Vol. V, No. 4.] The Hero-Gods of the Rigveda. 127 
[N.S.] 
aggat azfa Alatauqanta: wnat aatte | 
ay za: ufea Uy Wawa Tala AAT Bea Raa | 
ro (leu 8 
May what the owl says not happen—may the marks the 
pigeon makes near the hearth, not take place. 
This salutation is to him by whom he has been sent as mes- 
senger,—to Yama—to Death. 
In the Atharva Veda, Yama is the q=a@:—the Ender. 
We will now see if the different ideas expressed by these five 
Vi 
B° Trita as a god of the mid-region. 
C° The god Trita being driven from the mid-region to a 
distant place. - 
or our present purpose the C° group of riks also are not 
of much importance. For in the history of the Vedic gods the 
fall of a god from a higher to a lower position is not an uncom- 
mon thing. We have therefore only two groups of riks to con- 
sider, namely, I and II. The one saying that Trita was a god 
and the other that he was a man. 
w the question is, can we bring the riks comprised in both 
these groups under the same idea? One way to do this would 
be as pointed out at the outset of this paper, to explain away 
the duality in the character of Trita. But this would be 
doing too much violence to the riks ; for they speak of the duality 
in the character of J’rita in quite unmistakable terms. Then 
there remain only two other ways of doing thi 
S. 
First, that 7'rita was originally a man who after death was 
ed. 
Second, that he was originally a god—a physical object 
personified—who was gradually brought down to the level of 
@ man. 
The one is the method of deification—the other that of 
t that this second method 
