came and ate of that grass, and she became pregnant" (as Hera of Ares in Greek myth), "and she brought forth a young bull. And this bull became a very large bull." And the people came together one day in order to slaughter him. But he ran away down hill, and they followed him to turn him back and catch him. But when they came to the spot where he had disappeared, they found a man making milk tubs. They asked this man, "Where is the bull that passed down here?" He said, "I do not know; has he then passed here?" And all the while it was he himself, who had again become Heitsi Eibib. Thus the birth of Heitsi Eibib resembled that of Indra as described in Rig-Veda, iv. 18, 10. "His mother, a cow, bore Indra, an unlicked calf."[1] Whatever view we may take of this myth, and of the explanation in the Brahmana, which has rather the air of being an invention to account for the Vedic cow-mother of Indra, it is certain that the god is not regarded as an uncreated being.[2]
- ↑ Ludwig, Die färse hat den groszen, starken, nicht zu verwundenden stier, den tosenden Indra, geboren.
- ↑ As to the etymological derivation and original significance of the name of Indra, the greatest differences exist among philologists. Yaska gives thirteen guesses of old, and there are nearly as many modern conjectures. In 1846 Roth described Indra as the god of "the bright clear vault of heaven" (Zeller's Theologisches Jahrbuch, 1846, p. 352). Compare for this and the following conjectures, E. D. Perry, Journal of American Oriental Society, vol. i. p. 118. Roth derived the "radiance" from idh, indh, to kindle. Roth afterwards changed his mind, and selected in or inv, to have power over. Lassen (Indische Alterthumskunde, 2d ed., i. p. 893) adopted a different derivation. Benfey (Or. und Occ., 1862, p. 48) made Indra god, not of the radiant, but of the rainy sky. Mr. Max Müller (Lectures on Science of Language, ii. 470) made Indra "another conception of the bright blue sky," but (p. 473, note 35) he derives Indra from the same root as in Sanskrit gives indu, drop or sap,
