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



" Sama Veda" (ii. 812), gives yet a different rendering: " We receive this glorious 

 brightness of the generator, of the god who will prosper our works." 



In the hymns Savitri is sometimes expressly distinguished from Surya. To 

 explain this circumstance, the Indian commentator asserts, that before his rising, 

 the sun is called Savitri, and at his rising and setting Surya ; and in another place 

 he says, that though the godhead of the two deities is identical, they ma}'' yet, 

 from the diversity of their forms, be spoken of as separate agents. Yaska, a much 

 older writer, says, that " the time of Savitri's appearance is when darkness has 

 been removed, and the rays of light have become diffused over the sky." But 

 it is scarcely consistent with this explanation, that in one text Savitri is said to 

 exercise his influence after the rising of the sun. 



In other passages of the Rigveda, the two names appear to denote the same deity. 



Tvaslitri. 



Another god who, in the later mythology, is regarded as one of the Adityas, 

 but who does not yet bear that character in the Rigveda, is Tvashtri, the Vulcan 

 of the Indian pantheon. He is represented as the most skilful of all artizans, and 

 as versed in all admirable contrivances. He sharpens the iron axe of Brahmanas- 

 pati, and forges the thunderbolts of Indra. It is his peculiar function to fabricate 

 forms : he gives shape to heaven and earth ; he bestows generative power, moulds 

 all structures, human and animal, out of the seminal germ ; forms husband and 

 wife for each other in the womb. He gave his daughter Saranyu in marriage to 

 Vivasvat, the sun, and is thus the grandfather of Yama ; and he is also described 

 as the father-in-law of Vayu, the god of the wind. 



Agni. 



Agni is the god of fire, the Ignis of the Latins. The word, as all scholars 

 know, has been lost in Greek. He is one of the most prominent deities of the 

 Rigveda, since nearly as many entire hymns are addressed to him as to Indra, 

 and more than are assigned to any other divinity. Agni is not, like the Greek 

 Hephaestus, or the Latin Vulcan, the artificer of the gods (an office which, as we 

 have just seen, is in the Veda allotted to Tvashtri), but derives his importance 

 almost exclusively from his connection with the ceremonial of sacrifice. He 

 is an immortal, who has taken up his abode among mortals, as their guest, their 

 friend, and their domestic priest. He is a sage, intimately acquainted with all 

 the forms of worship, and qualified, by his wisdom and power, to bring them all 

 to a successful termination. Every oblation which he superintends goes straight 

 to the gods. He concentrates in himself, and exercises in a superior sense, all the 

 various priestly offices distributed by the Indian ritual among a number of sepa- 

 rate human functionaries. He is a messenger moving between heaven and earth, 

 and commissioned both by gods and men to maintain their mutual communica- 

 tions, to announce to the immortals the hymns, and to convey to them the offer- 



