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Myths of ancient India
Literary presentation by V. G. Erman and E. N. Temkin
The book for the first time in Russian systematically outlines the main
and the most popular myths and legends of ancient India.
The book is intended for an adult reader.
Moscow.
The main editorial office of Oriental literature
Nauka Publishing House.
1975.
The circulation is 90,000 copies.
Preface 1.
Creation 2.
Asuras, the elder brothers of the gods 3.
Rudra and the Sacrifice of Daksha 4.
Acts of Indra 5.
Vivaswat and his children 6.
The legend of the creation of the night 7.
The legend of the Flood
8.
Gandharvas and Nagas 9.
Soma, the god of the moon 10.
The Sacrifice of Purusha 11.
The legend of the origin of Death
12.
Churning of the ocean 13.
Dispute between Kadru and Vinata 14.
Garuda 15.
Incarnations of Vishnu
16.
The legend of Pururavasa and Urvashi 17.
The legend of Pulom 18.
The Kingdom of Indra 19.
Indra and the wives of the Sages
20.
Indra's Victory over Vritra 21.
The Legend of Nahush 22.
The legend of Chyavan 23.
Narada and the sons of Daksha
24.
The legend of Yayati 25.
The Legend of Sunda and Upasunda 26.
The offspring of Pulastya 27.
The rivalry of Varuna and Utathya
28.
The Legend of the Ruru 29.
Guardians of the World 30.
The Legend of Aurva 31.
The Legend of King Marutta
32.
The invasion of the Rakshasas to the North 33.
Ravana's war with the Kshatriyas 34.
The invasion of the Rakshasas into the kingdom of Yama 35.
Ravana in the Kingdom of Varuna
36.
Ravana in the underworld and in heaven 37.
Abduction of women 38.
Ravana's War with Indra 39.
Ravana's Battle with the Haihai King
40.
The legend of Parashuram, the son of Jamadagni 41.
Indra and the Holy Ascetics 42.
The Legend of Shakuntala 43.
The legend of the king who turned to Chandala
44.
The legend of Shunakhshep 45.
Acts of Agastya 46.
The descent of the Ganges to the earth 47.
The legend of the Ogre King
48.
The legend of the young hermit 49.
The legend of King Somak and his son Jantu 50.
The legend of King Ushinar 51.
The birth of Skanda, the God of War
52.
The destruction of Tripura 53.
Goddess Kali 54.
Arjuna's Ascent to Heaven 55.
Markandei's Vision
{The notes in the book were at the end; in the electronic version they are distributed by chapters}
Preface
The mythology of ancient India is a necessary and most important element of its rich and original spiritual culture, the heritage of which has not lost its lively interest for us to this day.
The monuments of ancient literature and art of India cannot be understood without knowing its mythology, just as the sculpture of Phidias or the poetry of Horace are incomprehensible without knowing the ancient myths; and this applies not only to ancient monuments.
Since the Renaissance, the images of ancient mythology have entered the flesh and blood of European culture, and now it is difficult to imagine an educated person who does not have at least the most general information in this area.
In the same way, the mythological ideas of the ancient Indians were not only reflected in Sanskrit literature, but continued to nourish the spiritual life of the people for centuries, up to the present day, and spread beyond India, entered the literature and art of the countries of the East, which received the influence of Indian culture.
But if the most popular myths of antiquity are familiar to the European reader, including the Russian one, from numerous translations and expositions and from the reflection of their motives in the classics of native literature, Indian mythology, no less rich in images and plots than the ancient one, still remains a little known area, about which most of our readers have only the vaguest idea.
The book offered to the reader is in fact the first attempt to present in Russian in an accessible form the most popular and artistically interesting myths captured in the monuments of ancient Indian literature.
The authors did not set themselves scientific tasks.
In the selection and presentation of the material, they considered the myth as a phenomenon of literature and pursued mainly literary goals.
Designed for all those interested in ancient Indian culture and literature, this book is designed to fill in to some extent the existing gaps in the acquaintance of the Soviet reader with Indian myths and in this respect [5] focuses on the tasks that were served by the popular book of N. A. Kuhn in the field of ancient Greek mythology at the time.
Indian mythology is an endless sea of stories and images captured in extensive cycles and monuments of ancient literature, covering centuries and millennia of cultural tradition.
Naturally, we will not find a single system of concepts and views on the world throughout the entire period of its history.
The mythological representations of the ancient Indians changed and evolved from one epoch to another: old cosmogonic and religious concepts disappeared and new ones appeared, images and cults of the oldest deities faded and disappeared from the scene, and new ones were put forward to replace them; local deities and cults were included in the central pantheon, either pushing aside those fixed in it earlier, or merging with them and enriching them with new features and attributes; the content of mythological images changed, accents in old myths shifted, which received a new interpretation in the light of those that changed into a new historical the era of ideological trends.
At the same time, often ancient images and representations, having disappeared from literature, appeared again after centuries of oblivion, sometimes unrecognizably transformed, sometimes easily distinguishable in a new design.
And often in relatively late literary monuments we find more archaic elements of mythology and cult involved in the dominant system of ideology from the periphery of the cultural area.
All this creates a very diverse picture, largely chaotic and still far from being covered in all the details by modern scientific research.
The oldest extant monument of Indian literature — the Rig Veda ("Book of Hymns") — reflects the mythology and cults of the Aryan tribes who came to India in the middle and at the end of the II millennium BC.
This is one of the earliest mythological texts of the Indo European peoples, and in it we find echoes of the oldest ideas dating back to the time of Indo European unity.
There are especially many common features (preserved from the era of the stay of Aryan and Iranian tribes on a single territory) in the mythological systems of the Rig Veda and the ancient Iranian Avesta.
In the pantheon of the ancient Aryans, apparently, the image of God the father, the supreme ruler of other deities, stood out very early, as in ancient mythology, reflecting in the mythological aspect the features of the patriarch — the head of the family in human society.
For the Greeks, this is Zeus, for the Aryans Dyaus, the god of heaven and heavenly light.
The names of these gods are of the same origin, Dyaus pitar ("Dyaus the father") and Zeus pater ("Zeus the father") go back to the same Indo European root, as well as the Latin Diespiter, Jupiter.
