Artic Home of the Aryans by Lokamanya Bal ... - Mandhata Global

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neglected by ancient and modern Nairuktas, not because it was
unknown but because they were unable to give any satisfactory
explanation of the same, except on the hypothesis that different
effects have been confounded with one other by the poets of the يig-
Veda. But the theory of the cosmic circulation of aerial waters, a
theory which is also found in the mythology of many other nations,
now clears up the whole mystery. If Indra is described as the leader
or the releaser of waters (apâm netâ, or apâm srashtâ), the waters do
not mean the waters in the clouds, but the waters or the watery
vapors: which fill the universe, and formed the material out of which
the latter was created. In other words, the conquest over waters was
something grander, something far more marvelous and cosmic in
character than the mere breaking up of the clouds in the rainy
season; and under these circumstances it was naturally considered to
be the greatest of Indra’s exploits, when, invigorated by a hundred
nightly Soma sacrifices, he slew with ice the watery demon of
darkness, shattered his hundred autumnal forts, released the waters
or the seven rivers upstream to go along their aerial way and brought
cut the sun and the dawn, or the cows, from their place of
confinement inside the rocky caves, where they had stood still since
the date of the war, which, according to a Vedic passage, hitherto
misread and misunderstood, commenced in higher latitudes every
year on the 40th day of Sharad or autumn and lasted till the end of
winter. It is not contended that Indra had never been the god of rain.
There are a few passages in the يig-Veda (IV, 26, 2; VIII, 6, 1),
where he is expressly mentioned as sending down rain, or is
compared to a rain-god. But as Vṛitra-han or the killer of Vṛitra and
the releaser of waters and the dawn, it is impossible to identify him
with the god of rain. The story; of the release of captive waters is an
ancient story for Vṛitra appears as Orthros in the Greek mythology,
and Vṛitra-han, as Verethraghna, is the god of victory in the Parsi
scriptures. Now this Vṛitra-han may not have been originally the same
as Indra, for the word Indra does not occur in European