,4 • !

VOLUME 41 NOVEMBER 1957 PAGES 1-96 22/24

Transactions of

THE CONNECTICUT ACADEMY

OF ARTS AND SCIENCES

MITRA AND ARYAMAN

BY

PAUL THIEME

NEW HA VEN CONNECTICUT

PUBLISHED BY THE ACADEMY

AND TO BE OBTAINED ALSO FROM THE

YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS

THIEMEPA mitraand

694639000001

PRINTED IN DENMARK

BY

BlANCO LUNOS BOGTRYKKERI A/S

CONTENTS Page

1 "LES ENSEIGNEMENTS MBMES DES HYMNES" 6 II MITRA ....................................... 18

A II'[eillet's formula. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 18 B MiSra in Yast 10 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 24 e Mitra in the ~gveda (RV3.59) .............. 38 D Mitra and Varul)a.......................... 59

JII ARYAMAN ..................................... 72

,

MITRA AND ARYAMAN PAUL THIEME

The two Vedic gods Mitra and Aryaman-for the Rigvedic poet the two most important figures amongst the Adityas after VarUl;la-have challenged research again and again. The pro­blem of Aryaman has been taken up afresh by G. Dumézil in his Le l1'oisieme souvel'ain (Paris, 1949) after he had pre­viously discussed VarUl;la and Mitra (Mitl'a- Varu.{la, Paris 1940 and 1948). As 1 myself dedicated a chapter to the word al'yamán and the god named by it in my Fl'emdling im Rig­veda 101-44 (Leipzig, 1938) and have, since then, never left this friendly (suséva RV 6.50.1c, mandrá 6.48.14c), but, on occasion, also punishing (1.167.8b cáyata ¡m al'yamó ápl'a­sastiin) andfighting (7.36.4c pl'á yó manyúIp l'zrik§ato mináti) Aditya altogether out ofmy sight (cf. ZDMG 95.219-21 [1941 D, 1 am particularly interested in Dumézil's study. Our views difIer, more deeply, 1 am afraid, than would appear from a first glance at Dumézil's presentation of our disagreements.

There are, however, at least two essential points of prin­cipIe, on which Dumézil and 1 are in accord. It is this basic agreement that makes a debate possible. 1 adopt Dumézil's formulations:

1. "U faut partir non d'idées a priori, mais des enseigne­ments memes des hymnes" (Tl'oiszeme souvel'ain 23).

2. "En 1907 ... Antoine Meillet, dans un article classique, proposait de définir 'le dieu indo-iranien Mitra' comme le contrat personnifié" (Mitra-Val'U.{la [1948] 79). "Le charac­tere certain de 'contrat' personnifié que possede Mitra ... " (Tl'oisieme souvel'ain 42).

I

"LES ENSEIGNEMENTS MEMES DES HYMNES"

1. In his Mitm- V w·uI).a (1948) 85, Dumézil defines: "Mitra est le souverain sous son aspect raisonnant, claiT, réglé, calme, bienveillant, sacerdotal; Varul).a est le souverain sous son aspect assaillant, sombre, inspiré, violent, terrible, guer­riel' ... ". "Mitra brahman, Varul).a roi des Gandharves: nous ne pouvions souhaiter formule plus suggestive".

All of Dumézil's publications on the Ádityas are meant, by and large, to 'explain' and to develop the ideological baclc­ground and prehistoric origin of this theology, offered to us here as it were in a nutshell. Before discussing fue merit of these explanations, we are justified in raising the question: How is this theology established? Most remarkably, Dumézil does not refer to a single "enseignement meme des hymnes". The wealth of adjectives by which he characterizes fue 'aspects' of Mitra and Varul).a respectively, is without any correspondence in the language of the RV-nor even of later literature-when Mitra and Varul).a are praised and invoked. I do not lmow of passages where Mitra would be called 'raisonnant, clair, réglé, calme, sacerdotal', 01' Varul).a 'assail­lant, sombre, inspiré, violent, terrible, guerrier'. On occasion, the poet does speak of Mitra's friendliness (sumaN, e. g. RV 3.59.3,4), of his being benevolent (suSéva e. g. 3.59.4,5) and dear (pl'iyá e. g. 7.62.4). But both Mih'a and Varul).a are spoken of as 'merciful' (mrlayánt 1.136.1), Varul).a's mercy is called upon (RV 7.86.2,89.1-4), he is reminded of his friendship (sakhyá) to the poet (RV 7.88.5 a), the poet calls himself his friend (sákhii RV 7.86.4). On the ofuer hand, not only Varul).a's but also Mitra's 'wrath (héla) is referred to in RV 1.94.12, 7.62.4.

F

Mitra and Al'yaman § 1 7

Confessedly, Dumézil has abstracted his theology from certain identifications pronounced in the Briihmal).as. They are of fue following kind: 'Mitra is the left, Varul).a fue right hand', 'Mitra is the right, Varul).a the left hand', 'To Mitra belongs the day, to Varul).a fue night', 'Mitra is this world, Varul).a is yonder world', etc. etc. S. Lévi has stated with regard to this. type of equations: "L' écart de ces interpré­tations en démontre la fantaisie" (Docll'ine du sacrifice 152). Dumézil fuinks this to be correct only a~ long as we keep to fue letler, but not if we consider fue 'spirit'. Possibly, he is right. Yet, there is an essential difIerence between a fueology presented to us by explicit statements of fue hymns and, on the other hand, a theology assumed to underlie the 'spiTit' of certain selected Briihmal).a passages, which, when taken literally, say something quite difIerent.

Whefuer Dumézil's reconstruction of that 'spirit' is valid, seems, moreover, a question open to grave doubt.1 I wonder whether he did not rely too confidently on fue discussion of Bergaigne in his Religion védique 3.110 fI. The inference is hardly escapable fuat Dumézil's colourful descriptions of the respective 'aspects' of Mitra and Varul).a are, in reality, not abstracted from the adduced Briihmal).a pronouncements, but are adjustments and elaborations of sorne of the points Ber­gaigne tried to establish. Quietly and subtly they are refor­mulated so as to suit the idea fuat there is an analogy between Romulus and Varul).a, Numa and Mitra, and then are pre­sented as the 'spirit' of fue BriihmalJ-as.

The 'suggestive formula': "Mitra bmhman, Varul).a roi des Gandharves" is of Dumézil's fabrication: no Vedic text op­poses Mitra and Varul).a in this manner. The material for

1 Dumézil does not give references where the quoted identifications may be found in the vast mass of Brahmal).a literature, making it, thus, extremely difficult to verify his statements. This practice seems to show that he does not clearly realize the necessity of studying each single Brahmal).a identi­fication of this type within its peculiar contexto It can hardly be debatable that, in reality, the underlying 'spirit' can be discussed and discovered only if such identifications are not taken in abstracto but considered within the framework of the particular arguments of which they form a parto The type of discussion that, to me, appears necessary 1 shall illustrate below (§§ 70-72)

by an example.

8 Paul Thieme

his fabric Dumézil gets by suddenly taldng two isolated Brah­mal,la statements literally-instead of 'considering their spirit' -and confronting them in a way quite foreign to the texts. 2 lean see no point in creating a fOl'mula according to what we might 'wish' (souhaiter).

In the first sentence of the preface to his Tl'oisieme souvemin (vii), Dumézil, referring to his Mitm- Varu{la, speaks of the 'double conception of sovereignty which Ve die India illu­strates by the theology of Mitra and Varul,la'. If we replace

2 In SB 4.1.4.1 Mitra is mystically identified with priesthood, Varul}a with rulership (bráhmaivá mitrálJ- k$atráq¡ várUJ;wlJ-) for the explicitly given reason that Mitra is the will of the yajamüna, Varul}a his dexterity [in achiev­ing what he wills]: krátfzdáksau ha viÍ asya mitriÍvárUJ;wu, the will being the afIair of priesthood, the achieving of rulership. In another context, however, it is Mitra who is identified with rulership, too: SB 11.4.3.10, 11 váru{lal;t samrát samriÍtpatih ••• mitrálJ- ksatráq¡ k$airápatilJ-. On the other hand Varul}a is called a vípra '[sacred] poet' in RV 6.68.3 (in contradistinction to Indra who slays Vrtra with his mace), 7.88.4. Indra, the rá¡an, is designated himself as brahmán in RV 6.45.7,8.16.7 (cf. also Ait. Br. 7.15.1-6 [Indra as brühma{laJ). From such and similar seemingly contradictory statements it appears that it was not a chief concern either of the Vedic poets 01' of the Vedic theologians to assign their gods a firm place in a rigidly established social pattern. They have, however, certain characteristic roles. There can be no doubt whatever that Mitra's characteristic role is that of a king and not that of a priest: the evidence of the RV is overwhelming and confirmed as genuine by the Avesta (d. e. g. below § 38 on Mitra as riÍjü suk$atrás in RV 3.59.4). Cf. also below § 52 on RV 7.82.5 c, used by Bergaigne to discern a priestly trait in Mitra (Re/. véd. 3.138)-a suggestion which with Dumézil takes the shape of the astonishing assertion: 'Mitra ofIers sacrifices to VarUl)a, serves him by the practice of religion' (Le troisieme souverain 40).

