu/195

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Transparent and Opaque Gods 179

the mountains mean Clouds, and the rivers the ﬂow of rain.

After such and other promonitory symptoms of scepticism and unrest, Professor Hillehrandt has recently advanced a new theory of Indra, Vritra, and the waters, which he expounds with great in... genuity and learning“ He argues that the streams of India and the neighboring Iranian countries are at their lowest level in the winter: that the conﬁner of their waters is the frozen winter, conceived as a winter monster by the name of Vritra, “conﬁner;” that Vritra holds captive the rivers on the heights of the glacier mountains; and that, consequently, Indra can be no other than the spring or summer sun who frees thorn from the clutches of the winter dragon: “ Behold, in winter’s chain sleeps the song of the waterfall under the dungeon roof of crystal ice!” So sings a Swedish poet, Count Snoilsky. And another Swedish poet, Andreas Aabel, rings out the antistrophe: “ Hear the mountains proud cascade! Just now it has broken winter’s check and prison, and now it courses free along its road!” 2

Now it is true that the emergence of spring from winter is sometimes treated poeticaliy as a battle. We can understand this much better in a north coon-

1 See Hillebrandt, Vadirclze Mytkalagﬁ, vol. iii, 13. 157 j. 9 See iéid, p. 1:87.