Reviews Of Different Books

Page 21

REVIEWS 227 problem of Varuna's relations to the night in the words: 'I have no doubts about the correctness of Bergaigne's formulation (o.c. III, p. 119): the role of the 'president of the night "semble donc bien n'avoir ete assigne au couple qu'a cause de Varuna auquel il appartient en propre". Since, then, Varuna was a denizen of heaven and a "president" of the night, he must apparently have been a god of the night-sky. As for V.62.8 quoted above, here Mitra's function may just as well have been transferred to Varuna as Varuna's was to Mitra in the passage commented upon by Bergaigne (viz. V.62.1). In the same way the fact that, as a rule, Varuna is only conjointly with Mitra said to give rain (Luders, Varuna, pp. 715, 719) may indicate that this was properly a function of Mitra alone (see IIJ, V, p. 47f., where attention is drawn to Varuna's role as detainer of water). With regard to Gonda's book, however, it should be stressed that, although the reader may sometimes be in some uncertainty as to the author's views about Varuna, this is only a peripheral point in his approach and does not confuse the issue of his study of Mitra. In strict adherence to his principle Gonda does not try to make light of features of Mitra which are seemingly abstruse and do not fit in with his picture of a beneficial god. One of the most striking is "the curious relation of the god with secretion, the anus and excrements" discussed on p. 124f. It is, indeed, frankly stated that within the framework of this study no explanation of this aspect can be given. Nor can the theory that Mitra is "Contract" account for it. It may here be added that in a review-article on the Indo-Iranian god published in this journal this very aspect of Mitra was quoted as a proof of the correctness of the theory that Mitra is basically the god of deliverance from the bonds of the nether world. See IIJ, V. p. 50f. Since this theory was not a mere speculation on the "original character" of the god but an interpretation of the textual evidence, the question may be raised whether the later Puranic equation of Mitra to Visnu's fontanelle (Gonda, p. 124) was still based upon an association of Mitra with the notion of moksa. As for the connection of Mitra with defecation it may be noted that the prototype of the words avaggatir apanah quoted from Mhbh. XIV.42.34 can be found in avan pranah of the Satapatha Brahmana (see A. Minard, Trois Enigmes II, p. 335f.). For the word apana- G. W. Brown's almost forgotten paper in JAOS, 39 (1919), especially p. 111, is still of importance. 3. For few Vedic gods the theory of a personification of an abstract idea may seem more attractive than for Mitra. This theory, first proposed by Meillet in the Journal Asiatique 1907, II, pp. 143-159, has been a central motif in discussions of the last few decades on Mitra. Gonda's objections to the manner in which this personification is sometimes conceived (p. 104) would seem fully justified. What philological research can achieve and, at the same time, what its limitations are, is most clearly demonstrated by the case of Vstra. As Renou has pointed out in detail (Vrtra et Vroragna, p. 97), it can be shown how the Vedic neuter word vstram, plural vstrani "obstruction, resistance" is only in the latest portions of the Rigveda used as 'a masculine nom. sing. Vrtrah. From a philological point of view it is important to establish this shift from a neuter word to a masculine. For the historian of religion, however, nothing has changed except that the nameless old cosmogonical dragon (ahi-) who impersonated the power of resistance has now received a proper name "Resistance". Gonda (p. 104) objects to Meillet's "attempt to vindicate, on the strength of sociological considerations, the basic meaning "contract" which I cannot find in the texts, and in the second place, the suggestion that this explanation, again under the influence of sociological considerations of a general character, should be based on an etymology which linguistically speaking is only a possibility and from the philological point of 1 Similarly Gonda, p. 34.