Dyaus is sung in several early hymns of the Rig Veda along with Prithivi, the goddess of the earth. [6]
Dyaus and Prithivi, Heaven and Earth, are considered in these hymns as universal parents, the parents of all living things — an idea that goes back to the most ancient mythological ideas of mankind.
But already in the Rig Veda we find the cult of Dyaus at the stage of extinction, and it soon disappears completely from the Vedic pantheon.
In the hymns of the later layer, the supreme deity is Varuna, the terrible judge and punisher of human sins, who, according to some researchers, resembles the Hebrew god the father of the Old Testament, but he also moves into the background within the mythology of the Rig Veda, giving way to the head of the pantheon Indra.
Indra, the god of thunder, the Winner of the dragon Vritra, who threatened to devour the universe, resembles in some features the ancient Zeus and other deities in Indo European mythologies associated with the same natural phenomenon — the Slavic Perun, the Lithuanian Perkunas, the Scandinavian Thor.
Other gods most revered in the cult of the Rig Veda are Agni, the god of fire, and Soma, the deity of the sacred ritual drink of the same name.
In addition to them, the pantheon of the "Rig Veda" includes deities, mostly personifying various natural phenomena: Surya, the sun god crossing the sky on a shining chariot (his name, despite its external dissimilarity, is of the same origin as the Greek Helios); another solar deity is Savitar; Ushas, the goddess of dawn (the name of the same origin with the Greek Eos, Latin Aurora, Slavic "morning"); Ashwins, two twin brothers associated with the predawn and evening twilight (their mythological features find a parallel in the Greek Dioscuri); Tvashtar, apparently connected with the cult of fire, is an image of a divine master, similar to the ancient Hephaestus or Volcano; Vayu, the god of the wind;
The Maruts, the storm gods, are believed to be connected in their origin with the cult of the dead, etc.
The opponents of the gods in the Rig Veda are snake like monsters asuras, who live in the air spheres; later their images, personifying the elements hostile to man, increasingly acquire anthropomorphic features.
In the most ancient texts of the Rig Veda, the word "asura" means any being with supernatural powers - both god and demon (which obviously reflects the non distinction of the concepts of god and demon in the most ancient mythology), later — only an evil being, separating from "deva", the permanent name of god (curiously, in the related Iranian mythology, the opposite happens in the differentiation of concepts — "ahura" means god, "div" - an evil spirit).
The Rig Veda reflects a very early stage of myth making, which is characterized by the deification of the elements and in which the features of ancient animistic beliefs are imprinted.
The next stage in the evolution of mythological and religious ideas is marked by the so — called [7] late Vedic literature—"Yajurveda" ("Book of Sacrificial sayings"), "Atharvaveda" ("Book of spells") and the cycle of Brahman, monuments of ritual mythological content (approximately VIII VI centuries BC).
During this period, a new deity comes to the fore and overshadows most of the others — Prajapati, the creator god, the creator of the universe and the father of other gods, who inherited some of the features of the ancient Dyaus.
The significance of two other deities is also rapidly growing, the images of which already appeared in the Rig Veda, but occupied an inconspicuous place there and, apparently, entered there from some local, possibly non Aryan, cults.
One of them is Vishnu, who in the Brahmanas is associated with the mythology of the sun, but to an even greater extent with the mystical interpretation of the sacrificial rite; the other is Rudra, who later becomes better known as Shiva; this deity, at least with the development of his cult, increasingly absorbs features that definitely go back to the ancient beliefs of the pre Aryan population of India elements of archaic fertility cults with their phallic symbolism, etc.
Researchers see its prototype in the images of a horned deity on seals found during the excavations of the oldest cities of the Indus Valley (III—II millennia BC).
These gods push Indra into the background.
Other significant deities of the "Rig Veda" era are also losing their dominant positions, and the mythological content of their images is changing significantly.
Varuna becomes the god of waters, terrestrial and atmospheric (finally already in the epic), Soma the god of the moon.
The significance of other images of the ancient pantheon is also falling: Surya, Savitar, Ushas, Tvashtar, etc.; some are completely forgotten.
But the most characteristic and important feature of the evolution of religious and mythological views in this era was a radical change in the relationship between god and the rite, dedicated to him, god and the priest.
The ritual is attributed a self sufficient meaning and a magical power that subordinates the natural elements and the gods themselves to the priest who owns the secrets of the ritual.
The gods are powerless before the magic of the rite, provided that it is performed correctly, and the Brahmanas directly assert the superiority of the priest over the deity.
"The priests are the earthly gods," says the Shatapatha Brahmana, the most significant monument of the cycle, and then this thought develops in a direction that leads to the conclusion that the earthly brahman gods are higher than the heavenly ones.
Since the Brahman era, this motif has been included in the myths and legends of Indian literature as one of the leading and characteristic ones, reflecting the peculiarities of the historical development of the ancient Indian civilization, which caused the exorbitant claims of the priesthood to absolute domination in the social and cultural life of the country.
The role played in the Indian myths [8] by the holy sages and ascetics, who constantly triumph in conflicts with the gods, finds no parallel in the mythology of ancient Greece or Rome.
Another theme that has prevailed since the time of Brahman and is characteristic of Indian mythology is the cosmic power acquired by asceticism, ascetic torture of the flesh.
Having grown out of the primitive magical ideas of the early era, this topic occupies such a significant place in ancient Indian literature, which is not given to it by any other literature of the ancient world.
In the Indian myths of epic literature, asceticism is often resorted to by demons in the struggle with the gods; this is a force that is constantly hostile to the gods, whose main weapon in the fight against this force is the beauty of heavenly virgins sent down to seduce ascetics.
These motifs are developed in the ancient Indian epic, which represents the next stage in the evolution of the mythological system.
At this stage of the late Vedic Prajapati, a new deity, Brahma, replaces the role of the demiurge and the head of the pantheon.
Vishnu and Shiva grow even more in importance, while Indra, although formally retaining the title of "king of the gods", the lord of the heavenly kingdom, finally passes to a subordinate position.
