BOOK II.
Physical
conflict
between
light and
darkness.
speeds on his journey through the heaven. As looking down on the wide earth spread beneath, he is possessed, hke ApoUon, of an inscrutable wisdom. Like him also, he chases the Dawn, Dahana or Daphne, of whom he is said to be sometimes the father, sometimes the son, and sometimes the husband ; and as Phoibos causes the death of Daphne, so Indra is said to shatter the chariot of Dahana.^ The prayers addressed to this god show that the chief idea associated with him was that of an irresistible material power. The Hindu, as he comes before the deity to whom he looks for his yearly harvest, assumes unconsciously the attitude of the Baal-worshipper of Syria. ^ But the real prayer of the heart is addressed to Varuna, as the Greek in his hour of need prays always to Zeus. The cry for mercy from those who through thoughtlessness have broken the law of God is never sent up to Indra, although, like Herakles, " he engages in many conflicts for the good of man with overwhelming power." ^ It was impossible that it should be so, while the great work for which Indra might be said to exist was the battle for life or death with the hateful monster who imprisons the rain-clouds in his dungeons. This battle is brought before us under a thousand forms. His great enemy Vritra, the hiding thief, is also Ahi, the strangling snake, or Pani the marauder.
" Ahi has been prostrated beneath the feet of the waters which the Vritra by his might had obstructed." *
He appears again as Atri, a name which may perhaps be the
' In this myth Dahana is regarded as hostile to Indra and as meditating mischief, a thought which might easily be suggested by the legends of Are- thousa and Daphne. Her shattered car reposes, however, on the banks of the Vipar (river or water), an incident which recalls the disappearance of Are- thousa or Daphne in the waters from which Aphrodite rises. — H. H. Wilson, R. V. Sanhita, vol. ii. p. 178.
- The power of Indra is the one
theme of the praise accorded to him in R. V. vii. 32. The worshipper calls on him who holds the thunderbolt with his orm, whom no one can check if he Viishes to give, who makes mortal men obtain spoil in fighting, who is the benefactor of every one, whatever battles there be, who is the rich of old and to be called in every battle. — Max Mullcr, Sanskrit Literature, 543.
" This contest with the clouds," says Professor H. H. Wilson (Introditition to R. V. Sanhita, xxx.), "seems to have suggested to the authors of the Suktas the martial character of Indra on other occasions, and he is especially described as the god of battles, the giver of victory to his worshippers, the destroyer of the enemies of religious rites, the subverter of the cities of the Asuras." The stanza known as the Hansavati Rich is noteworthy as exhibiting the germs of more than one myth. Indra " is Hansa (the sun) dwelling in light : Vasu (the wind) dwelling in the firma- ment : the invoker of the gods (Agni) dwelling on the altar : the guest (of the worshipper) dwelling in the house (as the culinaiy fire) : the dweller amongst men (as consciousness) : the dweller in the most excellent (orb, the sun) : the dweller in truth, the dweller in the sky (the air), born in the waters, in the rays of light, in the verity (of manifes- tation), in the (Eastern) mountain, the truth (itselO."-H. H. Wilson, R. V San/iita, iii. 199. 3 H. H. Wilson, R. V. Sanhita, i. 151.
- Jb. i. 87.