If the Gandharvas are called the people of VarUlJa (SB 13.4.3.7), he is also e. g. the king of the one-hoofed animal s (TS 4.3.10.1), and-most typicaHy -of the gods: váru{lo vaí deviÍnüm riÍjü SB 12.8.3.10, MS 1.6.11, 2.2.1. In attempting an explanation we should take as a starting point a verse like RV 2.27.10: tváq¡ vísve§üm varu{lüsi rá¡ü yé ca deviÍ asura yé ca mártülJ- 'Thou, Varul}a, art the king of aH, the heavenly ones and the mortals, o asura'.

The relation of Varul}a to the Gandharvas in the RV are vague enough­if they exist at all. Cf. Bergaigne, Re/. véd. 3.159, 65, 154, all passages dealing with RV 9.83.4 (Bergaigne: 'trait de resemblance entre Gandharva et VarUl)a'). King Soma, who SB 13.4.3.7 is the lord of the Apsaras in contradistinction to Varul}a, lord of the Gandharvas, seems identified as gandharva in RV 9.85.12, 86.36, is said to have lived amongst the Gandharvas in Ait. Br. 1.27 (somo vai rüjü gandharve$v üsit), and has to be bought from them each time there is a soma-sacrifice.

Mitra and Al'yaman § 1-3 9

the vague and non-committal tel'm 'Vedic India' by "les enseignements des hymnes", the statement beco mes wrong; if by 'certain pl'onouncements of the Bl'ahmal,las', we have at least to intm'pret the tel'm 'illustl'ate' by 'presuppose when not taken litel'ally, but when understood as revealing a specific spirit' . 2. In his Troisieme souverain, Dumézil does not neglect the 'hymns' in the way he does in his Mitm- Varu{la. Mitra- Val'U{la might have been written by an author who knew of the Rig­veda only from the material collected in Bel'gaigne's Religion védique; who was unable to form a critical, independent judgment on the correctness 01' certainty of Bel'gaigne's translations and interpl'etations; and who presupposed readel's who knew of the RV only from vaguest hearsay and did not l'ealize how great an amount of evidence was being ignol'ed. Le troisieme souvaain do es contain sel'ious efforts to make "les enseignements memes des hymnes" take pal't in the al'gument. Theil' evidence is listened to and weighed.

If there wel'e Bl'ahmal,la passages that would tell us in so many cleal' words that Mitm l'epl'esents the benign, etc., Val'ul,la the terrible, etc., aspect of sovel'eignty, we should still have to ask whethel' this conception can be verified as Rigvedic also. The plain answer would have to be: it cannot. We must face the bal'e fact that thel'e is not even a distinction of king Val'ul,la as 'terrible' and king Mitra as 'benign'. On occasion, Dumézil admits it: Mitm- Val'u{la 136 (rather be­tween the lines), 90 f. (with l'efel'ence to Bel'gaigne), mOl'e distinctly in La naissance des al'changes 112 (1940): 'the gl'eat majority of the texts do not pel'mit distinguishing Mitm and Varul,la by clear features' (quoted in Tl'oisieme souvemin 23), If there is not even a distinction, how should there be an opposition? 3. Bergaigne endeavoured to show that a distinction between Mitra and Varul,la, which he tried to reduce to tlle values: VarUl,la: "sombre", Mitra: "lumineux", was 'already present to the mind of the Vedic poets' (Religion védique 3.117). According to Dumézil their 'opposition', shifted by him to that of 'terrible' and 'benign', occasionally and 'suddenly' (soudain) 'fiares up' (éclate) (Naissance 113). It is necessary

~-----~~~-----~-~~~-~~------~~~------.~. ,,------, ...... -... -""r-..... ---------.....,..s ....... --------------------··· ... ·iililoia_.~,

10 Palll Tllieme

to illustrate the kind of 'éclat' we are dealing with by one representative example.

Of the two verses in the Rigveda that in Dumézil's opinion have the intention to 'bring into relief' (mettre en valeur) the antithetical character of VarUl,1a on the one side and Mitra and Aryaman on the other, one is RV 1.141.9ab (cOm­mented upon Tz'oisieme sOllverain 32 f.):

tváya hy agne vá1'llZ;w dhrtávrato mitráJ:¡ sasadl'e aI'yamiÍ slldiÍnavaJ:¡

1 translate: 'Through thee, o Agni, Varul).a of firm vows, Mitra, [andJ Aryaman are resplendent [as beingJ oí good ·wetness'.

A. Carnoy, JAOS 38.294 [1918J has drawn the inference: "Aryaman partakes of the beneficent activity of Mitra. He is invoked in RV 1.141.9 for rain", implying that in this respect he is distinguished from Varul).a. Dumézil applauds. 1 cannot help noticing that Carnoy's argument is based on an obvious misunderstanding, due to his translating not the Sanskrit of the RV, but the French of Bergaigne, though this remains unacknowledged. Bergaigne, Religion védiqlle 3.102 says:

"Par toi, o Agni, Varul).a qui maintient la loi, Mitra et Aryaman, ces dieux qui versent l' eau a flots, ont triomphé."

Carnoy: "By thee, o Agni, Varul).a who protects law, and Mitra and Aryaman, the gods who pour water in abundance, are the winners."

It is clear that Carnoy has taken Bergaigne's "ces dieux qui versent l' eau a flots", to refer to Mitra and Aryaman alone; on this assumption only does his argument make sense. slldiÍnavas, however, is a plural and hence can refer only to all the three: Varul).a, Mitra and Aryaman.

Dumézil has noticed that slldiÍnavas is a plural and what this means. 'Nevertheless' (néanmoins), he argues, slldiÍnavas being placed at the end of the second line, as dhrtávratas is of the first, and following the names Mitra and Aryaman, it 'cannot but qualify more particularly the last named gods and be opposed to a certain extent to dhrtávratas.'

To make his plea, which is contradicted by the laws of grammar, more appealing, Dumézil-while admitting that

J Mitra and Aryaman § 3 11

Varul).a and Mitra, when named together, are twice called slldiÍnll-points out that Varul).a alone is never called so. He should have added that Aryaman 01' Mitra alone are not either.

In reality, this kind of statistical arithmetic, applied to the occurrences and distribution of the adjective slldiÍnll, seems rather irrelevant. Mitra and VarUl).a are called diÍnllnas páff (RV 1.136.3, 2.41.6), i$ás páff diÍnllmatyaJ:¡ (5.68.5) and are, together, invoked for rain over and over again (cf. e. g. the whole of RV 5.63). Bergaigne, Religion védiqlle 3.122, has given a number of references. The relation of Varul).a to the waters in general is so well established that the attempt to show that Mitra and Aryaman, insofar as they are 'of good wetness', are in opposition to Varul).a, ought never to have been even contemplated.

As to dhrtávratas, the case is not quite so clear. 'Ve may construe it only with várll1;ws, but also with each god severally in the way Dumézil himself, who is quite aware of this syn­tactical possibility, construes the adjective yiitayájjanas in RV 1.136.3 f mitz'ás táyoz' vá1'llZ;w yiitayájjanas with mitz'ás and vá1'llZ;wS severally (op. cit. 37).3 AH the Adityas can be de­signated as dhrtávrata: Bergaigne, Religion védiqlle 3.256 f.

