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accept in the subsequent Çiva not only the lineal descendant of the Vedic Rudra, but also a combination of other local cults, where clan gods, originally diverse, were worshipped as one in consequence of their mutual likeness. One of the god's especial names is here Bhava, while in the earlier period Bhava and Rudra are distinct, but they are invoked as a pair (AV). [75] What gives Çiva his later tremendous popularity, however, is the feature to which we have alluded in the chapter on the epic. In the epic, all the strength of Civa lies in the Linga.[76] Both Bhava and Rudra, as Çarva, the archer-his local eastern name—are represented as hurling the lightning, and it is simply from identity of attributes that they have become identified in person (AV. X. i. 23). Rudra's title of Paçupati, or 'lord of cattle'[77] goes back to the Vedic age: "Be kind to the kine of him who believes in the gods" is a prayer of the Atharva Veda (xi. 2. 28). Agni and Rudra, in the Rig-Veda, are both called 'cattle-guarding,' but not for the same reason. Agni represents a fire-stockade, while Rudra in kindness does not strike with his lightning-bolt. The two ideas, with the identification of Rudra and Agni, may have merged together. Then too, Rudra has healing medicines (his magical side), and Agni is kindest to men. All Agni's names are handed over in the Br[ra]hmanas to Rudra-Çiva, just as Rudra previously had taken the epithets of P[=u]shan (above), true to his robbername. To ignore the height to which at this period is raised the form of Rudra-Siva is surely unhistorical; so much so that we deem it doubtful whether Çiva-invocations elsewhere, as in the S[=u]tra referred to above, should be looked upon as interpolations. In the M[=ajitr[=a]yan[=i] Collection, the Rudrajapas, the invocations to Rudra as the greatest god, the highest spirit, the lord of beings (Bhava), are expressly to Çiva Giriça, the mountain-lord (2. 9; Schroeder, p. 346). In the [=A]itareya Br[=a]hmana it evidently is Rudra-Siva, the god of ghastly forms (made by the gods, it is said, as a composite of all the 'most horrible parts' of all the gods), who is deputed to slay the Father-god (when the latter, as a beast, commits incest with his daughter), and chooses as his reward for the act the office of 'lord of cattle.'[78] This is shown clearly by the fact that the fearsome Rudra is changed to the innocuous Rudriya in the next paragraph. As an example of how in the Br[=a]hmanas Rudra-Civa has taken to himself already the powers of Agni, the great god of the purely sacrificial period, may be cited
