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The Hymn of Mudgala Bhārmyašva (X. 102)
and really are to be made' and then collected. Hence we have bhare letom vi ci'. It is for these reasons that one cannot accept the suggestions that we are dealing here with a 'race'. There is yet another supposition in Velanker's exposition which makes his view somewhat difficult for our acceptance. According to Velanker, the car had on one side the bull and wooden dummy with small wheels on the other, to serve as another bull and so it was the companion of the bull, vrşabhasya yunjam as the drughana is described (9). Further Velanker feels that Mudgala himself drove the bull while Mudgalāni did the more difficult part of driving the dummy. It is clear from the hymn itself that the bull and the dummy serving as the bull were yoked to the car and they sped to victory. But the circumstance of two drivers at one and the same time driving two animals yoked to a car is something very rare as well as strange. Neither the Veda nor the Epics show a supporting illustration for such an incident. It is for these reasons that the 'race' theory has to be discarded.
In this manner we come to the conclusion that it is a war that we are dealing with here, a view that has been put forth by Bloomfield Pargiter and others. Yet the views of Bloomfield and Pargiter cannot be accepted in their entirety. According to Bloomfield it is a mythological fight and not a human one. According to him the theme of the hymn is a battle and in the course of it a hammer, drughana, plays an important part, a singular role. The coupling of the forces of Sena and 'Vajra as male and female embodiments of Indra's forces is the rock-bed upon which the legend has grown up. In Indrasena he sees the embodiment of the female forces and the drughana stands for the male forces. In combination, these two forces win. This is, as a matter of fact going too far. The cha. racters that participate are clearly treated as human individuals and it is difficult to think that symbolisin is here resorted to. The Mababhārata and the Puranas as well as the earlier versions of the incident, though divergent in themselves, are yet uniform in making the characters historical persons and the incident a real happening. It is in this context that the view of Bloomfield becomes difficult to be accepted. Pargiter also is inclined to read a historical event and personalities as involved in this hymn but he introduces more characters in the incident than the hymn warrants. Pargiter (JRAS.. 1910, p. 1328) in the light of the information supplied by the Purānas regards Indrasena and Mudgalānı as two different persons; for Mudgalādi is not mentioned in the Puranic geneology but, as the game clearly indicates, she must be the wife of Mudgala, Indrasena is given in the geneology as the daughter-in-law of Mudgala. Further the word 'yadhri' (12) in the hymn according to him refers to Vadhryaśva who in the geneology is the son of Indrasena. Kesi is according to him a proper noun of the person who Sambodhi 4.2
