Vol. V, No. 4.] The Hero-Gods of the Rigveda. 123 
[V.S.] 
ne he (=Agni) offers Soma. O immortal one (= Agni), 
e (= Dvita) is ever your praiser—V, 18-2. 
40. gut wai TUl WH TUT wa 4 aarafa | 
Tal SaG7 AAAI FT AAIAWATET...< | go | V9 
As we collect every part of a debt—even its eighth and 
sixteenth part—so every paps of the evil dream we will carry 
away to Aptya Trita—VIII. 47. 17 
here is only one more vik in which the word Tita occurs, 
namely VI, 44-33. 
HIAAUM Tas: quae Ga wearssat lara: | 
we four fefa ctate faa faaend fang 1 ¢) 98) 28 
He = Soma) = the Usas have a beautiful husband and 
placed light in the s 
e found the threefold nectar hidden in heaven, in the 
third meinons region—VI, 44-23. 
rik Trita is not a proper name. The rik, however, 
supplies us aith an important piece of information, namely, 
that the word Trita means “the third.”’ It is therefore likely 
that the god Tita was the third of a series of gods. As seen 
before we have a god named Dvita in the Rigveda. A god 
Ekata is to be found in the Brahmanas but not in the Rigveda. 
now explained all the riks in which reference has 
been made to Trita. They have also been put under a number 
* Jeon into which they naturally divide themselves. These 
I. Riks that shew that J'rita was a man. 
II. Riks that shew that he was a god. 
III. Two important conquests of T'rita. 
IV. Trita was helped by the Maruts. 
V. Trita as ruler of the mid-region was displaced by 
Indra and driven to a distant place 
I. At least = ome of the 40 riks on Trita shew that 
he was 
(a) One of ee Vedic bards claims him as a relation. 
In this connection we may remember that 7'rita 
appointed the Maruts—the Dacagvas, a clan of 
the great Angiras family— as his priests. Kutsa 
the bard in question also i belongs to the same 
famil 
(6) Trita gti as a man in distress having fallen 
into a well. There are several instances in the 
Rigveda of men having fallen into wells. The 
tere of this fact will be easily under- 
