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It appears in Sanskrit as Saranyu, a word which signifies the light of morning creeping over the sky. And thus we are led to the startling conclusion that, as the light of morning reveals the evil deeds done under the cover of night, so the lovely Dawn, or Erinys, came to be regarded under one aspect as the terrible detector and avenger of iniquity.
After their dispersion, the fables admitted discrepancies, as stories in oral circulation occasionally do. This is the only conjecture which I feel justified in suggesting to account for the resemblances and incongruities between the myths of the mare Demeter-Erinnys and the mare Saranyu. Totemism To the strange and widely diffused institution of 'Totemism' our author often returns.
Max Muller well says, 'If we look about for analogies we find nothing, as far as I know, corresponding to the well- marked features of this barbarous myth among any of the uncivilised tribes of the earth. If we did, how we should rejoice! I do rejoice! I even asked why Mr. I cannot explain why this tale was told both of Erinnys and of Saranyu. Edgeworth's trillions of trillions feebly express it.
Their offspring were the Asvins, who are more or less analogous in their helpful character to Castor and Pollux. Now, can it be by accident that Saranyu in the Veda is Erinnys in Greek? To this 'equation, as we saw, Mannhardt demurred in 1877. Who was Saranyu? Yaska says 'the Night; that was Yaska's idea. Mr.
To make this perfectly clear, remember that the husband of Saranyu, whom she leaves at sunrise, is I give you three guesses is the Sun! The Sun's wife leaves the Sun at sunrise. But we still do not know how the horse and mare came in, or why the statue of Demeter had a horse's head.
Max Muller's system 'has just got to be' Dawn, a position proved thus: 'Yaska makes this clear by saying that the time of the Asvins, sons of Saranyu, is after midnight, but that 'when darkness prevails over light, that is Madhyama; when light prevails over darkness, that is Aditya, both being Asvins.
Their origin was to be ascertained by discovering the Aryan root and original significance of the names of gods and heroes, such as Saranyu Erinnys, Daphne Dahana, Athene Ahana. The etymology and meaning of such names being ascertained, the origin and sense of the myths in which the names occur should be clear. Clear it was not.
He tells the unseemly tale, and asks why the Earth goddess became a mare? Then he gives the analogous myth from the Rig-Veda, which, as it stands, is 'quite unintelligible. But Yaska explains that Saranyu, daughter of Tvashtri, in the form of a mare, had twins by Vivasvat, in the shape of a stallion.
Moreover, if all Greek gods could be certainly explained, by undisputed etymologies, as originally elemental, we still object to such logic as that which turns Saranyu into 'grey dawn. We still object to the competing interpretations by which almost every detail of very composite myths is explained as a poetical description of some elemental process or phenomenon.
Other equations, as Sarameya=Hermeias, Saranyu=Demeter Erinnys, he fears will not stand close criticism. Then, after a lucid statement of Mr. Max Muller's position, he says, 'Ich vermag dem von M. Muller aufgestellten Principe, wenn uberhaupt eine, so doch nur eine sehr beschrankte Geltung zuzugestehen. 'To the principle of Max Muller I can only assign a very limited value, if any value at all.
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