Satapatha Bramhana Part 02

Author(s): Julius Eggeling
Publisher: Oxford

Page 21

xviii
SATAPATHA-BRAHMANA.
such as VIII, 76, 9, ‘O Indra, drink the pressed Soma,... sharpening the thunderbolt with its strength;' or IX, 96, 12, where Soma is called upon to join Indra, and produce weapons for him (ganayayudhani); or VIII, 15, 7, where the Soma-cup (dhishana) is said to whet Indra's power, his daring and intelligence, as well as the desirable thunderbolt.
But, while most scholars will probably be content to apply this kind of interpretation to cases of an apparent identification of Soma and the Vagra such as those referred to, M. Bergaigne is evidently in favour of their identity pure and simple. Now, it cannot be denied that the authors of some of those passages may really have intended to represent Soma as virtually or actually the same as the thunderbolt; but even if that were so, we should hardly be justified in assuming this identity to have been anything like a settled and universally accepted conception in the times of the hymns. There surely is some danger in treating a miscellaneous collection like the Rig-veda, as if it were a uniform and homogeneous production, and in generalizing from one or two isolated passages. In this respect I cannot help thinking that M. Bergaigne has often gone farther than many scholars will be prepared to follow him. Thus another of his favourite theories seems to be the ultimate identity of Soma and Agni. But close as the relations of these two deities undoubtedly are, and even admitting that they may occasionally have been the object of those syncretist tendencies which we see so often at work in the mythological speculations of the Rishis, nevertheless I cannot but think that to the generality of Vedic poets Agni and Soma were perfectly distinct deities, as distinct from each other as the two visible objects which represent them on earth. Indeed, M. Bergaigne himself has to admit (I, 167) that, as the fire and beverage were in reality distinct on earth, this distinction was inevitably extended sometimes to their divine forms. But if such is the case, and if they are actually invoked together in one and the same hymn, should one not think that even in those divine forms of theirs they must at least have
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