Reviews Of Different Books

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224 REVIEWS cannot be ignored. The history of Vedic Studies in the Western world, indeed, produces eloquent testimony to it. Gonda's book, which has grown out of a paper read on a congress of Mithraic studies, keeps in general the second course, although he fully recognizes the opposition between Varuna and Mitra. His general approach may be considered well-known from his cuvre. As he is wary of general working hypotheses, the emphasis in this work is on a complete collection of the references to Mitra culled from all Vedic texts. His conclusion can be summarized in the following quotation (p. 106): "After reconsidering all relevant Vedic - that is, not only the Rgvedic - texts I have arrived at the conclusion that the assumption of the mere meaning "Contrat (contract)" and the conclusion that Mitra essentially is the god in charge of contracts are nowhere self-evident or a necessity. At the risk of undue repetition I add that I am under the impression that there is no place where this translation is, by exclusion of all other interpretations, the only possibility. The texts moreover do not to my knowledge furnish us with a clue to the relations, historical or other, between a basic "contract" and the variety of the god's functions and activities". He further states (p. 109) 'that the Mitra of the Vedic texts - who "does not possess any individuality on the physical side" - rather is the god who, while maintaining the sta ... puts things right, regulates the contacts between men and between men and the divine powers, and exhibits benevolence and active interest. Whereas Varuna, the representative of the static aspects of kingship, is a guardian of that sta, his companion and complement Mitra, being no less concerned with it and no less its promoter, is rather its maintainer, the one who keeps its manifestations in the right condition, who redresses if something has gone wrong, who adjusts, restores, appeases, stabilizes, the god also who unites men'. Cf. further p. 112: "As far as the Veda is concerned there is a god Mitra and an appellative mitram which expresses the main idea the god stands for, viz. the maintenance, without wrath or vengeance, of right, orderly relations, manifestations of which were, first and foremost, the active benevolence and willingness to help and redress"; p. 113: "This essentially beneficent and benevolent power, energy and all-pervading essence makes its existence and influence also felt in a considerable variety of natural phenomena". Gonda, accordingly, rejects a theory which is nowadays widely accepted, viz. that Mitra is the personification of a social notion "contract", which is supposed to have been the primary meaning of the word mitram. For this meaning he substitutes "maintenance of orderly relations", "the active benevolence and willingness to help", etc., which actions and properties are considered to be functions of the god, rather than social phenomena. Every worker in the field of Vedic (and Old Iranian) religion will no doubt warmly welcome the appearance of this almost exhaustive and up-to-date collection of the relevant Vedic material. To those scholars who have up to now followed Meillet's lead, this book is a serious challenge. The circumstance that Gonda emphatically states (p. 98) that he has "found no Vedic texts which should or might put us on the scent of such a contract in connection with the name of the god Mitra" imposes on every scholar who endorses Meillet's view the obligation to reconsider the whole Vedic evidence in the light of the interpretation that Gonda here offers of it. 2. The very exhaustiveness of this collection, however, has also caused some inconveniences. As is well known (and stressed by Gonda, p.49ff.), it is in many Rigvedic passages hard to decide whether the poet means the appellative noun mitram or the name of the god Mitra. Besides, an exact determination of the meaning and the usage of mitram is of direct importance for the interpretation of the god. A discussion of all this material, however, has been reserved for a separate paper "Mitra and mitra", to which the author frequently refers. Considerations of space have, no doubt, made it necessary to split up this study into two publications. For the reader, however, this