________________
264
M. A. MEHENDALE
Varuna. Trasadasyu was half-god' at birth in this sense (possessed of the quality of one of the two gods) and not because he was partly human and partly divine. Since according to Venkatamadhava Indra had inhabited Trasadasyu, he takes ardhadevá to refer to such Trasadasyu as was inhabited by Indra as his 'owner' (indraś ca svämi trasadasyuś ca).
Perhaps now we are in a better position to understand the significance of the word dvitá used by Trasadasyu in the very first stanza. The occasion for the self-praise was admittedly his royal consecration. Equipped at birth with the Indra-quality, he was now, after the consecration, going to imbibe and excercise also the Varuna-quality of upholding riá and vratá. Hence, as a Ksatriya, his governance was going to be two-fold (máma dvitá rastrám ksatriyasya). He was going to be the king doubly - the Indra-way and the Varuņa-way. He was thus going to combine in himself what, according to the Avestan tradition, was shared by the two brothers Urvāxšaya and Kərəsåspa (Yasna. 9.10.)".
13 H.-P. SCHMIDT, op. cit. p. 342.
Madhu Vidya/174
Jain Education International
For Private & Personal Use Only
www.jainelibrary.org