His image is reduced and in many legends is already interpreted ironically; he is constantly subjected to humiliation and suffers defeat from holy sages and ascetics, and even from demons, and only the intercession of the higher gods helps him to maintain his position in the heavenly hierarchy.
Other Vedic deities become even less significant during this period.
But one image stands out among them, which also goes back to Vedic literature, but has significantly changed its content.
This is Yama, the god of death.
In the Vedas, this is the image of a person, the first who died on earth and opened the way to the afterlife kingdom, the ruler of which he becomes (a parallel to this image in Iranian mythology is Yima, the king of people in the happy era of the Golden Age).
In epic mythology, Yama becomes a gloomy deity of death, the ruler of hell located in the underworld (later many hells, "naraka"), a place of punishment for sinners.
During this period, the idea of "lokapals", four (later — eight) "guardians of the world", who occupy an intermediate step in the mythological hierarchy between the supreme and secondary deities, was formed.
The supreme god Brahma gives each of the lokapalas one of the countries of the world to rule.
Indra, the god of thunder and rain, becomes the ruler of the East; Yama, the god of death and the lord of the ancestors (i.e., the shadows of the deceased), - Yuga; Varuna, the god of the ocean, is the West; the new deity of the pantheon, who appears only in relatively late parts of the epic, becomes the ruler of the North — Kubera, the lord of wealth and the lord of the yakshas — mountain spirits guarding treasures.
Even later, the intermediate countries of the world are given to the ancient Vedic deities Soma, Surya, Agni and Vayu. [9]
The Mahabharata, the great epic of ancient India, the main monument of the so called epic mythology, is a huge body of literature of various contents that has been formed over a century and does not correspond much to our understanding of the epic poem.
The main legend of the "Mahabharata" - a poem about the great battle of Kurukshetra appeared in the middle of the I millennium BC, but then it included other epic tales of antiquity, myths and legends, new plots and images were poured into it, until by the middle of the I millennium AD the poem grew to huge sizes, making up in fact a whole literature within one monument.
Naturally, the mythological content of the Mahabharata could not remain homogeneous in parts belonging to different epochs.
The mythology of the so called early epic differs significantly from the mythology of the later parts of the Mahabharata, which, together with the myths and legends of the Puranas, religious epic poems adjacent to the Mahabharata, and the later parts of another great epic of India — the Ramayana Valmiki — represent the next stage — the mythology of Hinduism.
As the corpus of the Mahabharata develops, the importance of the two supreme deities increases more and more in its later parts, and Indra and other ancient gods are increasingly pushed aside and diminished.
Finally, Brahma himself recedes into the background, eclipsed by Vishnu and Shiva; but he still retains his formal place in the supreme triad.
Relatively late in Hinduism, the concept of Trimurti, the supreme deity, united in three persons: Brahma, the creator of the universe, Vishnu, its guardian, and Shiva, the destroyer, develops (however, these functions are not strictly differentiated, and in different texts each of these gods can act in all three roles).
Hinduism is divided into two main trends — Vishnuism and Shaivism, non — antagonistic and united by the concept of Trimurti; from Vishnuism branches off another particularly influential trend in the Middle Ages, Krishnaism (veneration of Vishnu in the image of the deified hero of folk epic tales Krishna).
In the religious and mythological system of Vishnuism, an important element is the doctrine of "avatars" — "descents" of Vishnu to the earth in various forms for the sake of its salvation (for more information, see the Notes).
Shaivism, the main area of distribution of which is the Dravidian South, especially widely assimilates the cults and beliefs of the non Aryan population of India, preserving many archaic features lost in the mythology of Brahmanism.
Hinduism was formed at the end of the first millennium BC as a modification of the system of the ancient Brahmanistic religion in the process of combating the heretical teachings of Buddhism and Jainism that had won wide masses of followers.
In this struggle, Hinduism, having abandoned the aristocratic isolation of ancient Brahmanism, includes in its system and [10] adapts to it many popular folk beliefs that previously remained outside its borders.
This is the purpose of the avatar doctrine, which identifies previously independent images of local folk cults with Vishnu.
To an even greater extent, this applies to Shaivism.
In the later parts of the epic and in the puranas, some mythological images receive a new development and new figures appear in the pantheon.
The latter include Kama, the god of love, very similar to the ancient Eros or Cupid; his image becomes especially popular in Sanskrit classical poetry.
The image of Skanda, the son of Shiva (or Agni), the god of warriors, the leader of the heavenly host in battles with demons, resolutely pushing Indra away, is put forward; in the mythology of this deity, despite his late appearance, many extremely archaic features are reflected.
Already in the early Middle Ages, another son of Shiva was included in the Hindu pantheon — the elephant headed god of wisdom Ganesha, whose image was formed, obviously, in some of the local folk cults.
The female parallel to him the goddess of wisdom and eloquence Sarasvati goes back to the Vedic deity of the river of the same name, who merged with the allegorical personification of Speech appearing in the Brahmanas.
And finally, the most significant of the new deities of Hinduism is the goddess Kali, or Durga, identified with the consort of Shiva (Uma), an image that goes back to the ancient cult of the Mother Goddess, known even in the cities of the Indus Valley civilization.
The worship of this goddess becomes the most powerful offshoot of Shaivism, in some way an independent religion that received a special influence in India in the Middle Ages.
Of course, the whole world of mythological representations, plots and images reflected in the monuments of ancient Indian literature, with all its heterogeneity and vastness, could not fit within the limits of our presentation.
We have based it on the system of mythology of the early epic — the period when the place of the supreme deity was occupied by Brahma, and the entire universe — gods, demons and other supernatural beings, people and animals — was represented as his creation.
Historically, this stage is especially close to the Homeric epic; and the mythological element in the early Indian epic (like the Greek, it is vividly mythological in its perception of the world) was reflected most clearly, if we understand here by mythology the oldest "unconsciously artistic" (as Marx put it) creativity of the people.
However, we have also used Vedic sources, and a number of myths and legends especially at the beginning of the book are presented according to Vedic versions that reflect an earlier and more "mythological" literary interpretation (for example, the myth of Vritra).
In some cases, for a more complete presentation, we allowed a combination of consistent motives and details from different versions.
