Cox, George - Aryan Mythology Vol 2.pdf

AHRIMAN. 353
lands watered by golden streams. Hence it is that Aphro- CHAP.
dite the dawn-goddess has her child Aineias within the ,
Trojan lines ;
and when the brave Hektor has been smitten
beneath the spear of Achilleus, she keeps his body from
decay as Athene watched over the corpse of Patroklos.
Section VII.
THE PHYSICAL STRUGGLE SPIRITUALISED.
Thus far the struggle between the bright being and his Contrast
enemy has been entirely physical; and nothing more than 1,etween
the faintest germs of moral sentiment or conviction as Iranian
attaching to this conflict can be traced in the
h °"
mythology DJf
whether of the Hindus or the Western Aryans. In the
mere expression of the wish that the wicked Vritra might
not be suffered to reign over the worshippers of Indra, and
in the admission made by Zeus l
that the light between the
Kronid gods and the Titans is one for sovereignty or sub-
jection, for life or death, we have all that we can cite as
symptoms of that marvellous change which on Iranian soil
converted this myth of Vritra into a religion and a philoso-
phy. So completely does the system thus developed exhibit
a metaphysical character, and so distinctly does it seem to
point to a purely intellectual origin, that we might well
doubt the identity of Ahriman and Vritra, were it not that
an identity of names and attributes runs through the Vedic
and Iranian myths to a degree which makes doubt im-
possible.
This agreement in names is indeed far more striking identity I
between the Hindu and Persian mythology than between j
that of the former and the Greeks. The names of Alii, P
Vritra, Sarama, and the Panis reappear in the west as ]"; rv
Echidna, Orthros, Helene and Paris ; but Trita or Traitana
as a name of the god of the air has been lost, and we fail to
find the form Orthrophontes as a parallel to Vritrahan,
although such epithets as Leophontes and Bellerophontes
would lead us to expect it. In the Zendavesta not merely
does this name seem but little changed, as Verethragna, but
VOL. II.
1 Hesiod, Thcog. 646.
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