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



pierced and shattered by the very sound of his iron bolts. The waters, released 

 from their imprisonment, descend in copious streams to the earth, fill all the 

 rivers, and roll downward in torrents to the ocean. The gloom which had over- 

 spread the sky is dispersed, and the sun is restored to his position in the heavens. 

 Constant allusions to these conflicts between the opposing powers of the atmo- 

 sphere occur in nearly every part of the Rigveda, and the descriptions are some- 

 times embellished with a certain variety of imagery. The clouds are represented 

 as mountains, or are variously characterised as the autumnal, moving, iron, 

 or stone-built cities of the demons of the atmosphere, which Indra over- 

 throws. He destroys his enemies when he discovers them on the aerial moun- 

 tains, or hurls them back when they attempt to take the sky by escalade. One 

 is a monster with ninety-nine arms : a second has three heads and six eyes ; a 

 third he pierces with ice, or crushes with his foot ; the head of a fourth he strikes 

 off" with the foam of the waters. 



The growth of much of the imagery just described is perfectly natural 

 and easily intelligible, especially to persons who have lived in India and 

 witnessed the phenomena of the seasons in that country. At the close of the 

 long hot weather, when every one is crying aloud for rain to moisten the 

 earth and cool the atmosphere, it is often extremely tantalizing to see the 

 clouds collecting and floating across the sky, day after day, without discharg- 

 ing their contents. And in the early ages, when the Vedic hymns were 

 composed, it was quite in consonance with the other ideas which their authors 

 entertained, to imagine that some malignant influence was at work in the atmo- 

 sphere to prevent the fall of the fertilizing showers of which the parched fields 

 stood so much in need. It was but a step further to personify both the hostile 

 power and the beneficent agency by which it was at length overcome. Indra is 

 thus at once a terrible warrior and a gracious friend, whose shafts deal destruc- 

 tion to his enemies, while they are the instruments of deliverance and prosperity 

 to his worshippers. The phenomena of thunder and lightning almost inevitably 

 suggest the idea of a conflict between opposing forces : even we ourselves, in our 

 more prosaic age, often speak of the war, or strife, of the elements. The other 

 appearances of the sky, too, afforded abundant materials for poetical imagery. 

 The worshipper would at one time transform the clouds into the chariots* and 

 horses of his god, and, at another time, would seem to perceive in their piled-up 

 masses the cities and castles which he was advancing to overthrow. 



The power and glory of Indra are characterised by the grandest epithets. 

 Thus, it is said of him in different texts : " His greatness transcends the sky, the 

 earth, and the atmosphere. He who fixed the quivering earth, who gave stability 

 to the agitated mountains, who meted out the vast atmosphere, who propped up 



* Compare Psalm civ. 3. 



