Page:The religions of India.djvu/50

10 him here below as the protector, the guest, and the friend of men.^ The later legends, in which the birth of the lightning, or the first generation of the sacred fire, is directly represented as a sacrifice, are in this respect only the legitimate development of these old conceptions. As lord and generator of sacrifice, Agni becomes the bearer of all those mystic speculations of which sacrifice is the subject. He begets the gods, organises the world, produces and preserves universal life, and is, in a word, a power in the Vedic cosmogony.^ At the same time, as observation, doubtless, contributed to suggest, he is a sort of anirna mundi, a subtle principle pervading all nature ; it is he who renders the womb of women capable of conception, and makes the plants and all the seeds of the earth spring up and grow.^ But at the core of all these high powers ascribed to him, he never ceases for an instant to be the fire, the material flame which consumes the wood on the altar ; and of the many hymns which celebrate his praises, there is not one in which tliis side of his nature is for once forgotten.

Soma is in this respect the exact counterpart of Agni. Soma is properly the fermented drinkable juice of a plant so named, which has been extracted from its stalk under pressure after due maceration. The beverage produced is intoxicating,* and it is offered in libation to the gods, especially to Indra, whose strength it intensifies in the battle which that god maintains against the demons. But it is not only on earth that the soma flows ; it is present in the rain which the cloud distils, and it is shed

^ Rig-Veila, i. 83, 4, 5 ;7I, 2, 3 ;vi. x. 21, 8 ; 80, I ; 183, 3. In the 15, 17 ; 16, 13 ; X. 92, 10 ; vii. 5, 6; Atharva-Veda he is identified with ii. I, 9 ; 2. 3, 8 ; 4, 3-4; x. 7, 3 ; 91, Kama, Desire, Love ; Ath.-Veda, iii. 1,2. He is called himself Angiras, 21,4. In the ritual he bears the sur- the first of the Angiras. names of Patuivat, of Kama, of Put- 2 Rig- Veda, v. 3, I ; x.8, 4: i. 69, 1, ravat : Taitt. Samh., i. 4, 27 ; ii. 2, See Taitt. Samh., i. 5, 10, 2 ; Rig- 3, l ; ii. 2, 4, 4 ; see vi. 5, 8, 4. Veda, vi. 7, 7 ;' 8, 3 ; x. 156, 4-. ^ Rig- Veda, viii. 48, 5, 6 ; x. 119 ; ^ Rig-Veda, iii. 3, 10 ; x. 51, 3 : i. viii. 2, 12. 66, 8 ; iii. 26, 9 ; 27,9 ; viii. 44, 16;