Finally, in the final part of the book, we have given [11] several typical Shaivite myths ("The Birth of Skanda", "The Destruction of Tripura", "The Goddess Kali") and the Vishnuite "Vision of Markandeya" from the Puranas, to reflect to some extent the evolution of mythological ideas and some later concepts (for example, about the cyclicity of the universe), characteristic of the ideological system of Hinduism.
Our main source was the Mahabharata, but in addition to it, the Ramayana, Shatapatha Brahman, Vishnu Purana, Matsya Purana and some other brahmanas and puranas were used.
In the book, we tried to arrange individual plots, if possible, in the order of the" chronology " of mythical events, which is implied by the content of epic monuments, but the material did not allow us to maintain any strict logical sequence here throughout the book, of course, the material did not allow.
It would be equally difficult to build a unified system of kinship relations between mythological characters, because various texts are extremely contradictory in this (see notes).
Our book is the first attempt to reveal to the curious reader the veil that hides the rich and peculiar world of artistic representations and images born of the ancient myth making of the Indian people.
The picture revealed by this book will, of course, be far from complete; entire vast areas (for example, Buddhist mythology) are left aside by us.
And in epic mythology, as mentioned above, we focused mainly on the legends of the greatest literary interest; at the same time, in our presentation, we tried to convey, as far as possible, the style and manner of narration of those ancient monuments where these myths found their literary expression.
Without claiming to be an exhaustive coverage of the material and its scientific interpretation, our presentation introduces the most popular and vivid myths and mythological images of the ancient Indian epic.
The Notes include explanations and information that supplement the material presented in the book, and indications of its sources.
The book ends with an Index that includes names, geographical names and terms.
V. G. Ehrman
1.
Creation
At first there was nothing.
There was no sun, no moon, no stars; out of the darkness of primordial chaos, which rested motionless, as if in a deep sleep, before other creations, the waters arose.
The waters gave birth to fire.
The Golden Egg was born in them by the great power of heat.
There was no year then, for there was no one to measure the time; but as long as the year lasts, the Golden Egg floated in the waters, in the boundless and bottomless ocean.
A year later, the Progenitor Brahma emerged from the Golden Embryo.
He broke the Egg, and it split in two.
The upper half of it became the Sky, the lower half became the Earth, and between them, to separate them, Brahma placed the air space.
And he established the earth among the waters, and created the countries of the world, and laid the beginning of time.
Six sons were born to Brahma*, six great Lords of creatures*.
The eldest of those sons of the spirit was Marichi; the second was Atri, the third was Angiras, the fourth was Pulastya, the fifth was Pulaha, the sixth was Kratu.
The son of Marichi was the wise Kashyapa*, from whom there were gods, demons and people, birds and snakes, giants and monsters, priests and cows, and many other beings of divine or demonic nature who inhabited the heavens, and the earth, and the underworld.
The seventh son of Brahma, the seventh of the Lords of creatures, was Daksha.
It came out of the big toe on the right foot* The progenitor.
From the toe on Brahma's left foot, a daughter was born; her name is Virini*, which means Night; she became the wife of Daksha.
She had fifty daughters, and Daksha gave thirteen of them to Kashyapa as wives, twenty seven to Soma, the moon god, the son of Atri, who became twenty seven constellations in the sky; and [15] ten more daughters of Daksha became wives of Dharma, the god of justice.
The eldest of Daksha's daughters, Diti, the wife of Kashyapa, became the mother of the formidable daityas; Danu, the second daughter, gave birth to mighty giants danavs.
The third Aditi had twelve bright sons adityas, great gods.
Varuna, the god of the ocean, Indra, the god of thunder and thunder, Vivasvat, the god of the sun, who is also called Surya, were the most powerful of them; but all were surpassed in glory by the youngest of the sons of Aditi, Vishnu, the guardian of the universe.
Since ancient times, the sons of Diti and Danu — they are called asuras — were enemies of the gods, the sons of Aditi.
And the struggle between the asuras and the gods for power over the universe lasted for many centuries, and there was no end to their enmity.
Ancient Indian literature, starting with the Vedas, contains many versions of the creation myth.
Usually, even within a single monument, such as the Rig Veda or the Mahabharata, there is no single cosmogonic concept and the most contradictory ideas about the origin of the universe are presented.
The version about the origin of the world from the Golden Embryo ("Hiranyagarbha"), which arose in the primordial waters, is the most common, starting from the Brahman literature and throughout the entire epic period.
In our presentation, we use the cosmogonic texts of the twelfth book of the Mahabharata, as well as the Shatapatha Brahmanas (Book XI), where the main ideas coincide.
In the Shatapatha brahmana, the creator God is called Prajapati.
(For another, earlier version of the creation myth, see No. 10.)
The number and names of the" spirit born "("manasoja") sons of Brahma vary in various epic texts; we have chosen the most common variant.
In the Mahabharata and in the Puranas, the sons of Brahma are also called Bhrigu (see No. 2), Vasistha, Narada, Dharma, Shiva, etc., in addition to the six and seventh Dakshis listed above.
The Lord of creatures is Prajapati.
In literature, Brahman is the name of the creator God; in the epic, it is the usual epithet of the sons of Brahma, the first beings born in the world created by him.
Kashyapa — in some texts is called the son of Brahma himself; in the epic, he also often bears the epithet Prajapati; he is ranked among the seven great "rishis" - seers.
Daksha (in the Vedas — one of the Adityas) ...out of the big toe on the right foot...
In some Puranas and other sons of Brahma, born miraculously from his body, only the soul of marichi, Atri from the eye, Angiras — from the mouth, Pulastya from his ear, Pulaha — from the navel, Crato — out of hand, Vasishtha — out of breath; see also about Bhrigu (No. 2), Rudra (No. 3), Narada (No. 23) and the origin of the rakshasas and Yakshas (No. 26).
Virini, identified with the Night (Ratri), is called Dakshi in some texts.
Fifty daughters — some sources say about sixty daughters and that ten of them were given in marriage to Manu, the progenitor of mankind.
Soma, the moon god, the son of Atri — in the Vedas, the deity of the ritual intoxicating drink soma (see No. 9).
In the Puranas, he is sometimes called the son of Dharma.
