292 
differs from his seven brethren in two respects, in form and in 
being subject to death. Now his seven immortal brethren are 
of divine form, and it is undoubtedly implied that the divine 
form is also more or less anthropomorphic ; but Martanda is 
an egg, a circle,* a lump without hands and feet, in a word, 
the solar photosphere, the golden egg of the heavens, which 
dies daily. t Martanda is, as it were, thrown out by Aditi 
from the company of the gods and the splendours of the in- 
visible world, into the inferior, visible, and material world, to 
live and die daily in the sight of men. He is thus a type of the 
humiliation of the divine nature by its alliance with material 
form and subjection to death ; and so the converse of Yama, 
in which we see the human nature raised to the divine and 
perfected. An even the glorious sun himself, protagonist of 
materiality, when disgraced by idolatry becomes to us as it 
were Martanda, an addled egg ; even as that venerable relic 
the Brazen Serpent became JSlehushtan, for “The gods that 
have not made the heavens and the earth, they shall perish 
from the earth and from under these heavens.” J 
29. Soma. 
The Yedic divinity Soma affords an excellent instance of 
the process by which the human mind constantly converts into 
obscure mysteries things in themselves exceedingly simple. 
Soma is (1) a plant, the juice of which was largely used in con- 
nection with religious ritual ; § and (2) the principle of 
humidity, which shows itself in rain, sap, dew, and otherwise. 
In illustration of this, it may be observed that in sevei'al pas- 
sages of the Atharva-Veda Soma is identified with the moon ; 
and it is stated that “ the Sun has the nature of Agni, the 
moon of Soma ; ” that is to say, the sun is igneous, the moon 
humid. The moon is the night-queen, and the night is the 
time of growth (symbolized by the increasing moon),|| dew 
and humidity generally. Thus Apollo is Sauroktonos, “ the 
lizard-slayer,” H for the lizard was a symbol of humidity 
* Plato’s commendation of tlie circular form in the Timaios, may be 
accepted except so far as a tangible sentient divinity is concerned. Such a 
god must be more or less anthropomorphic, and will yet bo the x a 9 aKTI )p 
and tiniov roil 0eo5 rot) aoparov. 
t The egg-sun is familiar in Egypt ( vide The Archaic Solar Cult of 
Egypt. By the Writer). In the frontispiece to The Great Dionysidk Myth, 
vol. ii., I have given a Hellenico-Egyptian representation of the winged sun, 
Dionysos Psilas (vide Pausanias, iii. 19), supported by the twin serpents of 
plenty. + Jer. x. 11. § Vide sup. sec. 13. 
|| One of the Akkadian names of the moon is Enzuna, “ the Lord of 
Growth.” Cf. Deut. xxxiii. 14: “The precious things put forth by the 
moon.” *|[ Pliny, xxxiv. 8. 
