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



Max Muller's article, on " The Funeral Ceremonies of the Brahmans," in the 

 volume of the first-named journal for 1855, pp. xiv. ff., where many of the texts 

 which I have referred to are translated into German. I may now add the same 

 author's new volume of " Lectures on the Science of Language," 2d Series, pp. 

 513, ff., where he combats some of Roth's conclusions. 



Goddesses of the Rigveda. 



Of the female divinities occurring in the Rigveda, some have been already 

 noticed — viz., Prithivi, the Earth, the wdfe of Dyaus ; Aditi, the mother of the 

 Adityas, with Diti her counterpart ; Nishtigri, the mother of Indra ; Pris'ni, the 

 mother of the Maruts ; and Saranyu, the mother of Yama and the Asvins. 



Of the other goddesses, the most important is Ushas, the 'hws, 'aws, or 'auw? of the 

 Greeks, and the Aurora of the Latins,* to whom twenty separate hymns, and 

 numerous detached verses, are dedicated. Of one of these hymns, some of which 

 are very beautiful and imaginative, a specimen was given in the paper which I 

 read before the Society last year. 



Sarasvati also is a goddess of some, though not of any very great, importance in 

 the Rigveda. She is primarily, if not throughout, a river deity,f as her name, " the 

 watery," clearly denotes ; and in this capacity she is celebrated in a few separate 

 hymns, as well as in a number of detached passages. In one of these texts, as 

 well as in later works, allusion is made to sacrifices being performed on the banks 

 of this river, and of the Drishadvati ; and the Sarasvati, in particular, seems to 

 have participated in the reputation of sanctity which, according to a passage in the 

 Institutes of Manu (iii. 17 ff".), attached to the whole region lying between these 

 two. small streams, and situated to the w^estward of the Jumna. The Sarasvati 

 thus appears to have been (though in a less degree) to the early Indians what 

 the Ganges (which is only twice named in the Rigveda, and was not then regarded 

 with any special veneration) became at a later period to their descendants. When 

 once the river had acquired a divine character, it was perhaps not unnatural that 

 she should be regarded as the patroness of the ceremonies which were celebrated 

 on the margin of her holy waters, and that her direction and blessing should be 

 invoked as essential to their due performance and success. The connection into 

 which she was thus brought with sacred rites may have led to the further step 

 of supposing her to exercise an influence on the composition of the hymns which 

 formed an important part of the proceedings, and of identifying her with Vach 

 (the Latin Vox), the goddess of speech. 



Sarasvati is frequently invited to the sacrifices, along with several other god- 

 desses, Ila, Bharati, Mahi, Hotra, Varutri, and Dhishana, who were not, like her, 



* See Benfey's " Griecliisches Wurzellexicon, i. 27, and ii. 334. 



f In the Erahmavaivartta Purana she is said to have been changed into a river by an impreca- 

 tion of the Ganga. See Professor Aufrecht's " Catalogue of the Bodleian Sanskrit MSS." p. 23. 