But even if we relate dhrtávratas in RV 1.141.9a to Varul).a alone, it is hard to see how Varul).a would be qualified by it as "le maitre rigoureux" in contradistinction to Mitra as "le maltre bienveillant". Surely, law and order-I should say the keeping of solemn promises, 'vows'-are just as beneficent to mankind as rain. The god who maintains them is a weH­meaning god-'beneficent' to speak with Carnoy, 'bienveillant' to speak with Dumézil,-he is terrible only to those that are unrighteous, amongst whom the poet obviously does not count himself.

To sum up: Dumézil's 'sudden éclat' as observed in RV 1.141.9 is not such as to blind us toward the actual features of the evidence, furnished by grammar and countless other passages ofthe RV. Neither are Mitra and Aryaman 'opposed' to Varul).a by giving rain, nor is Varul).a 'opposed' to them 01' to' any Aditya as dhrtávrata.

3 In this instance illcorrectly. Cf. below § 30,

12 Paul Thieme

4. Dumézil himself knows that his interpretation of RV 1.141.9b is against grammar. It is for a specific purpose that he wants us to believe that word order in a verse is 'to a certain extent' more significant for the construction of an adjective than its number, and that an adjective in the plural must qualify 'more particularly' the nouns that happen to stand nearest it, instead of all the nouns to which its case ending unambiguously refers. There are other instances where he does not heed grammar at all and seems unaware of his infringements of its simple but iron laws. 1 know well from my own experience that in interpreting a difficult text like the RV, occasional slips will occur. There need not be any pedantic and uncharitable bitterness about it. The num­ber of occasions where slips happen to Dumézil is, however, so far aboye the average that it is impossible to leave it out of account. They affect his argument on vital points. 1 shall limit my comments to one category of errors only: Dumézil's disregard for the syntax of grammatical number, giving examples showing that he is apt to construe (a) a dual as a plural, (b) a plural as a dual, (c) a singular as a dual, and to use the l'esulting wrong translations as arguments to prove ideas of his own or-even worse-to disprove points correctly established by others.

(a) Twice, 1 said in my Fremdling im Rigveda 143, namely in RV 5.67.1 and 8.26.11, the triad VarUl;la, Mitra, Aryaman is treated as a duality, that is as Varul,la and Mitra Aryaman, which latter 1 paraphrased by 'friend host' and which 1 should paraphrase now-I think: better, cf. below §§ 57 ff.-as: 'The contract (God Contract) which is hospitality (God Rospitality)'.

'None of the texts quoted by Thieme', retorts Dumézil, Troisieme souvel'ain 42 f., 'appears to distribute the three gods in this way: in 5.67.1 the three vocatives are exactly parallel, in 8.26.11 the three nominatives again have exactly the same role.'

RV 5.67.1cd vál'UlJ-a mftdlryaman vár§i#haIp kljatrám iisiithe

'Varul,la Mitra Aryaman, you two have obtained the highest sovereignty. '

42 r I ! ¡

1

I \

II &

Mitra and Aryaman § 4 13

It is a plain point of elementary grammar that a 2nd per­son of the dual (iiSiithe) cannot be construed with three 'ex­actly pal'aIlel vocatives'. One of the three must, then, be an apposition to another one. The only question would be whether mitl'a is an apposition to vál'UlJ-a, 01' áryaman to mUz·a.

RV 8.26.11 vaiyasvásya sl'UtaIp nárii-utó me asyá vedathalJ. sajó§asii vál'UlJ-o mitró aJ'yamá

'Real' you two men (the Asyin) [the word] of Vaiyasva and know of this [word] of mine: in union are [the two] Varul,la [and] Mitra Aryaman.'

The predicate adjective sajó§asii, being a dual, cannot be construed with three subject nominatives which would 'have exactly the same role'. Again, grammar imperatively demands that one of the nominatives be taken as an apposition to

another one. (b) RV 3.54.18a aJ'yamá lJ-O áditir yajniyiisalJ.. Dumézil translates (op. cit. 68): 'Nous devons sacrifier a

Aryaman, a Aditi', which implies that he construes the plural adjective yajniyiisas 'to be worshipped' with two subject nouns in the singular: aryamá and áditis. This construction is im­possible. Before basing any inference whatever on the line, we must establish a correct translation. An easy solution of the difficulty can be reached if we free ourselves of the authority of the Padapatha-which we may do as a matter of course-and read what it analyses as two words: aryamá and nas as one word only: aJ'yamálJ-as 'the Aryamans'4, i. e. 'Aryaman and the other Adityas' (cf. mitl'ásas 'Mitra and the other Adityas' RV 7.38.4, várulJ-ais 'with Varul,la and the other Adityas' AV 3.4.6). yuyóta nasinc 'keep us away from', again a plural, is addressed again to the Adityas, who, then, all of them take parí in what Dumézil calls 'la troisieme

4 The nomo pI. aryamál}as beside aryamál}as RV 5.54.8 is justifiable by the correspondence uk~ál}am beside uk~ál}am. 1 should be inclined to interpret more accurately: aryamár;ws 'God Aryaman and the other Adityas' is a mascu­linisation of a neuter plural al'yamá[l}i] 'the hospitalities' (RV 5.29.1, below § 63), al'yamál}as 'the hospitable ones, friends-by-hospitability' (RV 5.54.8, below § 65) is the p,lural of al'yamán m. 'friend-by-hospitality'.

11 d

14 Paul Thieme

fonction': it can be limited to Aryaman with the help only of an ungrammatieal translation.

(e) AV 14.1.3ged w'yamIJ-ó agnÍl!l- pál'y etu k~iprál!l- (Pp., pü~an: Saun.).

pl'átfk~ante suáSUl'o deuáms ca

'May she (the bride) go round the fire of Aryaman quiekly (01': "o Pü;;an"), father-in-Iaw and brothers-in-Iaw are looking forward [to it].'

My translation of pl'áfik~ante leaves its force to pl'áti, whieh Dumézil's 'regardent' (op. cit. 78) do es not do. 1 should pre­fer the reading k~ip1'ám (Pp.), whieh fits partieularly well with fue eontent of pl'átfk~ante. But pii~an (Saun.) is of eourse also possible. These are minor points.

1 am, however, unable to aeeept Dumézil's rendering of suáSw'as by 'les beaux-peres': suásw'as is a singular. There is, in faet, more involved than a grammatieal slip. It is an erroneous notion that more than one single suáSw'a can possibly be meant. A Vedie suásw'a is not a Freneh beau-pel'e. As the deur is the 'brother of the husband', the suásw'a is the father of the husband and the husband only.5 While, for example, AV 14.1.19,20 = RV 10.85.25,26 evidently are reeited at the moment not of the marriage eeremony, but of the bride's leaving her own father's house, AV 14.1.39 makes good sense only if it is spoken at the moment when the bride enters her new home, whieh is the home of the joint family in whieh she is to live forfuwith. Her newly aequired father­in-Iaw and brothers-in-Iaw are already waiting for her to go round the fire in their house (Fl'emdling 126). At fue wedding eeremony propel', not fue bride alone, but groom and bTide together walk round fue fire.

1 shall return to this verse later on (§ 67 e). For the present suffiee it to say that even if 'the fire of Aryaman' in our verse meant fue fire of the marriage eeremony in the house of fue

5 B. Delbrück, Die indogermanischen Verwandtschaltsnamen 137-8. svasrá is the 'mother-in-law of the wile' in RV 10.34.3 also (against Delbrück 138 and Geldner): the gambler designates his own mother from the standpoint of his wife, because she sides, unnaturally, with her daughter-in-law against her own son.

r 1 ¡

--~-- --=------==-=-

Mitl'a and Al'yaman § 4-5 15

bride, fue mentioning of her [future] father-in-Iaw and her [future] brothers-in-Iaw would not 'determine precisely' (pré­ciser) the 'official aspect, the aspeet whieh eoneerns marriage as a eontraet' of the aetion of Aryaman at the wedding as Dumézil pleads. It is evident fuat his definition of Aryaman's action is based on the wrong supposition that the two 'beaux­peres' and the bride's as weH as the husband's brothers are meant by the wOTds: suásw'o deuáras ca6

, and on the intel'­pl'etation of pl'átfk~ante as meaning: 'regardent', in the sense of 'are witnesses'. Dumézil ealls (op. eit. 139) my treatment of the role of Aryaman at the marriage eeremony 'most artificial'. 1 beg to point out that it rests on distinetions whieh a specialist is eompelled to make: between dual and singular, between 'father of fue bride' and 'father of the groom', between 'brother of the bride' and 'brother of the groom', and between the different happenings that take place within the time determined by the moment when the groom enters fue house of his bride and the moment when the bride enters the house of her newly aequired husband. 5. Dumézil's failure to take duly into aeeount the established meaning of suásum vitiates his diseussion also on another oeeasion. In Tl'oisieme souuemin 119 he speaks of suásums in RV 10.28.1: "le beau-pere est le membre de la eommuneauté aryenne qui est le plus pres de son gendre". 1 need not diseuss the ingenious remarks with whieh he eonneets this verdiet: a Vedie suásum has no 'son-in-Iaw' (gendre), but only a daughter-in-Iaw. 7 Dumézil thinks his translation of

6 Dumézil, Les dieux indo-eul'opéens 50 (1952): "Les strophes des hymnes nuptiaux du J;tg Veda et de l'Atharva Veda qui l'invoquent [that is: Aryaman] parlent des rapports de gendre el beau-pere, de beau-Irere el beau-Irere.' The italics are by the author, who thus underscores himself the various misunder­standings he committed in interpreting AV 14.1.39cd, stressing the essential role they play for his conception of Aryaman. He makes matters worse by presenting them as facts offered also by other passages of RV and AV.

