DDK HistoryF.p65 - CSIR

4.3] HUMAN AND DEMONIC DASAS 93
ultimately worked out, perhaps because some Aryans became traders,
vanik. The major enemies are not the Panis but the Dasyu or Dasa.
The word later came to mean slave or rather helot, just as both
‘slave’ and ‘helot’ are derived from ethnic or place names. The Dasyus
had their own kings; a priest Vasa Asvya (RV. 8.46.32) received gilts
from two Dasa rulers Balbutha and Taruksa (or just one named
Balbutha Taruksa) amounting to a hundred camels; earlier in the same
hymn, the same poet lauds the generosity of Kianita Prthusravas, an
Aryan at least in name. Again, we find a brahmin playing with both
sides. Nevertheless, the Dasas in general were not so lucky, for their
earlier rulers appear as demons smashed by Indra.. Of these, Vrtra
has already been explained as a generic obstacle or enemy. Arbuda
was trampled underfoot by Indra in RV. 1.51.6 and elsewhere, without
anything more being known of him than that he was a Dasa. Kuyava
of RV. 1.103.8, 1.104.3 has a name meaning literally ‘ bad barley ‘, i.e.
wild barley, or a poor harvest. He seems in a way identical with the
Dasyu Namuci, with whom Indra had a tougher fight, and who cannot
be explained away as a nature-or harvest-myth. In RV. 5.30, we have
a full description of the battle between Indra and Namuci, with whom
Indra had had a pact. Indra tricked him in some way and struck off
his head ; Namuci had been the lord of the (two) rivers — perhaps
his wives ! His army (or weapons) consisted of women, whereat
Indra laughed. The danastuti mentions Ru£ama, a tribal name, later
associated with the salt-mine region of the Punjab. In RV. 2.20.6,
Indra is spoken as having ‘ cut off the dear head of the Dasa Arsasanas’;
the cause of endearment does not appear, unless the seer Grtsamada
felt sympathy for the demon.’ 6
In RV. 1.51.11, Indra burst the powerful strongholds of Susna as
in RV. 8.1.28. Susna can be taken as the demon of drought, but then
the pur, which could mean fortified place or citadel, loses its
meaning — unless we have here a settlement broken up to release
water that had been dammed. The demon Pipru also had such pur
strongholds shattered by Indra (RV. 1.51.5 ; 6.20.7) for the Aryan
Rjisvan, who gained the wealth contained therein. The most prominent
of these enemies was Sambara with whom Varcin was allied.