Dharma, the god of justice, is the personification of the concept of the law of moral order dharma (see No. 55).
In the epic and later, he is sometimes identified with Yama, the god of death (see No. 5).
Often the list of Kashyapa's wives begins in epic texts with Aditi, followed by Diti and Danu, but the idea of the demon asuras as the elder brothers of the gods, reflecting the most ancient worldview, is clearly expressed in the Mahabharata.
Vishnu, the youngest of the sons of Aditi — in the Vedas, Vishnu is a minor deity (believed to be associated with the mythology of the sun) and is not counted among the Adityas.
Starting with the Brahman, his importance increases rapidly, and in the later epic he already stands apart from the Adityas; the son of Aditi and Kashyapa is then considered only one of his incarnations (see No. 55).
In Hindu mythology, Vishnu becomes one of the supreme deities, the guardian of the universe.
2. Asuras, the elder brothers of the gods
When Brahma created the sky, the earth, and the air space, and all living beings in the universe came from his sons, he himself, tired of creation, retired to rest under the shade of the shalmali tree, and handed over the power over the worlds to his descendants — the gods and asuras.
The Asuras were the elder brothers of the gods.
They were powerful and wise and knew the secrets of magic — Maya*, could take various images or become invisible.
They owned untold treasures, which they kept in their strongholds in mountain caves.
And they had three fortified cities in the sky — one of iron, another of silver, and the third of gold; and they built themselves cities in the underworld.
The eighth son of the Creator was Bhrigu; he was born from the skin of Brahma.
The son of Bhrigu, the wisest Usanas, who understood all the secrets of sorcery, became the high priest and mentor of the asuras.
The king of the asuras was Hiranyakasipu, a powerful demon, the eldest of the sons of Diti.
The gods chose Indra, the seventh son of Aditi, as their king; their mentor was Brihaspati, the son of Angiras, the third of the sons of the Ancestor spirit.
Once the Asuras were pious and virtuous, and happiness was with them.
But then they became proud of their strength and their wisdom and inclined to evil; and happiness left them and passed to the gods.
Indra, the ruler of the gods, crushed many mighty asuras in battles [16].
The terrible god Rudra, a product of Brahma's wrath, threw the asuras from the sky, incinerating their magical three cities that were raised above the earth*.
In the Vedas, the Asuras are depicted as snake like monsters, the embodiment of the forces of nature hostile to man (see the presentation of the myths about the demons Vala No. 4, Visvarupa and Vritra No. 20).
In the epic, their images are anthropomorphized.
Shalmali is a mulberry tree (Salmalia Malabarica).
Maya in the early monuments means supernatural abilities possessed by demons and gods, all kinds of magic, werewolf, etc.
Later, in the Hindu philosophy of Maya the illusory nature of being, inspired by the supreme deity (see No. 55).
The three cities of the Asuras in the sky is a representation dating back to Vedic literature.
cf. its modification later — in the myth of the destruction of Tripura (No. 52).
3. Rudra and the sacrifice of Daksha
Rudra came out of Brahma's brow like a flame of anger, and all the destructive forces and the most formidable and frightening properties of the gods were embodied in him.
Gloomy, fierce and lonely, he withdrew from everyone and settled in the deserted northern mountains, on Himavat*.
He was given power over the beasts, and therefore this god is also called Pashupati, the Lord of the beasts.
In the guise of a wild hunter, dressed in skins, red, with blue black hair tied in a knot, he wandered through the mountains and forests, armed with a black bow and arrows.
But it is not only over animals that he has been granted power, and not only in the mountains and forests that his abode is given.
He is omnipresent, and all living things tremble before his terrible arrows that bring disease and death.
To protect himself from his anger, they propitiate him with prayers.
He sends diseases to people and spoilage to cattle, but he is also a great healer, and he is merciful to those who beg him for mercy.
Therefore, later people began to call him Shiva, which means Merciful.
It is said that long ago, at the end of the Golden Age, when virtue in the world was shaken, Daksha, the Lord of creatures, at the request of the gods, instituted the first sacrifice to atone for sin.
He made a sacrifice on the top of the great mountain Himavat, at the place where the sacred river Ganga rises and falls from the rocks into the valley, and he called the gods, the sons of Aditi, to it.
But the gods did not invite the gloomy Rudra, who lives alone and is unknown to them.
Learning that he was not left a share in the sacrifice, the offended Rudra, burning with anger, took his bow and went to where they were performing the ceremony.
When he appeared there, the earth shook, the mountains swayed, the wind stopped blowing, and the fire burned, the sun, moon and stars faded, and the world was enveloped in darkness.
The terrified gods fell on their faces.
Rudra pierced the victim with an arrow, and she turned into an antelope and rushed into the sky.
There she became the constellation of Mrigashirsha*.
To this day, you can still see in the night sky in the constellation [17] Mrigashirsha the head of an antelope pierced by an arrow, and in the constellation Ardra — a wild hunter who chases her.
When the victim disappeared, the gods fainted from fear.
Enraged, Rudra attacked the sons of Aditi and with the end of his bow knocked out the teeth of the god Pushan, the guardian of roads and herds; Bhaga, the one who gives people a happy fate, he knocked out his eyes; Savitar, the god of sunlight, lost his hands.
Running in confusion in all directions, the gods raised such a cry that the bowstring on Rudra's bow snapped.
Then they dared to approach him and begged for mercy.
The wise Brihaspati, the son of Angiras, the priest and mentor of the gods, managed to pacify the Merciful One.
Rudra threw his anger into the water, and his anger became fire, from which the water turned into steam.
He returned the teeth to Pushan, the eyes to Bhaga, and the hands to Savitar.
But they say that since then Pushan has been sacrificed with porridge, and Savitar has been fitted with new, golden hands by his brother Tvashtar, a divine master, a skilled creator of many extraordinary things; Savitar's hands are golden rays that he stretches out in the morning over the universe.
It is also said that when the angry Rudra beat the gods, he took off the head of Daksha himself and then they could not find it, no matter how they searched, and they had to put the head of a goat to Daksha.
Some people tell about the sacrifice of Daksha in a different way.
It is said that the victim was then the Lord of Creatures himself, whom the gods wanted to punish for the gravest sin.