7 I note, not without sorne embarrassment, that there are sorne other scholars of renown who, following--Dumézil's comments on RV 10.28.1, have made an inadequate information on Vedic svásura into a weapon to combat my translation of the verse (Fremdling 6 f.) and my definition of the meaning oí arí. H. Lommel, Oriens 7.384 explicitly praises Dumézil's translation, J. 'Brough, Early brahmanical system 01 gotra and pravara XIV, accepts it, quoting É. Benveniste for a theory on the marriage customs of the Aryans

16 Paul Thieme

RV 10.28.1 'plus naturel et plus Tiche de content' than mine: it is untenable all the same. There should never have been any doubt amongst Vedologists that RV 10.28.1 is spoken by the daughter-in-law (cf. below § 59). 6. Using "les enseignements memes des hymnes" for our argument means that we must find out, first, what thehymns say by establishing grammatically and lexicographically cor­rect translations. In attempting to do so we are, to a certain extent and more so than may be realized by scholars chiefly dealing with Greek and Latin texts, exploring the unknown. We have to start from the proved facts, hoping that they will lead us to the discovery of new facts. Proved facts, in our case, are, for example, the usage of grammatical number and the meaning of words like suásura. After informing our­selves accurately of the known, we form a hypothesis that will explain the unknown. "It is a trufu perpetually that accumulated facts, lying in disorder, begin to as sume sorne order when an hypothesis is furown among them" (Herbert Spencer). Everybody, of course also Dumézil, is well within his Tights when 'throwing an hypothesis'. The value of such hypothesis, however, depends on the accuracy of the ex­peTiments that are meant to prove it. If our experiments are arranged in such a way as to be in contradiction to known facts and involve further assumptions which have no justi­fication apart from making our pTimary assumption possible, our hypothesis remains a preconceived notion.

In forming a hypothesis on the meaning of a word, for example, we have two different sets of experiments. Fil'stIy the investigation of its possible etymological analysis, fol' which we have at our disposal a well established technique.

in Vedic times, unfortunately based on RV 10.28.1 in the erl'oneous intel'­pretation of Dumézil. Benveniste, who cel'tainly lmows, if not Delbrück, then Meillet, Intl'oduction, 7th ed., 390-1, was possibly momentarily misled by yt. 10.116 ziimiitara xVasura, which might be taken as 'son-in-law and [his] father-in-Iaw'. This should, however, be interpreted in the light of Delbrück, Verwandtschaftsnamen 158-9. Cf. also W. Schulze, I([eine Schriften 66. It is, incidentally, quite possible that xVasura in the quoted passage is an expression fol' 'paterfamilias', that is the grandfathel' of the bride, designated fl'om the point of view of the bride's mothel'. The problem is of comse without bearing on the interpretation of Vedic suMura.

r ..

Mitra and Al'yaman § 5-6 17

Calling the use of this technique 'artificial' (Dumézil, Tl'oi­sieme souuerain 137) is hardly a valuable argumenf: a valid objection would be fhe demonstration that it was not applied cOl'l'ectIy, that is wifuout that skill which is fhe 'art' of the craftsman. Our second expeTiment consists in an act of verification: we test our hypofuetical meaning by investi­gating whether it will fit in aH fue passages in which the word occurs. By blaming me (Tl'oisieme souuel'ain 137) for having 'only verified' my hypofuesis that al'yamán is 'hospitality', which I had ascertained as a linguistic possibility, Dumézil gives reason for suspecting that he is not quite aware of the nature of a proof for a hypothesis. 'Ve cannot 'establish' a truth without 'veTifying' a hypofuesis. Dumézil's polemics against my translations in general are dominated by the ever repeated statement that I am 'constrained' by my hypothesis. Precisely so. A hypofuesis has sense only when it restTicts our imagination and forces us to try going into a certain direction. It can be disproved when this leads to absurd consequences. By foregoing to give us his own translation of the word Cll'yamán and, instead, offering a paraphrase of more than four lines, loaded wifu secondary values (Tl'oi­sieme souuel'ain 154), Dumézil has formed a hypothesis that indeed does not restrain him, but gives him ample scope for fantasy-while depTiving him of any chance of verification. He has 'complicated the vocabulary' instead of 'reestablishing its simplicity', which should be our aim, as it was Bergaigne's (Religion uédique 1. IVf.).

I feel it my duty to warn especiaHy Latinists, who cannot be expected to judge on fue merits of Dumézil's indological arguments, against trusting his presentation of the facts of Vedic religion too confidently, and against believing that only his 'explanations' need be discussed. Vedic Sanskrit bristles with elementary problems, unknown to Latinists, that must be solved by grammarians before it be possible for sociologists to apply their theories. Latinists may not realize how often an ingenious explanation of an alleged Vedic idea is, in reality, nothing but an ill-advised justification of a simple mistranslation.

2

" "l I

I

II

MITRA

A. MEILLET'S FORMULA

, ... guat art is simply a supume {Ol'm o{ putense.'

MauTÍce Ravel.

7. By showing that the Indo-Iranian god Mitra is n~thing but 'contract'8 (mitl'á) deified, Meillet refuted the theones of Bergaigne, Oldenberg, Hillebrandt and others, w~o w~nted, in different ways, to explain the god as the persomficabon of a natural phenomenon. In admitting that, Dumézil and 1 are

in perfect agreement. . . Meillet has, however, refuted also another conceptlOn, WhICh

is just as v.'l'ong: the conception that the name Mitr~ m~y b~ interpreted as 'friend': 'Le dieu Mitra n'est pas 1 amI ... (JA X.145 [1907]). mitm 'friend' is the result of a deve:op­ment within the history of Sanskrit; it is not Indo-Iraman.

It is a matter for melancholy reflexion that a notion for which the arguments have vanished, should pertinaciously continue to keep a hold on scholars' minds. Geldner, for example, throughout his translation explains Mitra as 'friend'. He seems to have never even heard of Meillet's demonstration. With Dumézil, too, Mitra appears as 'friend', e. g. Troisieme souverain 51: "Aryaman et Mitra sont pour les hommes des variétés d'amis divins", which is an exact replica of the

8 Amongst the difIerent expressions that might meet the case ('agree­ment' , 'compact', 'treaty', 'covenant), I choose 'contract', using it in the general sense of 'agreement between parties, States etc.' (Concise Oxford Dictionary), not in the special sense: 'business agreement for supply.of goods 01' performance of work at fixed price' (op. cit.), though this seems 111 rather frequent use. In German I should say 'Vertrag'.

lvIitm and Al'yaman § 7-8 19

opWlOn expounded by the PW and e. g. by L. v. Schroeder in his Al'ische Religion 1, 385 (1914), a work antiquated at the moment when it was published9, but eonsidered an im­portant authority by Dumézil (Tl'oisieme souvemin 74). 8. The key to Dumézil's inconsisten¿y in accepting, on the one hand, Meillet's explanation of Mitra as 'Contraet' and eontinuing, on° the other hand, to regard him as the "ami divin" -as "la divinité eonsidérée sous son aspect bienfaisant, amical": Bergaigne, Religion védique 3.110-is furnished by a passage in Mitm- Val'u~a 79. Here Dumézil, opposing Ber­gaigne and siding with Meillet, gives the formula: 'As to Mitra, the word "friend" is evidently insufficient'. By saying 'insufficient' instead of 'wrong', he has opened a back door by which 'friend' may still ereep in. Once he has stealthily entered,lO this 'friend' proves the hedgehog of the fable. Like the hedgehog with spines, he bristles with secondary values: he presents himself not only as "bienveillant" but also as "raisonnant, clair, réglé, calme, sacerdotal" (Mitm- Val'u~a 85), and with these spines he successfully ousts the legitimate owner of the house, 'contract', who is reduced to a nominal role only, which is without any practical influence on Dumé­zil's interpretation.

