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But the myth existed already in the Veda! And the unseemliness is precisely what we have to account for; that is our enigma. Once more, Demeter is a goddess of Earth, not of Dawn. How, then, does the explanation of a hypothetical Dawn-myth apply to the Earth? Phonetic explanations follow. Here, as regards the Asvins and the Dioskouroi, Mannhardt may be regarded as Mr.
As the glory of the rising sun is able to affect the herds of milch kine, so as to increase the quantity of their sweet-scented milk, so those Brahmakârins, with wondrous joy, thus spoke one to the other: "Surely this is one of the eight Vasu Devas"; others, "this is one of the two Asvins"; others, "this is Mâra"; others, "this is one of the Brahmakâyikas"; others, "this is Sûryadeva or Kandradeva, coming down; are they not seeking here a sacrifice which is their due?
Dyaus, the Sky God, is admittedly the same as Zeus and Jupiter. The Aśvins agree in character, though not in name, with the Dioscuri and other parallels are quoted from Lettish mythology. Bhaga, the bountiful giver, a somewhat obscure deity, is the same word as the Slavonic Bog, used in the general sense of God, and we find deva in Sanskrit, deus in Latin, and devas in Lithuanian.
We should also mention Ushas, the dawn, a goddess whom the sun-god is daily chasing; the Asvins or two heavenly charioteers, who daily make the circuit of the heavens; Tvashtri, the smith who made the thunderbolt of Indra; the Ribhus, artificers who were once men and have been admitted to the society of the gods.
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.
We may explain the Gods of the minor hymns in the same way. Pan, for instance, as the son of Hermes, inherits the wild, frolicsome, rural aspect of his character. The Dioscuri answer to the Vedic Asvins, twin rescuers of men in danger on land or sea: perhaps the Evening and Morning Star. Dionysus is another aspect of the joy of life and of the world and the vintaging.
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.
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