The Prehistoric Gods 139
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theme of universal ethnology, but I have never been able to discover that it has any considerable bearing upon the ancient religion of India. The many hints at its possible importance should be substantiated by a larger and clearer body of facts than seems at present availab1e.1 '
We have met previously the greatest parents of them all: Heaven and Earth. Their union was con- ceived in early Indo-European times as the fruitful source of the heavenly gods. Occasionally they shoulder the additional responsibility for the human race as Well. In the Indo-Iranian period there was a personage, Vedic Vivasvant, Avestan Vivanhvant, who figures rather paradoxically as the father of the first men, Yama and Mann. He is, as the Vedic texts state distinctly and intelligently, the Sun con- ceived as the Father of men.a God Agni, “ Fire,” is occasionally regarded as the progenitor of men.3 There is in this some vague symbolic connection with the process of obtaining fire by friction. This is the Vedic process: the two sticks which are rubbed are conceived as parents; Agni is their child, the first progeny, and, next, possibly, the first man. Certainly the epithet rig/u, “living,” is used, on a large scale,
1 Cf. Oldenherg, Die Religion (is: Veda, p. 68
3 See Hillebrandt, Vadisrfie Mytfialagz'e, vol. i., p. 488 j; 3 Rig-Veda I.96.2; IO.53.6.