To justify his procedure, Dumézil suggests that Meillet did not know what a 'contract' is. To Meillet, so Dumézil tells us (Mitm- Val'U~a 79), the concepts "contrat juridique" and "amitié sentimentale" seemed 'irreconcilable'. I fail to see where and when Meillet would have argued along this lineo Meillet's discussion presupposes that 'contract' and 'friend­ship' are different eoncepts. At the same time it admits that they are separated only by a step: a 'contract' may lead to 'friendship', when the partners choose to take this course, and 'friendship' may lead to a 'contract', when the friends want to give it a solemn and binding foundation. But separate eoncepts they are and will remain. They are not 'divergent

9 Cf. H. Oldenberg's review in Deutsche Literaturzeitung 1915 col. 402: "Welche Massen eingreifender, für den Vedisten hochwichtigel' Forschungen müssen an ihm [von Schroeder] vorübergegangen sein."

10 Bis unabashed presence is announced e. g. in Les dieux indo-européens 12: "Mitra,· dont le nom signifie le Contrat, et aussi l' Ami".

2*

os • ..

20 Paul Thieme

precisions, rather young both of them, detached from a more ancient complex' (Dumézil op. cit. 80).11 Both their funda­mental difIerence and their close affinity are clearly recog­nized by the Veda as well as by the Avesta. 1 refer, for an example, to the formulation of Yt. 10.80 e:

{}wii paiti zl haxJ(jnm daide vahistJm 'through thee (Contract) 1 got best friendship.'

There can be no doubt that in India mitrá m. 'contract partner' has developed into 'friend' in geneml and mitrá n. 'contract' into 'friendship' and then into 'friend' (later Vedic and classical Sanskrit). All this is without any bearing on the character and name of the Indo-Iranian god Mitra. If he is the 'personified contract' (Meillet), he is not the personified 'friendship' 01' the 'friend' (thus e. g. Geldner, note on RV 1.14.10). 9. In my Fremdling im Rigveda 1371 have shown that mitrá n. in the RV is not, what the usage of classical Sanskrit would suggest, 'friendship', but 'contract': the passages RV 10.34.14a and 10.108.3 c are as unequivocal as can be expected. amítra and amitl'ín are not "Unfreund' (Geldner), but '[a man] without contract (= aman who does not recognize the sac­redness of a contract)', who is slain by Indra (e. g. 10.89.9, below § 51) for his unethical action. dróghamitra 10.89.12, by its accent recognizable as a bahuvl'ihi, cannot be "Freund­betrüger" (Geldner), but plainly is: 'he whose contract (con­tractual word) is lie'.

As to the appellative meaning of avestic mi1Jra m., the con­texts in which it appears leave no room for any hesitation: it is 'contract' and nothing else. The appellative meaning of the Indo-Iranian word *mitrá n., made into a masculine in Iranian as e. g. *mántra was made into a masculine in Indo­Iranian, can only have been the same. We are dealing here with a hypothesis so strictly verifiable that we can take it into account as a 'known fact'.

11 By the same type of dogmatic decision Dumézil wants to eliminate the concept 'stranger' from the RV, declaring it to be "une notion moderne, une conquete ou un fantome tardif de l'esprit humain" (Troisieme souve­rain 110).

p I I I i ! i i Mitra and Aryaman § 8-11 21

10. Whether Meillet's-really Brugmann's-etymological de­rivation of mitI'á 'contract' from the root mijmi 'exchange' is correct, is of no practical consequence. It could serve only to explain the formation of the common noun mitrá, of which the meaning 'contract' need not be conjectured with the help of an etymology, but is settled by an investigation of the oldest contexts In which the word is actually used. In any case, the etymology has no bearing on the character of the god Mitra, What is relevant for the explanation of the god, is not the etymology, but the appellative meaning of mitráj mi{}ra, which for the Avesta was established long before Meillet (cf. e. g. Bartholomae, Altiranisches WortCl'buch col. 1183). Meillet's real merit is to have drawn a simple con­sequence from plain linguistic facts. What he actually did was to replace the old formulas of the type:

"mi{}ra m, 'Vertrag, Abmachung, Kontrakt': Mi{}ra 'eine arische Gotterfigur, ursprünglich eine Sonnengottheit'" (Bar­tholomae op. cit. col. 1183-5)

by the new formula:

mi{}ra m. 'contract': Mi{}ra m, 'Contract'.

11. All the various attempts to get rid of the weighty impli­cations carried by this insignificant-Iooking formula, are attempts to change it. In each case this changing means com­plicating. By replacing the simple formula, which restricts our fancies, but gives scope to the poets of the Veda and Avesta, with a more complicated one, Meillet's opponents obtain freedom for their conjectures, but curb the imagination of the poets. The formula becomes a ball of plastic clay which may be lmeaded into anything: a 'friendly' god of 'binding' in the vaguest sense (H. Güntert, Del' al'ische Weltkonig 52-66 etc.); 'not a personification, but, from the start, a full per­sonality, who has had, also from the beginning, many a side' "in rundem Wesen" (H. Lommel, Die Yiisls 65), a "deuxieme souverain" who is -- "le maih'e bienveillant, sou­cieux du détail de la vie de l'homme" [and many things beside] (Dumézil, Troisieme souverain 33). 1 cannot consider any of these proposals as supeTior to the former assumptions that Mitra is, 01' originally was, the 'sun', 01' the 'starlit sky',

22 Paul Thieme

01' the 'morning light'. It seems the same game: complicating the lexicographic facts in order to get convenient possibilities for imaginative translations and theories. "J'essaye au con­traire de rétablir la simplicité dans le vocabulaire en ad­mettant la complexité dans les idées", if 1 may phrase my motive for keeping strictly to Meillet, in terms used by Ber­gaigne (Religion uédique 1. iv f.), already referred to aboye (§ 6). 12. Meillet's formula does not leave room for our own imagination. But, being dry itself, it becomes a magic wand when we apply it to an accurate and careful grammatical analysis of the texts : it helps us to find highly original thoughts, refreshing like spring water; being prosaic itself, it brings out the poetic qualities of age old thinkers. It becomes evident that they were extremely imaginative themselves. Their imagination has achieved something wonderful. It has turned a pale abstraction into a colourful, beneficent and terrible heavenly personality, moved by feelings and passions like a human being, but by feelings and passions of a superhuman consistency; stirred by them to action like a human being, but to action on a superhuman scale; made of spirit, yet visible to the poet's eye in a splendour that can only be com­pared to the most luminous obj ects perceivable to a common mortal's sight-into a great God: eternal, omnipresent, omni­scient, miraculous, commanding man's worship. 13. 'Why should we feign not to understand the procedure? It is of the most common with poets of all time. Fr. Schiller, to give an example chosen at random, has adopted it in his famous Ode to Joy:12

Freude, schoner Gotterfunken, Tochter aus Elisium, Wir betreten feuertrunken Himmlische, dein Heiligtum. Deine Zauber binden wieder, 'Vas del' Mode Schwerd geteilt; Bettler werden Fürstenbrüder, "V o dein sanfter Flügel weilt.

12 1 quote the first version (1785) as more characteristíc than the smoothed down revision.

