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JULY, 1903.]
THE RELIGION OF THE IRANIAN PEOPLES.
dreaded, noxious spirits Drubas (Av. Drajas), the spirits of mendacity, and perhaps also the Danavas, fiendish demons who laid snares for man on all sides. Their craft was black magic, a terror to men, and for which they invoked the succour and protection of gods and heroes, but particularly the help of the aforesaid sages. The palm of satanity was assigned, as is evident from the honorific epithet of Vṛtrahan-Verethraghna mentioned above, and which is found among both the peoples, to Vṛtra the fiend, the exponent of the might of darkness. We cannot claim with absolute positiveness that the conflict of light and darkness, between the protectors of humanity and their foes, was not merely mythical and religions, but bore the ethical significance of victory of truth over falsehood and deceit, of right over wrong. The characters of the foremost gods, pre-eminently Varuna and Mitra, go to countenance the supposition. And it is certain that the East Aryans venerated their dead as valiant opponents of cruel spirits (Shûrâsas - Surao) and as the righteous ones (rtavanas-ashaonish) and believed that they tasted of the heavenly water conferring immortality.
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The concord in the cult of the Indians and the Iranians, characteristic divergences of the religions notwithstanding, shows that the germs thereof are traceable to the East Aryan period. The cardinal or centra point in the cult was, among both, the fire. Only the great fire-god of the Indian bears another name than that of the Iranians. The former name it Agni, the latter Atar. The name Agni is an archaic word, as witness the Latin ignis. But it is more. It designates likewise an ancient Aryan deity; compare Ogün, the name of the Slav or Wendish god of fire. Why it has been extinct among the Iranians can no more be determined; nor do I feel called upon to hazard a guess. They had in common other ancient names of fire and of a sort which never could have denoted fire as such. One was apam-napat, the offspring of water, and Narashansa Nairyosangha, which is usually understood to imply "laud of men," "the eulogized of men." By apam-napat is doubtless meant the lightning dazzling out of the clouds, the medium between heaven and earth, god and humanity. Narashansa is equally a messenger of the deity, in which capacity Nairyosangha figures in the Avesta. But before all, his being the same existence with whom the blest abide in heaven is an illuminating circumstance.72 He is, perhaps, a kind of psychopompus, and his appellation must be interpreted as "he who rules over men, the human habitants of heaven." However that may be, the Iranian god of flames has been called Atar from immemorial antiquity-a name which became obsolete with the Indian, whilst derivatives of it continued to occur. One of these derivatives is Atharvan, fire-priest, which is the Iranians' usual and universal name for priest, but with the Indians as applied only to the primitive mythical servants of fire who brought the element down from the heavens. The fourth Veda is called after it. This Atharva Veda is, as a collection, the youngest, but is the least advanced so far as religious evolution is concerned. Take all this in connection with the impossibility of explaining the word as such out of Iranian languages, and the inference is apparent that the denomination of the fire-god most in vogue in the East Aryan period was Atar, and that of its priest Atharvan. Naturally, all the myths which relate to the heavenly fire and the deity presiding over the element-its origin, its miraculous potency and blessings, the stealing of the celestial fire, which the gods would preserve from men how ancient so ever, and however universally disseminated, are posterior to the ceremonies observed at its ignition, renewal, and perpetual continuance. The ceremonies primarily constituted no cult of fire regarded as a divine existence, but were mystic, magical operations which did not grow into a cult till fire had attained to the dignity of one of the superior powers and its effects were held to influence celestial phenomena as well. And both the peoples have conserved somewhat of its original character in the sacrifices to fire.
12 Vendidad, 19, 31 seq.
Bergaigne perceives in the name the prayer, literally, "the formula of men," which is not in keeping with the Iranian or the East Aryan god's character.
75 Some derive it from ad, to eat, adtar, the eater, the devourer, which at least is not impossible.