He pursued his own daughter, the beautiful Rohini, with unholy harassment, and one day, turning into a goat, he entered into a criminal relationship with her, who took the form of an antelope.
The gods themselves called Rudra to punish an unheard of sinner; and for this act Rudra wished for the gift of dominion over animals and cattle.
Others say that Rudra himself was the fruit of this incestuous relationship.
But these are very ancient legends, forgotten already in ancient times.
The great god Rudra was terrible and terrible, and so were his descendants.
Everywhere he was followed by a terrible host of his fiends — rudras*, in the form of snakes.
Hissing, screaming, howling wildly, they rushed through the forests in search of prey.
Obeying the will of Rudra, malicious spirits came from the dense forests and from the mountains to human habitation, bringing misfortunes, sending pestilence on people and cattle.
Other were his sons, the Maruts, the storm gods.
Once Rudra, having turned into a bull, married the Earth, which took the form of a spotted cow, and from this marriage seven sons were born three times, mighty and beautiful warriors.
Although their father was Rudra, they became the retinue of Indra, who loved them as his own children.
In golden armor and helmets, with fiery lightning in their hands, the Maruts went on a campaign in sparkling chariots drawn by spotted deer, and, furious as stormy winds, they raced across the sky, closing the eye of the sun.
And the mountains shook, and the forests bowed in fear before them, when they accompanied Indra in his battles with the asuras and monsters.
The presentation is based on Vedic sources.
Rudra, the prototype of one of the supreme deities of the epic and Hindu pantheons, Shiva, apparently reflects many very archaic ideas of the mythology of the pre Aryan population of India already in the Vedas.
In the Mahabharata, the version of the myth about the sacrifice of Daksha has a clearly pronounced Shaivite character and in many details differs significantly from the Vedic versions.
Himavat, or Himalaya, is in Indian literature the name of the mountains of the Himalayas, as well as the deity personifying their peak.
The Golden Age — about the division of human history into four "centuries" in Indian mythology, see No.
55.
Mrigashirsha ("Head of the antelope") is a constellation of three stars, partially corresponding to Orion; Ardra corresponds to the α of Orion.
...the victim was...
The presented version reflects the myth of the sacrifice of Daksha in the "Aitareya Brahman" (book III), which tells about the co incestuous relationship of Prajapati (in the Brahmanas, as mentioned, the name of the creator god, not identical with Daksha) with his own daughter, the beautiful goddess of dawn Ushas.
The gods, his sons, create Rudra, combining their most formidable hypostases in him, precisely in order to punish Prajapati.
Already in the Vedic version, astral symbolism appears Prajapati is identified with the constellation Mrigashirsha, Rudra — with Ardra, Ushas — with the constellation Rohini (the constellation of Taurus), which gives another connection with the mythology of the epic Daksha, the father of the constellations of the lunar zodiac (see No. 1).
An echo of the myth of Prajapati's transgression in epic versions is the mention of Daksha's goat head, but otherwise it is no longer associated in post Vedic literature with the story of Daksha's sacrifice, reflecting Rudra's exclusion from the general soma ritual; the only motive for Rudra Shiva's anger remains the neglect of the gods who did not invite him to the sacrifice.
In the Kaushitaka Brahmana (book VI), the version of incestuous sin is somewhat different; there the gods, the sons of Prajapati, see their sister Ushas appearing in the east, and from their seed, which fell out at the same time and was collected by Prajapati in a golden vessel, a thousand — eyed and thousand legged deity, Rudra, is born.
Most of the other Vedic texts devoted to this subject follow the version that is given first in our presentation (see "Shatapatha Brahmana", etc.).
Rudras — in Vedic mythology, a sinister army of demonic snake like creatures that make up Rudra's retinue.
In the post Vedic period — a group of eleven minor deities, who together with the twelve Adityas and eight Vasus, as well as Dyaus Heaven and Prithivi Earth, make up the traditional pantheon of the "Thirty Three".
4. The Deeds of Indra
Indra was the beloved son of Aditi, the mother of the gods, the most powerful of her sons.
They say that he was born not like her other children, but in an unusual way*, almost destroying his mother at birth.
As soon as he was born, he grabbed for his weapon.
Terrified by the unusual birth of her son and his formidable appearance, Aditi hid Indra; but he appeared in front of everyone in golden armor immediately after birth, filling the universe with himself; and the mother was filled with pride for her mighty son.
And he became a great, irresistible warrior, before whom both the gods and the Asuras trembled.
While still very young, he defeated the insidious demon Emusha*.
This demon in the form of a boar once stole grain from the gods intended for sacrifice, and hid it among the treasures of the Asuras that were stored behind the thrice seven mountains.
Emusha was already cooking porridge from the stolen grain when Indra pulled his bow, pierced twenty one mountains with an arrow and killed Emusha the boar.
Vishnu, the youngest of the Adityas, took the sacrificial food from the possessions of the asuras and returned it to the gods.
On another occasion, Indra returned to the gods the cows that had been stolen by the demon tribe of the Panis*, who lived in unknown lands, outside the world of the gods and asuras.
The Pani drove the cows to a distant country beyond the Rasa River, which flows at the end of the world, and hid them in a mountain cave.
Then the heavens were darkened, for those divine cows were the rays of the dawn.
Indra sent the divine dog Sarama to search for cows.
Sarama tracked down the cows, ran to the river, jumped over it and heard them mooing inside the rock.
In the name of Indra, she demanded to give [19] p the cows were cleaned, but the pani made Sarama laugh and drove her away.
Then Indra went himself to the land of the panyas, and with him went seven sages from the family of Angirasa, led by Brihaspati, the Lord of Prayer.
With their magic spells and chants, the wise Angirasas opened the rock and brought the cows out of captivity.
And when they did this, the evil darkness disappeared, the light of Ushas, the goddess of dawn, shone in the sky, and the sun appeared to the eyes of the living.
Grieving over the loss of the cows, Vala*, the demon of the cave, raised a howl, but was struck to death by Indra.
And the mighty Indra scattered the paniyas, but the Angirasas found and took away all the property of this evil tribe.