Mitra and Aryaman § 11-14 23

Most people, 1 think, can enjoy these dithyrambic lines, without the music of Beethoven, too. However, what there is of beauty will turn to rubbish the moment we take away from the name of Schiller's 'daughter of Elysium': "Freude", its appellative meaning. Without it, the verse makes no sense. Nothing whatever could be gained by 'explaining' the Goddess that is being celebrated here, as a 'friendly Goddess of magic binding' (deine Zauba binden wiedel')-free after Güntert; nothing by maintaining that she is not a personification, but a well rounded personality from the start whose functions need not have developed one from the other, one of them being that she is a Goddess of joy, another one that she is of a fiery nature (Golterfunken), another one that she has also birdlike traits (Flügel)-free after Lommel; nothing by finding a place for her in the sociological theology of sovereignty, 13

construed by Dumézil, who mightpossibly say that she is 'a benevolent mistress', who 'looks after people's collective concerns' (uniting beggars and princes), that she is, however, also a'binder' and hence without doubt fitted to join the illustrious, if somewhat motley, company of V áru1).a, O"po:vós and Romulus, assembled e. g. on 113 of Mitra- Varu~a. 14. It is my simple contention that all the verses of the RV and the Mihir Yiist that deal with Mitra/MiSra can be under­stood and appreciated only if we leave the name its appel­lative meaning 'contract'. Before understanding the god, we must understand these verses, which can be done with the help of accurate and complete translations only. They are 'art' and hence 'a form of pretense': they pretend that the abstract 'contract' is a person 'Contract'. They are religious art and hence they lend practical reality to their pretense: the imaginary person 'Contract' becomes a real, living God. "Ve are disillusioned enough to see through this modus oper­andi. At the same time, we must concede that their pretense is much more meaningful than S chiller 's, who claims-not quite seriously, 1 think-that 'Joy' is the main spring of the

13 Schiller does not explicitly call "Freude" a queen, but his predecessor J. P. Uz does: 'Freude, Konigin del' Weisen'. Dumézil would have a chance to refer'to what is said of king VarUl)a in RV 7.86.1a '''Vise are the creatures by his greatness' (d. below § 51).

24 Paul Thieme

cloek of the world. They clearly grasp the fundamental signi­fieanee of the "eontrat social" for the life of all human eom­munities ('house': family, 'settlement': clan, 'distriet': tribe, 'eountry': people, ef. e. g. Yt. 10.18). 15. Let us examine the texts, somewhat more closely, first the Mihir Ya!;t (Yt. 10) and then the RV, with a view toestab­lishing what they aetually say of God Contraet and to deter­mining the extent to whieh their statements eorrespond. The Mihir Ya!;t has reeeived no serious attention from Dumézil. 14

Yet, I think it is a eommand of 'eommon sense' (ef. Mitra­Varu~a 12) to investigate aboye all the eorrespondenee Mitra: MiSra. We can not afIord to negleet it and, instead of exploring it, try to 'explain' the Vedie Mitra in the light of a eomparison with Zoroaster's Vohll Mano (e. g. Tl'Oisieme souverain 34, 50 fI.) 01' with Numa Pompilius (Mitra- Varu~a passim).

B. MIGRA IN Y AST 10

16. "Viele Stellen", says Lommel in the introduetion to his most valuable and helpful translation of the Mihir Ya!;t (Die Yiists . .. 61), "werden nur riehtig erfasst, wenn man unter dem Eigennamen MiSra zugleieh die Appellativbedeutung 'Vertrag, Treue' versteht". Instead of 'many passages' I say 'all passages', not being able to find a reason for introducing a differentiation. Besides, I see no justifieation for adding the eoneept 'fidelity' (Treue): with Bartholomae and Meillet I keep to 'eontraet', whieh is related to 'fidelity', but by no means identieal with it. "Ein Teilsinn würde also riehtig getroffen, wenn man in diesen Fallen aueh so übersetzen würde", Lommel eontinues, "und etwa mi{}l'o'dl'uj 'mithra­betrügend' mit 'vertragbrüehig, treu-, eidbrüehig' wieder-

14 The passage Mitra- VarUJ;za 137-8, which summarily dispenses with the Avestic MiSra, is a weak, but distinct, echo of Güntert, Der arische Welt­kanig 57-60 (cf. below §25), whichis not made explicito The procedure is similar to that adopted vis-a-vis Bergaigne in a certain context (above § 1). 1 do not suggest that Dumézil wants to usurp illegitimately the credit for a discovery he thinks significant. My interpretation is rather that he is under the illusion that the points in question-certain hypothetical speculations of Bergaigne's and Güntert's, which are highly useful for his own argument-are self-evident assumptions that need no proof.

lvIitra and Al'yaman § 14-16 25

geben würde". I rendel' mi{}l'o' druj, just as Sanskrit mitradruh, thl'oughout by 'eontraet deeeiver (= who deeeitfully breaks a eontraet)'. In the same manner, I should translate 'Fl'Cude' in Sehiller's poem by 'joy/Joy' and not feel that in doing so I ,vould have rendered eorreetly 'only part of the sense'. I should, on the eontrary, have translated aeurately and eom­pletely, saying no more and no less in another language than the poet said in his. It is not the word 'Fl'Cude' in Sehiller's ode, nor the word 'mi{}ra' in the Yast, but the eontext that makes the personifieation apparent. When translating Mi{}l'a eonsistently by 'Contraet', we are rid of all qualms how to render, for example, {}wii in Yt. 10.80. We just say 'through thee [1 got best friendship]'. "VVe may give an explanation in braekets: '(i. e. God Contraet)', but this addition is only neeessary for somebody who has not read the line in its eon­text and is unaware of the faet that the whole of Yt. 10 is addressed to 'Contraet'.

"Allzuhaufige Wiedergabe des Namens mit den Appella­tiven 'Vertrag' oder 'Treue' ist nieht angangig, weil daber nur ein Teil des Inhalts zum Ausdruek kame, del' ethisehe, nieht aber del' religiose" (Lommell. c.). It may be true that the word mifha 'eontraet' has only legal and ethieal eonno­tations-I should think it has at least magie eonnotations besides: below § 18,-the name Mi{}ra a religious one also. 'Vho wants to make this elear may translate: '[ God] Con­traet'. But I do not think it really neeessary. Again the eontext will make it sufficiently clear by itself. If the poet says: '1 will worship Contraet, who is of wide eattle-pastUTes, with a loud worship, with pourings [of saerifieial food]' (Yt.l0.4), it should be evident, without any translator's trieks, that 'Contraet' is represented as a godo It is, indeed, no les s evident than if we say: '1 will worship ... MiSra'. The differenee is that the latter translation leaves the eharaeter of the god unreeognizable. It is precisely sueh ineomplete translations, whieh desist from expressing the eontent of the key word, that have given rise to the notion that we must establish the god's eharaeter by a theory of OUT own. And it is Lommel's very refusal to translate the name Mi{}ra 'too often' that makes him, himself, believe that the god is a 'personality' rather

26 Paul Thieme

than a 'personification'. \Vhich belief has the practica! con­sequence that Lommel attempts to depict MiSra as a real pel'son, composed of divel'se, often contradictol'Y, traits, instead of understanding him as an imaginary personality of an ideal unity. Reality seldom makes sense, but we have a perfect l'ight to look for it in fiction. . 17. MaUers can be l'ighted vel'y easily. My method is, in fact, of the same "simplicité enfantine" of which Bergaigne spoke with reference to his method in the Études sur le lexique du Rig- Veda 1.HI. Like Bergaigne 1 take a pencil. And then 1 go through Lommel's translation of Yt. 10 from beginning to end. Every time he translates mif}ra by anything but 'contraet' (Vertrag), 1 block out his expression and insert 'contraet' instead. And every time he says "Mithra", 1 replace it by 'Contract'. Proceeding thus 1 am sure that 1 neither abstract from what the poet said, nor add anything to it. But 1 can hope to understand clearly what the poet himself in each instanee has subtracted from, 01' added to, the concept which he calls mi1h-a 'contract'. Fol' example:

Yt. 10.82 ilat ilbyo doi1hilbyo... spasyeiti mifho.zyqm mi1}ro.druj<lm ca

Lommel: "mit diesen Augen abel' ... erspiiht el' [(Mz19ra)] den tJoeubrüchigen und Mithrab etrüger' "

literally: 'then he (Contmct) sees with these [his ten thou­sand] eyes him who forces (violates by force) a contmct and him who deceives (violates by deeeit) a contract.'

There is only one real, though minor, difficulty. vVhen translating the Mihil' YiiSt into a language that possesses a grammatical article, we cannot but express distinctions which the original leaves unexpressed. We must, then, find out by interpretation whether in a given case the poet thinks of the concept (no article in English), a particular l'epresentative of the concept (definite article) 01' any l'epresentative of the con­cept you choose (indefinite al'ticle). When the context does not permit a clear decision, the distinction is of no con­sequence. The same applies to the distinction between 'con­traet' and 'Contract'. Studying the Mihir Yiist means, aboye everything else, studying the technique by which the poet

Mitra and Aryaman § 16-19 27

distinguishes 'a contract' from 'Contract', when he wants to do so.Ha.

