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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[NOVEMBER, 1882.
prevails with regard to the Yajus. The Saman Neona-B-pía. Ludwig mentions a Slavonic word, contains only 60 or 70 verses not found in the jédră, shift,' as the only representative of indra Rik, and these offer nothing of value. A prelimi. in Indo-European language. nary examination of the Atharvan shows that the I II. The passages in which reference is made results to be obtained from it would not differ to the circumstances of Indra's birth are numermaterially from those furnished by the Rih, and ous, much less so those which afford any clue its discussion has been postponed until later. to the subject of his parentage. They are best
The essay is divided into four parte, as follows: divided into four groups : viz., 1, physical accounts, -T. The primitive conceptions of the Indians re- i.e., such as display most prominently the original garding Indra, and the powers of nature which element of the mythus, the immediate impression are represented under this personification; II. made by the observation of natural phenomena, The accounts of Indra's parentage, and the narra- in which details that mightiest of phenomena, the tives and legends of his birth ; III. The func- thunder-storm, are described, often with striking tions of Indra in the supernatural and the natural, fidelity; 2, anthropomorphic accounts, in which the physical and the moral world ; IV. The con Indra's original significance in nature gives place ception of Indra as a definite person, and the to his humanized form and character, and in descriptions of him resulting from this conception. which, accordingly, his birth is represented as
I. The opinion has prevailed among scholars oceurring in accordance with human experience; that Indra was, both in his origin and subsequent 3, accounts which mention Indra's parentage, development, a sky-god. Roth, in his first pub. but omit to name or characterize sufficiently his lished essay on the subject of Indian religion (in parents; and 4, accounts of his origin which Zeller's Theol. Jahrbuch, 1846) calls him the are plainly the results of conscious speculation god of the bright clear vault of heaven;" Lassen in on the part of the priesta. Dyaus or heaven his Indische Alterthumskunde, takes substantially seems to have been thought of as Indra's father, the same view, differing from Roth only in regard whenever any one particular deity is meant, and to the etymology of the name. Wuttke failed com. as his mother, Prithivi or earth. Later views pletely to grasp the true nature of Indra, and saw made him a child of Aditi; but the opinion, him only from the standpoint of the later Brah- advanced by Hillebrandt, that this is to be manic descriptions. Benfey, Müller, Grassmann, accepted for the Vedic period too, is quite unand others, call him a sky-god (Grassmann, the tenable. In several passages Indra is called god of the bright firmament; the others, the god putrah kavasas, "Son of Might;" accordingly, the of the rain-sky).' Ludwig cautiously names him name Savasi, applied to his mother in two pas"the god of the sky, under whose protection and Bages, seems merely equivalent to the mighty guidance stand on the one hand the sun and stars, one,' and gives us no real clue. In the puzzling on the other the phenomena of the thunder-storm;" verse . 101. 12 we find Indra styled "Son of and adds that this deity seems to unite in his one Nishtigri;" but the word Nishtigri is met person the characteristics of severalolder divinities. with nowhere else, and no data are at hand to Bergaigne, viewing only the ethical side of Indra's explain it. Sayana, of course, explains it; he nature, maintains that he is less intimately con. makes it equivalent to Aditi. nected with natural phenomena than any other of III. The subject of Indra's functions in the the Indian divinities. It is here attempted to be universe is extremely copious, and embraces proved that for the Vedic period at least Indra is several questions of equal importance and difficulty. to be regarded, not as a sky-god, but as belonging in the various manifestations of his power we find to a region the conception of which was purely a ground on which he stands in common with other and exclusively Indian-the region of the air, a divinities. The most prominent of these manifesta. middle ground between heaven and earth; and tions is the battle which he has to fight in the air that he was above all the personification of the against the demons who steal the rain and light, thunder-storm, of the storm in its entire magni. and withhold them from mortals; the most graci. ficence and grandeur ; in which respect he is dis- ous act of his goodness the restoration of these tinguished from the other storm gods, who repre- blessings to suffering men. His activity in this sent particular features of that phenomenon. field brings him into an especially close connection
The most probable derivation of the word indra with Trita, concerning whom it is endeavoured to is that proposed by Roth: namely, from the root prove that he is an older deity who originally per. in or inv, from which the word is formed with the formed the functions of the later Indra, and sank. suffix ra, a d being inserted, as in Greek åv-8-pós gradually into insignificance before the rising.
! Roth's latest views, as expressed in the Pet. Dict. I heaven and earth. differ widely from these. He there calls him the chief Yet in his Chips, vol. II, p. 91, Müller styles him of the deities of the middle region, ie, the air, between the chief solar deity of India !