And many more evil and dangerous demons were defeated by Indra with his courage and strength.
He became the ruler of the heavenly kingdom; the gods themselves asked Brahma to make him king over them.
The formidable Maruts became Indra's retinue.
His brother Tvashtar made him a golden chariot and forged him a thunder weapon vajra*.
This terrible weapon shone like the sun in the right hand of Indra and thrilled his enemies.
Vayu, the wind god, became Indra's charioteer and accompanied him in battles.
The beautiful armed Tvashtar, the most skilful of the celestials, also made a wonderful bowl for soma*, the divine drink that in ancient times was brought from heaven to earth by the eagle, the bird of Indra.
Indra was nursed by soma, which replaced his mother's milk.
He went to his exploits accompanied by an army of Maruts, on a golden chariot, with a vajra in his hand, inspired by copious libations of soma.
And then no one could resist him, and the earth and the sky shook with Indra's rage when he struck the enemy with his vajra.
In the battles of the gods with the asuras — and they lasted for many hundreds and thousands of years — Indra, at the head of the host of the celestials, more than once crushed the enemy force, and he defeated many leaders of the daityas and danavas.
He defeated in single combat Shambara, the most insidious of the asuras, who blinded the enemy in battle with a thousand witchcraft tricks; defeated the terrible giant Jambhu; killed the evil Puloman to death.
The daughter of Puloman, the beautiful Shachi, who fled from a cruel father, became the wife of her deliverer, Indra, and the mistress of the heavenly kingdom.
He also killed Indra and Namuchi, the most powerful of the asuras, who had previously been his friend.
Namuchi, the son of Danu, was a mighty and invincible warrior.
In battle, he was the first among the asuras, as Indra was the first [20] among the gods.
Once Namuchi and Indra made an alliance with each other.
They swore that neither one would strike the other, neither day nor night, neither on water nor on land, neither with dry weapons, nor covered with moisture.
And they were friends for a long time.
But Namuchi was the spirit of the sinful intoxicating drink sura*.
And one day he gave Indra soma mixed with drunken sura, and deprived the hero of his strength.
Indra then came for advice and help to the Ashwins*, the twin brothers, the sons of Vivasvat — the Ashwins were the gods of the pre dawn and evening twilight and divine healers.
"What should I do? " asked Indra.
"Namuchi betrayed our friendship, he drank my power.
But I swore an oath not to raise a weapon against him, neither dry nor covered with moisture."
Then the Ashwins covered Indra's vajra with sea foam.
And at the hour of twilight — neither day nor night — on the shore of the ocean, near the surf — neither on water nor on land — Indra killed Namuchi, cutting off his head with his vajra, covered with sea foam, with a weapon neither dry nor wet.
The Ashwins also prepared a medicine from the blood of the slain Namuchi, with which they healed Indra.
Another time, intoxicated by the drunk lakes of soma, Indra, in a fit of reckless anger, brought down the blow of his vajra on the chariot of Ushas*, the goddess of the dawn, who measures the days of mortals.
Ushas, the beautiful daughter of Heaven, fled in fear, leaving her broken chariot, and disappeared, trembling, from the eyes of the terrible warrior.
In this legend, the image of Indra is given mainly according to Vedic sources, as well as the image of Rudra in the previous one.
However, Indra becomes the son of Aditi only in epic mythology; in Vedic literature it is said about his miraculous birth, but the name of his mother is usually not called.
In the Atharvaveda, his mother is called Ekashtaka — the goddess identified with Ratri, the Night.
Indra's father is called Dyaus or Prajapati (in the Brahmanas, Indra is often called the youngest son of Prajapati or it is said that the gods themselves created Indra and chose him as their ruler).
... was born... in an unusual way... this is already mentioned in the Rig Veda, but in vague terms, the very method of Indra's birth is not indicated.
cf. the miraculous birth of Brahma's sons in approx. to No.
1.
Emusha.
The myth of Indra's victory over this demon is very vaguely mentioned in the Rig Veda.
In the Brahmanas, Emusha is the name of a mythical boar who raised the earth on a tusk; obviously, this is the prototype of the famous "avatar"(incarnation") Vishnu (see No. 15).
Panii.
In the depiction of this demonic tribe in the Vedic literature, mythological features are mixed with the features of some real people; some researchers identify the Panyevs with the Iranian tribe of Parnov, who lived on the Oxus (Amu Darya).
Sarama ("Fast") is a mythical dog, the mother of hellhounds guarding the way to the kingdom of the dead (see No. 29), sometimes considered as the progenitor of predatory animals.
Her image disappears from post Vedic mythology.
The seven sages of the Angiras family — in the Vedas of Angiras (mn. number) — are a legendary priestly family, "sons of heaven", supernatural beings associated with the cult of fire, messengers of heaven, occupying an intermediate position between gods and people (some researchers associate their name with the Greek aggelos "messenger").
Later, under the seven mythical sages ("saptarshayas"), identified with the stars of the Big Dipper, other characters of Indian mythology are meant; Angiras, the ancestor of the Angiras, is only one of these seven.
In Vedic literature, the divine ancestor of the Angirasas is Brihaspati, the Lord of Prayer, a deity who apparently embodies the cult aspect of fire; he is seen as the prototype of the later Brahma.
In epic mythology, Brihaspati turns from a god into a holy sage, the son of Angiras, the high priest and mentor of the gods; he is identified with the planet Jupiter (see No. 9).
Vala ("Cave") - a demon of a mythical cave; sometimes called the brother of Vritra (see No. 20).
Vajra is a mythical weapon of the thunder god Indra, which was forged for him by Tvashtar; according to some texts, it was given to Iidra by Ushanas.
The vajra is described as golden or iron, about four or a hundred corners or in the form of a disk, later as cruciform.
In the Mahabharata, it is said that the vajra was made from the bones of a certain holy hermit Dadhichi, who voluntarily donated his skeleton for this purpose.
Soma is a ritual intoxicating drink; it was prepared from the juice of the soma plant, which is currently difficult to identify (some modern researchers see it as a fly agaric used by priests as a narcotic); a parallel in the ancient Iranian ritual haoma indicates the great antiquity of the soma cult.