18. Yt. 10.2 nl<lr<Jncaite vispqm dai7Jhaom mairyo mi1}ro' dI'UXS spitama ya1}a sat<lm kayaoanqm av(;wat asava'ja cil

'He harms his whole country, the rogue who deceives [violates by deceit] a contract, o Spitama; as a hundred sinners (of a special kind, called kayada "giving atonement") so much [he harms], killing even truthful ones.'

This general statement has a special motivation in certain notions prevailing already in Aryan times with respect to the breaking of a contracto H. Lüders, Eine arische Anschauung über den Vertragsbruch (Philologica Indica 438 ff.) has established that there existed a belief that by breaking a eon­tract aman would bring death upon male relatives of his, in proportion to the importance of the contract. Our passage is an intensifying echo of this idea, which, by origin, evidently is of a magico-mechanical order.

The poet, however, may move this idea into the distinct sphere of religion, making the consequences of breaking a contract into the action of a personal God. For example:

Yt. 10.87 .. ilat yahmili tbisto bavaiti mi1}l'o yo vouz·u.gaoyaoitis ahmili frascindayeili nmilmm ca vzs<lm ca

zantiim ca dahyüm ca 'Then, to whom Contract, who is of wide cattle pastures, is

in hate, to him he lets fall in ruin the house and the settle­ment and the district and the country'.

19. Lommel speaks of 'MiSra's bloodthil'sty cruelty against those who scorn him' (op. cit. 65) and appears to take this

Ha It seems significant that one of the first difficulties to which Ed. Fraen­kel draws attention in his Commentary orf Aeschylus' Agamemnon (on line 14) is the fact that "it often proves impossible in Early Greek to make a clear distinction between common noun and proper name." "We may feel inclined to lamen,t with Otfried Müller... that 'we latter-day grammarians find thrust upon us by the capital letters of proper names the unpleasant duty of having to make up our minds on the point'."

28 Paul Thieme

as an instance where MiSra's 'ethical traits' were 'infringed upon 01' perhaps even covered up by properties of a force of nature' (63). It is true, God Contract's fury, as depicted in so many passages of the Yast, ofien seems rather excessive, calling to mind the blind raging of revolting elements. Yet, every time it has a purely ethical motivation, it is directed not against disbelievers, as Lommel's expression suggests, but against 'contract deceivers'. Moreover, actually it do es have a ratio, it is a retaliation in proportion to the crime committed, even in a precise proportion as would befit the contractual nature of the god:

Yt. 10043 pascaeta d'is p.'aspayaeiti mi1}ro yo vow·u.gaoyaoitis pancasagnai satagnais ca satagnai hazam'agnais ca haza7Jl'agnai baeval'agnais ca baévaragnai ahqxstagnais ca

'After that he throws them (the contract deceiving mortals: v. 37) do,vn, he, Contract, who is of wide cattle pastures:

with slaying of a hundred for the slaying of fifty15 (whom the contract deceiving mortals have killed); with slayings of a thousand for the slaying of a hundred; with slayings of ten thousand for the slaying of a thousand; with slayings of a hundred thousand for the slaying of ten thousand.'

20. The idea 'contract' is actualized in single contracts. They are the perishable representatives of the eternal concept. God Contract is the personification of the idea, but manifests himself also in each single contract:

Yt. 10.55 yeiOi zl ma masyaka aoxto.namalla yasna yaza-yanta yaBa anye yazat1i7Jho aoxto.namana yasna yazanti,

{l'a nul'uyo asavaoyo 1}warastahe zZ'ü ayu susuyqm xvahe gayehe xvanvati5 amasahe upa 1}warastahe jagmyqm

15 By translating -gna in one case by 'blow' and in the other by 'slaying', Bartholomae and Lommel become involved in difficulties clearly realized by the latter (Die Yiisis 37, note 1).

Mitra and Al'yaman § 19-21 29

'[ God Contract speaks:] If the mortals would WOl'ship me with a worship in which my name is spoken, as the others, [namely] the gods, worship [me] with a worship in which my name is spoken (that is: if they would call u pon me in concluding a solemn contract),

1 should have come to the truthful men with the age of a definite (literally: "cut [off at both ends]") time (that is: "with the age of a particular contract, being born with it and ceasing with its expiration"),

[v¡rÍth the age] of my own sun-like immortal life 1 should llave come to [the age] of a definite [time].' 21. All that can be said of a contract in general, can, of course, be said of God Contract also. 'A contract exists for both, the one who is characterÍzed by truth (here = "a follower of the truth preached by Zoroaster") and the one who is characterized by untruth (here = "a follower of another religion that is not true") , : Yt. 10.2. We may under­stand, also: 'God Contract exists for both .. .' A contract must not be 'deceived', 'violated by deceit' (dl'Uj): God Con­tract also must be 'undeceived' = 'undeceivable' (e. g. anai­widl'Uxr5a- Yt. 10.5, noit . .. aiwidmoxr5a- Yt. 10.17, anadl'Uxta­Yt. 10.26), 'uncheated' (ar5aoyamna- Yt. 10.24). A contract must be 'of upright (true) words' (advacah-) and 'well fashioned' = 'couched in correct terms' (hutiista-): both adjectives are applied to God Contract in Yt. 10.7. A contract serves to fix boundaries: God Contract is called kal'so.l'azah­'regulating (making straight) the furww (which demarcates a border)' in Yt. 10.61. A contract that is kept establishes peace and hence brings prosperity, it is 'of wide cattle pas­tures' (voul'U.gaoyaoiti- Yt. 10.78), where cattle may safely graze without danger from enemies: God Contract himself is vow·u.gaoyaoiti- (Yt 10.3 and passim), vq1}wo.da- 'giving herds' (Yt. 10.65,28), l'amasayana- 'of peaceful dwelling', lmsayana- 'of good dwelling' (Yt. lOA), raevant- 'charac­terized by riches' (Yt.l0.78). .

N ot every breach of a contract will result in the death of relatives 01', even worse, the destruction of a whole country (Yt. 10:2, above § 18): there are possibilities of atonement. Vendo 4.2 enumerates six different kinds of contracts (mú'ha)

30 Paul Thieme

in an ascending order of strength. The least of these is 'con­cluded by speech [only] (without even the gesture of a hand­shake)' (vacahina-). Vendo 4.11 gives a punishment for break­ing such a contract: yo mi1JrJm aiwidruzaiti yim ... vacahinam . . . tisro sata upiízananqm upiízoit aspahe astraya 'who de­ceives a contract that is concluded by speech [only] ... th~'ee hundred whippings should one whip [him] with the horse whip'. In Yt. 10.121 Zoroaster asks Lord Wisdom (Ahura Mazda) about aman 'who wants to make that [God] Con­tract, whom he worships, [Contract,] who is of wide cattle pastures, be contented, unofIended ("not in hate")'. 122: 'Then spoke Lord Wisdom: Three days and three nights should they bathe theÍr bodies, three hundred whippings should they take as retaliation ... ' The punishment for breaking a minor contract is turned into a purifying atone­ment that makes aman fit to worship God Contracto The underlying assumption is that there is nobody who would never have ofIended him at least in a minor way. 22. On the other hand, the personification creates for the god an imagery that is all his own. Often we can follow this imagery through difIerent stages, from the almost abstract to the nearIy concrete, and perceive how it grows ever more picturesque. It is not always consistent-though certainly more so than Schiller's imagery in his Ode to Joy, who calIs 'Freude' in the same breath a 'spark' and a 'daughter'. In no case does it seem without a perceivable relation to the role that befits a god called 'Contract'.

As the protector of contracts, Contract is 'vigilant' (jagaw'­vah- Yt. 10.7 etc.), more concretely said: 'without sleep' (axvafna- Yt. 10.7 etc.), still more picturesquely expressed: 'the long-handed witch of sleep (büsyqsta) gets into fright (fra l<mJsaiti) before him'-like other force s of evil (Yt. 10.97.16

16 Lommel complains (Die Yü§ls 65) that 'this testimony fol' Mi.9l'a's character as light has not been appreciated as it should'. 1 feel there is no probability-and thel'e certainly is no necessity-for interpreting with Lom­mel biisyqsta as 'the demon of the lazy sleep that lasts i!lto the day'. She is rather the terrible demon of that dangerous sleep which overwhelms aman when wakefulness is essential fol' safety and life.

