Vol. V, No. 4.) The Hero-Gods of the Rigveda. 135 
[N.S.] 
‘* Let not Vivasvan’s weapon nor his shaft, Adityas, wrought 
with skill, 
Destroy us ere old age be nigh ’’—VII, 67-20 [Griffith]. 
Here Vivasvan has been represented as if he were another 
Yama—god of Death. 
To lower the position of 7'rita and Yama was easy, but not 
so to lower the position of Vivasvan. Trita was the god of the 
mid-region. Already a new god—Indra—has been put there, and 
the isis have only to say that Trita has gone to a distant place 
and the thing was done. Yama was the king of the Pitris who 
died and accompanied him to the dise of the sun, and he himself 
had to die before going there. He was therefore ‘connected with 
death. Already there was a goddess of death—wNirriti. The 
Risis made Yama the god of death in her place and the 
thing was done. But Vivasvan had been identified with the 
sun,—how to lower his position. A new idea with which the 
8 
there but he comes back. His rising and setting were regarded 
as his repeated birth and death. 
ae aq 4 at aw aca e cen feafag wag | 
a araatiat afedtat saaguar fase faar fas ayirzesiae 
Who made him he does not know him—who saw him from 
him he is hidden 
Enveloped it in the mothens (= Bante s) womb he is born 
repeatedly and enters into Nirriti—I, 164-32. 
This 77k is difficult but not unintelligible. I explained the 
rik preceding it (I, 164-31=X, 177-2) in my paper on Vivasvan, 
. 37, and shewed that the ayn in that rik is the sun—the pro- 
tector of the cows, 7.e. the rays. The ¢' in the present 77k is 
the same sun identified with Vivasvan 
The first half line says that his father wa: does not com- 
prehend him. The meaning of the second half line is that all 
men see him but very few know who he is. The second line 
has already been explained. 
This, I think, was the origin of the idea of the Aptya deities 
of the C. B., but the canton of the paragraph quoted from it mis- 
unde $st60d. the meaning of the word Aptya and invented a 
fanciful story. The word means not born of waters but appertain- 
ing to waters. The Aptya deities were so called because they 
discovered ed in his hiding place in the celestial sea. 
The story of the origin of the Aptya deities as told in the 
Maitr. owe and the T.B. is based on the A.V. VI, 113 and not 
on the Hymn of the Rigveda quoted above. I give their version 
