SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 94 



Up.,\, 2). 



Evidence can be assembled from the Rg Veda and other sources to 

 show that the deity in the darkness, unmanifested, in his ground, not 

 proceeding, or as it is technically expressed, ab intra, is conceived of 

 in forms that are not human-angelic, but theriomorphic ; and typically 

 in that of a brooding serpent or fiery dragon, inhabiting a cave or 

 lying on a mountain, where he guards a treasure against all comers, 

 and above all restrains the Rivers of Life from flowing. The creative 

 act involves a maiming, division, or transformation of the girdling 

 serpent, often thought of as " footless and headless ", that is with 

 its tail in its mouth. The contraction and identification of this pri- 

 mordial and impartite Unity is envisaged on the one hand as a volun- 

 tary sacrifice, or on the other as affected by violence, exercised by the 

 life-desirous Powers of Light. The celebration of the conquest of 

 the Serpent by the Powers of Light is a basic theme of the Vedic 

 hymns ; an aspect of the Great Battle between the Devas and Asuras 

 ("Angels " and " Titans ") for the possession of the worlds of light. 

 It is the battle between St. George and the Dragon. At the same time 

 there can be no question that the Powers of Light and Powers of Dark- 

 ness are the same and only Power. Devas and Asuras are alike 

 Prajapati's or Tvastr's children ; the Serpents are the Suns. It is 

 entirely a question of " orientation ". At the end of an Aeon the 

 Powers of Darkness are in turn victorious. 



The Powers of Darkness are also at home as Water-snakes ( Indian 

 naga) or Merfolk in the Sea that represents the maternal possibility 

 of being. The first assumption in Godhead, Death, is being. Life and 

 Death, God and Godhead, Mitra and Varuna, apam and para Brahman, 

 are related from this point of view as a progenitive pair (Indian 

 mithiina) . The determinative, paternal principle accomplishes in con- 

 junction with the passive maternal principle " the act of fecundation 

 latent in eternity " (Eckhart). The generation of the Son " is a vital 

 operation from a conjoint principle .... that by which the Father 

 begets is the divine nature " (St. Thomas, Siimma Theologica, I, q.27, 

 a.2, and q.41, a.5). The Father is Intellect, the Mother Word, the 

 Child Life {Brhaddranyaka Upanisad, I, 5, 7). Just as the Father 

 works through the Son, so the human artist works " by a word con- 

 ceived in his intellect" (St. Thomas, loc. cit., I, q.45, a.6). In this 

 way every ontological formulation affirms the duality of the Unity 

 as well as the unity of the Duality. It will be evident that whatever 

 holds for the masculine will hold also for the feminine aspect of the 

 L'nity ; in the following essay it is primarily the \'edic concept of the 

 ab intra form of the feminine principle that is discussed. 



