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HYMNS OF THE ATHARVA-VEDA.
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variants, the chief difference being that the culminating sin is the slaying of a Brahman: Beyond the slayer of a Brahman the sin does not pass.' Still other versions occur in the Kâth. S. XXXI, 7; Kap. S. XLVII, 7 (cf. also Sat. Br. I, 2, 2, 8; Kâty. Sr. II, 5, 26; Mahîdhara to Våg. S. I, 23; Âpast. Sr. I, 25, 15); and similar lists of sinful personages are to be quoted from a variety of Sûtras, and later Smârta-texts; see Delbrück, Die Indogermanischen Verwandtschaftsverhältnisse, in the Transactions of the Royal Saxon Society, vol. xi, nr. v, p. 578 ff. (200 ff. of the reprint); cf. also Zimmer, Altindisches Leben, p. 315. All those mentioned in the lists are obviously regarded as burdened with guilt (énas); and the legend clearly marks them as persons upon whom, therefore, the guilt of others may be unloaded.
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In another version of the legend, Sat. Br. I, 2, 3, 1 ff., Trita and his two shadowy companions Ekata and Dvita roam about with Indra, and when the latter slays Visvarûpa, the son of Tvashtar, they are saddled with this crime, equivalent to the murder of a Brahman, because they 'knew about his going to be killed.' The truth is this: Indra's drastic performances upon the great variety of demons whom he slays, coupled as they are at times with wiles and treachery, have not failed to arouse the compunctions of a certain school of Vedic moralists (see, e. g. TS. VI, 5, 1, 1-3; Tait. Br. I, 7, 1, 7. 8; Pañk. Br. XII, 6, 8; XX, 15,6; Maitr. S. IV, 3, 4; 5, 6), and they have given rise to the notion of misdeeds on the part of the gods in general (devainasá, AV. VI, 111, 3; X, 1, 12). It was natural, now, that some personage closely associated with Indraa personage, moreover, who could be construed as subservient, or at least ancillary to him-should be picked out for the unenviable position. For this Trita seems fitted in an eminent degree. Trita is the double of Indra in his struggle with the demons (RV. I, 187, 1), or his coadjutor (RV. I, 52, 5; V, 86, 1; VIII, 7, 24, and especially X, 8, 8). Whether we regard him as the faded predecessor of Indra in the rôle of a demiurge, being, as it were, the Indo-Iranian
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