Already in the Vedas, the soma ritual is connected — not quite clearly with the mythology of the moon; subsequently, soma is identified with the moon, and in the epic Soma is the name of the moon god (see No. 9).
The bowl for soma made by Tvashtar, the Hephaestus of Indian mythology, is the moon.
In post Vedic mythology, soma is identified with amrita, the drink of immortality (see No. 12).
The myth of the bringing of soma from heaven by an eagle, the bird of Indra, is vaguely mentioned in several hymns of the Rig Veda.
Namuchi.
The myth of Indra's victory over Namuchi is told in the Shatapatha Brahmana and some other sources.
In the Mahabharata, the main motive of this myth is included in the presentation of the version of the myth of Vritra — Indra covers his weapon with foam in the battle with Vritra.
Sura — in the Vedic era, a strong intoxicating drink, unlike soma, which did not have a sacred character.
Ashvins see No. 5 and approx.
...brought down the blow...
In this myth mentioned in the Vedas, some researchers see a reflection of the solar aspect in the image of Indra (the dawn runs from the rays of the sun) and draw a parallel with the Greek myth of Apollo and Daphne.
5. Vivaswat and his children
Indra was the seventh son of Aditi, the eighth was Vivasvat.
But when he was born, he was not recognized as equal to the seven elder brothers, the gods.
For the eighth son of Aditi was born ugly - without arms and without legs, smooth on all sides, and his height was equal to his thickness.
The elder brothers Mitra, Varuna, Bhaga and others said: "He is not like us, he is of a different nature — and this is bad.
Let's redo it."
And they remade it: they cut off everything superfluous; so man appeared.
Vivasvat became the progenitor of mortals on earth; only he himself later equaled the gods.
He became the sun god; and as the sun god, he is called Surya.
And from the pieces of his body, cut off by the gods, an elephant appeared.
Tvashtar married his daughter Saranya to Vivasvat.
Saranyu did not want to marry a man, but she had to submit to her father's will.
She gave birth to Vivasvata twins, a brother and a sister; their names were Yama* and Yami.
But after that, the proud Saranyu could no longer bear to live in the house of an unequal spouse.
She created a woman who was exactly like her in appearance, and left her in her place in the house of Vivasvat, and she disappeared, turning into a mare.
At first, Vivaswat did not notice the substitution.
The imaginary Saranyu bore him a son named Manu, the same Manu from whom the people who now live on earth are descended.
But after Vivasvat learned that his true wife had run away from him, taking the form of a mare, and then he himself turned into a horse and rushed after her in pursuit.
He caught up with her, and a reconciliation took place between them.
In the form of a horse, they again became spouses, and they had two more twins yetzov, two brothers named Nasatya and Dasra, who are also called Ashwins*, which means "Born of a horse".
The Ashwins became the gods of twilight and the morning and evening stars.
Just before dawn, when at the end of the night light fights with darkness, they are the first of the gods to appear in the morning sky, two mighty knights, eternally young and beautiful, on a golden chariot drawn by winged horses.
Together with them, their friend, the sun maiden Surya*, the daughter of Savitar, rides on a chariot.
Once her father appointed her to be the wife of Soma, the god of the moon, but many gods sought the hand of the beautiful maiden, and it was decided that the one who would be the first to reach the sun in a chariot race would get it.
In this contest, the Ashwins were the first to reach the sun, and the bright Surya mounted their chariot and became their companion.
The Ashwins are more favorable to people, their relatives, than other gods, and they save mortals from all sorts of troubles and misfortunes.
Ashwins are wise and have healing power; they help the infirm, the sick and the crippled, and restore youth to the old.
They save those who perish in the depths of the water — so they rescued the once unfortunate Bhujya, the son of Tugra, who was thrown into the sea during a storm by his own comrades.
For three days and three nights the Ashwins carried him over the waves of the sea, until they reached the shore.
Barely alive, who could not hope for salvation in the waters, where there is nothing to lean on and nothing to hold on to, they carried the son of Tugra to dry land.
The younger children of Vivasvat were born gods, while the older ones Yama, Yami and Manu were mortals, for their father was also mortal when they were born, and only then became the sun god.
Yama, the eldest son of Vivasvat, was a man and lived with [22] his sister on earth.
And he was the first person on earth who died.
Manu, his brother, was the only one of the mortals who was saved during the great flood — he became the progenitor of mankind.
Yama was the first to die — he opened the way to the afterlife for mortals.
Since then, and to this day, he is the lord of the kingdom of the dead.
The souls of those who die leave the earth along the path laid by their ancestors to his abode.
Vivasvat, his father, was the first on earth to perform a sacrifice and give fire to people.
He sent Matarishvan, the wind spirit, after him, and he brought him from heaven to earth.
The sages of the Bhrigu family taught mortals how to handle fire.
The myth of the birth of the eighth son of Aditi, rejected by his mother, is mentioned in the book.
X of the Rig Veda and is given in the Shatapatha Brahmana (book III).
In Vedic mythology, the eighth (in some versions, the seventh) Aditi's son Vivaswat or Marttanda ("Stillborn") is the last of her sons Adityas.
He is later identified with Surya, the sun god.
Saranyu the daughter of Tvashtar, sometimes appears in a zoomorphic form.
The myth of Vivasvat's marriage to Saranya is mentioned in the book.
X of the Rig Veda and is described in more detail in the commentary of Sayana (XIV century).
Yama ("Twin").
The myth of Yama and Yami — one of the oldest in the Vedas (as indicated by the Iranian parallel — Yima and Yimak) — probably reflects the Aryan version of the twin myth.
In Iranian mythology, Yima is the king of the people of the Golden Age, when there was no death and suffering on earth.
This moment is absent in the mythology of the Indian Yama, but one of the most clearly preserved motives is the refusal of Yama from an incestuous marriage with his sister, which is the content of the famous hymn of the dialogue in the book.
X "Rigveda".
In some Vedic texts, however, this sinful union seems to be realized (see No. 6), and perhaps it was considered as the cause of Yama's death (cf.the biblical myth of the fall of Adam and Eve), although we do not find direct confirmation of this in the texts.
Ashwins ("Born of a horse") - are usually considered as the gods of the morning and evening
