Cox, George - Aryan Mythology Vol 2.pdf

132
MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN NATIONS.
book possess the nature of fire : Vishnu is declared to possess the
IL
, nature of Soma (the Moon) ; and the world, moveable and
immoveable, possesses the nature of Agni and Soma.' ]
Vishnu It is the same with Kama, who is sometimes produced
andKama. from t^ ^if of yislinu >
s ^vAe power, and sometimes
addressed by Brahma as ' the source of being and cause of
destruction, Upendra and Mahendra, the younger and the
elder Indra.' 2 He is Skambha, the supporter, and Trivik-
rama, the god of three strides. 3 But the story of his wife
Sita who is stolen away and recovered by Rama after the
slaughter of Havana runs parallel with that of Sarama and
Pani, of Paris and Helen.
Hindu This cumbrous mysticism leads us further and further
mystici
from the simpler conceptions of the oldest mythology, in
which Rudra is scarcely more than an epithet, applied some-
times to Agni, sometimes to Mitra, Varuna, the Asvins, or
the Maruts.
< Thou, Agni, art Eudra, the deity of the great sky. Thou
art the host of the Maruts. Thou art lord of the sacrificial
food. Thou, who hast a pleasant abode, movest onwards
with the ruddy winds.' 4
It was in accordance with the general course of Hindu my-
thology that the greatness of Rudra, who is sometimes regarded
as self-existent, should be obscured by that of his children.
Tii. story The two opposite conceptions, which exhibit Herakles in
ofKrishna.
one aspect as a self-sacrificing and unselfish hero, in another
as the sensual voluptuary, are brought before us with sin-
gular prominence in the two aspects of Krishna's character.
The being who in the one is filled with divine wisdom and
love, who offers up a sacrifice which he alone can make, who
bids his friend Arjuna look upon him as sustaining all
worlds by his inherent life, is in the other a being not much
more lofty or pure than Aphrodite or Adonis. If, like the
legends of the Egyptian Isis and Osiris, the myth seems to
lend itself with singular exactness to an astronomical inter-
pretation, it also links itself with many stories of other
Aryan gods or heroes, and thus throws on them a light all
1 Muir, Sanskrit Texts, pt, iv. p. 237.
2 lb. 146, 250.
* R. V. ii. 1, G ; Muir, Sanskrit Texts, pt. iv. p. 257.
3 lb, 151.