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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
The Indians and Iranians lived in the closest proximity, yet borrowing and imitation on part of either are out of the question with reference to fire-worship. This service has unfolded itself among each of the folks so independently and peculiarly, the legends associated herewith have been developed on such independent lines, that they defy the explanation of mere borrowing. Each instance of similarity must be considered as arguing that the cult was remarkable, even at the epoch of their first existence, for the special veneration of fire. It is, as we saw, somewhat otherwise with the Soma worship. We very much doubt that Soma, the god who derived his name from the intoxicating beverage which was extracted from a plant, and which was diluted with honey, milk, and water, in order to be consecrated to the deity - a drink which was indulged in to intoxication- was an East Aryan god, and that the rite was then in common practice. But our scepticism refers to this particular form or phase alone. The East Aryans were unquestionably acquainted with a hallowed spirituous liquor, of whatever description and name, a counterpart of the celestial draught conferring immunity from death yclept Amṛta, which means ambrosia. This designation the Indians repeatedly bestow upon Soma. The sacred twins Haurvatat and Ameretat represent the food and the drink of the denizens of heaven to the Iranians, and, in fact, are a personification of them. The most ancient mythical priests, the Indian Vivasvat, Yama, Trita Apatya, probably belonged originally to the same class and were subsequently converted into the devotees of Soma, while in İran, Vivanghat, Yima's father, Thrita and Athwya were the oldest adorers of Haoma. But so early as the East Aryan era this beatific inebriation was not unknown. In it the unsophisticated natural man beheld a new and loftier life, invigoration of heart and energy, superhuman inspiration, but, before all, a way to prevision, prescience, and wisdom transcending human faculties. The term which they employed to express this mental condition, mada (Av. Madha),74 has, with but a slight modification, the like significance for both the nations, and hence it cannot but have been in vogue at the time of their co-inhabitance.
[JULY, 1903.
It goes without saying that the latria of fire and the worship of the drink of immortality as a divine existence, and the magical operations appertaining to it, did not originate first in the East Aryan period. Without having recourse to the maze of comparative mythology one may take it for demonstrated that both the forms of the cult date from anterior times. Even though not a few of the corresponding features which the mythologists flatter themselves to have discovered in all Aryan or Indo-Germanic fables,75 relating to the god of fire and the celestial potion, are not free from suspicion and objection; there remains a good deal which has been positively established and which points out that the roots of these concepts and customs lie deeper than in the Indo-Iranian stratum. There is no dearth of indications permitting the assumption that the existence of these forms of the cults extend beyond the Aryan world and warranting the conjecture that the worship of Dionysos, a divinity of fertility and of higher life as the consequence of a supernal beverage, has emanated from the Semites, or that even they had it a loan from a preceding civilization. Let us not, however, trench upon this far removed region. Here we have only to exhibit that both the cults constituted but one form among the East Aryans, and that it has prolonged its term of life into the Indian and Iranian ages, though it has had a development proper to itself in each people and has by consequence been subjected to alterations.
In the sacrifice the central point was the prayer, the spoken word. "invoker, the supplicator," which designation is retained in the Indian
The priest is called the hotr, 76 Iranian zaotar.
74 This word occurs as early as in the Gathas The traditional interpretation of it is "sagacity," "knowledge," but it can only mean the supernatural "science" which results from the inspiration consequent upon the intoxicnting drink. As for madhu, "sweet," - German meth, English "mead" which is employed to signify Soma as well as honey and wine, it is either another word, or, according to Weber (Vedische Beiträge in Sitz. Ber. der K. Akad. Berlin, 1891, p. 13 seq.), the same word used only latterly in this sense.
15 Kuhn, Die Herabkanft des Feuers und des Gottertranks bei den Indogermanen.
16 Hoty can be derived from hu, to pour out (sacrificial drink), as also from ht, to express, to pray, and the latter agrees with the primary meaning of the term for priest.
