554 MR J. MUIR ON THE PRINCIPAL DEITIES OF THE RIGVEDA. 



they are considered to perish, as far as regards their corporeal organisation, at 

 every periodical dissolution of the universe. Their souls, however, like those 

 which animate all other living creatures, from Brahma to a plant, are, according 

 to later theories, imperishable. In the Rigveda a specific origin is ascribed to 

 many of the deities, as, for instance, to the important class called the Adityas, 

 including Varuna, Mitra, and others, who are all regarded as the sons of Aditi. 

 Indra, too, is in several places spoken of as having both a father and a mother. 



In the Brahmanas, the gods are regarded as having been originally mortal, 

 and many discrepant stories are told of the way in which they acquired the pre- 

 rogative of immortality. 



Aditi. 



It is not very easy to define the character of Aditi, the goddess whom I 

 have just alluded to as the mother of Mitra, Varuna, and the other Adityas. 

 In the old Indian -vocabulary, the Nighantu, she is identified with Prithiv'i, the 

 earth ; and some of the epithets assigned to her in the Rigveda, such as " the 

 widely-extended," "the supporter of creatures," "the friend of all men," would 

 agree with this supposition. Some others of her designations, however, as " the 

 luminous," appear to be more appropriate to the sky; and in various passages 

 Aditi seems to be distinguished from the earth. Perhaps she may best be con- 

 sidered as a personification of universal nature, with which, in the following 

 remarkable verse (i. 89, 10), she is in fact identified : "Aditi is the heaven; Aditi 

 is the intermediate firmament ; Aditi is mother, and father, and son ; Aditi is all 

 the gods, and the five tribes of men ; Aditi is whatever has been born ; Aditi is 

 whatever shall be born." In another verse (v. 62, 8), she is thus mentioned, along 

 with another goddess, Diti : — 



" Ye, Mitra and Varuna, ascend your car, and from thence ye behold Aditi and Diti." 



From her name, and the manner in which she is introduced, the latter goddess 

 must be held to stand for something antithetical or supplementary to Aditi. The 

 two together are meant to represent the whole creation, though it is not very 

 clear what is the separate idea which each is intended to convey. 



In a hymn of the tenth book of the Rigveda, supposed, from its position in 

 the collection, and from its contents, to be of comparatively late date, the process 

 of creation is described with greater minuteness than in most other passages, 

 and the share which Aditi took in it is declared, though not in a very intelligible 

 way— Rigveda, x. 72, 1, " Let us in chanted hymns celebrate with praise the 

 births of the gods, any one of us who in this later age may behold them, 

 2. Brahmanaspati blew forth these births like a blacksmith. In the earliest age 

 of the gods, the existent sprang from the non-existent. 3. In the first age of the 