Mitra and Aryaman § 21-22 31

He is the 'observer' (nipiíta) and 'guardian' (nis.harata) of the place of 'those who are without untruth' (adruj-) (Yt. 10.80) 01' of 'alI creations' (dqman-) (54), the 'guardian' (harata) and 'protector' (aiwyiíxsta) 'of the whole earth' (vfspaya ... gae1Jaya 103). He overlooks 'the whole country of the Aryans' (13), 'all that is between earth and heaven' (95). In more 'concrete and picturesque terms: 'he has a broad look-outjlook-outs' (pJra1Ju.vae(5ayana-) (7); he looks from the high Hara mountain, east of Iran, even before the sun rises (13); he has a house on the Hara (50), from which he regards alI corporeal life (51).

He is 'omniscient' (vfspo.vfdvah-) (Yt. 10.24), more con­cretely and picturesquely: he is 'of 10,000 eyes' (baevan.cas­man) (Yt. 10.7, etc.), he has '10,000 organs of sight' (baevw'J doi{}l'anqm), with which 'he sees him who violates a contract by force, and him who violates a contract by deceit' (82); he is 'ofathousand ears' (haza1Jragaosa-) (7, etc.), with whichhe hears everything; 'of a thousand alertnesses' (yaoxsti-)17 (35, etc.), with which he is ready for instant action. He is the 'lord of the countries' (dahyunqm daiuhupaitis) and, like a king (cf. Lüders, Philologica Indica 462), he 'has spies, 10,000' in number (baevan.spasana-): 'they, Contract's spies (spaso), sit on all the heights, on alI the look-outs, seeing him who deceives a contract, looking at those, recording those who deceive a contract first17a (= start with breaking a contract, thus forcing the other party to break it too)' (45).

He is omnipresent. Picturesquely said: 'his place is of the broadness of the earth' (Yt. 10.44). He, himself, is of this broadness:

Yt. 10.95 ... yo zJmfra1Ja aiwyiíiti pasea hü fl·iísmo·diíitfm marazaiti uva kW'ana ai1Jha ZJmo yat pa1Janaya skal'Jnaya düraepiíraya vfspJm imat iídidiíiti yat antan zqm asmanJm ca .

17 Literally: 'state of being harnessed (yuxla-)'.

na Cf. forexamp~e TS 2.2.6.2 ya{l piirvo 'bhidruhyati.

32 Paul Thieme

'[ Contraet,] who, being of the broadness of the earth, comes after the setting of the sun (when darkness would hide the criminal): he touehes [by his broadness, that fills the earth,] both ends of this wide . . . earth, whieh has far-away bor­ders: he looks upon all this that is between earth and heaven.'

He is 'of broad eattle-pastures', sine e he seeures peaee (above § 21). More eoneretely and pieturesquely: Miera is he 'by whom the rain falls' (tahip- 10.61) and 'by whom the plants grow' (uxsyat'ul'uaI'Cl- 10.61). 23. The belief that aman who deeeitfully breaks a eontraet brings death upon male relatives of his (Lüders, ef. aboye § 18), doubtless has its roots in the eonditions of the andent joint family: all the male members of it were jointly respon­sible for debts eontraeted 01' a erime eommitted by a single member-henee e. g. the institution of vendetta. The belief that a ruler who breaks his eontraet (peaee treaty) with the ruler of another eountry, brings disasteT on his own, is more immediately understandable. Is it not part even of modern religion that Heaven will help 'the just cause' in war? It is aetually predietable that the faith in God Contraet helping in war those that have been true to a treaty against those that have broken it, will be dwelt upon with particular em­phasis. Again, "\Ve have different levels of imaginative pre­sentation.

Yt. 10.26 ... yo dailJhaom anádl'Uxto upw'ái amái dadáiti yo daÍlJhaom anádl'uxto upal'ái v<Jl'<J{)l'ái dadáiti

'[Contraet,] who, when undeeeived, makes a country [eapable] for superior offensive strength,lB who, when un­deeeived, makes a eountry [eapable] for superior defensive strength. 18 '

More eoneretely: 'the warriors on horsebaek worship Con­traet, entreating him for swiftness (záual'<J) for their harnessed [horses], for firmness (dl'uatát<Jm) for their bodies (so they eannot be wounded)' (Yt. 10.11); 'Contraet, who is of wide eattle pastures, gives quiek horses (ásu'aspfm) to those who

18 Benveniste-Renou, Vrtra et Vr{}ragna 11 (1934).

CM

Mitra and Al'yaman § 22-24 33

do not deeeive him' (10.3). A poetieal eonnexion is estab­lished between Contraet who gives 'wide eattle pastures' by ereating and maintaining peaee and Contraet who makes the horses quid:, helping the just cause in war.

A slightly more pieturesque effeet is reaehed by inverting the god's aetion through ehanging its direetion: 'the horses of those who deeeive a eontraet, though they be ever so quiek, do not get away running, do not advanee earrying [their riders], do not proeeed drawing [their ehariots]' (Yt. 10.20). Contraet works like a powel'fuI spell that lames and frustrates all efforts: 'baekward flies the spear whieh the deeeiver of a eontraet throws' (Yt. 10.20): 'Thou (Contraet) bringest down terror to the very bodies of the eontract deeeiving mor­taIs ... thou takest away the strength in their arms, the swiftness in their feet, the light in their eyes, the hearing in their ears .. .' (10.23). 24. Far more often Contraet takes part, himself, as a fighting hero (SÜI'Cl-) in the battle whieh results fl'om the breaeh of a eontract.

Yt. 10.27 yo daÍlJhJus l'qxsyqi{)ya

paI'Cl razista baI'Cliti paiti xval'<Jna váI'Clyeiti apa v<Jl'<J{h'agn<Jm baraiti aval'<J{)a hfs apivaiti baeual'<J g;¡nqna nisirinaoiti yo baeual'<J'spasano SÜ¡'O vfspo'vfova aoaoyanmo

'[Contraet,] who takes away from the eountry that is about to aet erookedly(?)19 what is very straight, wards off the glories, takes away vietory. He eompresses the defeneeless [eountries] (apiuati = api + yuuati)20, he makes them lean down while they arebeaten ten thousand [blows], [he], who is of ten thousand eyesjspies, the hero, the omniseient one, who is not eheated.'

19 rqxsya- futul'e stem of a root rqk that might eOl'l'espond to lqk- in Old SI. lqkavb 'pel'vel'se, bad'? Cp. e. g. Leskien, Grammatik der Altbulgarischen Sprache 81 (lgkq, IgSti 'bend': lqka 'ruse').

20 On -iva- fol' -yuva- ef. Bartholomae, Grundriss 1.1 II 155 (§ 268, 15). 3

·L.

34 Paul Thieme

19 ahmái naémái uzjasáiti Yt.10. mi{}ró grantó upa·tbistó yahmái naémanqm mi{}ró'dl'UXs naéba mainyu paiti'páite

'To that side Contraet will set out, wrathful, in hate,. to whieh of the sides the eontraet deeeiver does not proteet hlm­self by his mind. '20a

25. The figure of the hero 'Contraet' is depieted most vividly. He approaehes, driving down from heaven (l.iterally: 'the luminous house of praise') (10.124) in his ehanot drawn by wondrous horses (125); his 'whip lets its loud speeeh be heard' (113); he holds his club, whieh has a hundred spikes (nipples) and a hundred edges (96); he is aeeompanied by a veritable arsenal ofweapons (128 ff., 101 f.) and preceded by God Vietory (VJTéJ{}mgna), who storms forward in the shape of a boar of miraeulous properties (70).

H. Güntert (Arische Weltkonig 57) has drawn atlention to the faet that MiSra is-partly, 1 should add-painted with the same eolors as the Vedie Indra. Perhaps it would be beUer to say: they are both, on eertain oeeasions, painted with the eolors of the ancient God Vietory (*Vrtraghna).21 In any case, there is no sound reason for the 'suspicion' that 'Mi{}ra has taken the place of Indra' (Güntert) 01' of *Vrtraghna. If Sehil­ler's 'Joy' can be said to have borrowed the wings (Flü~el) of the goddess Vietory, nobody would draw the eoncluslOn that she has taken her place and explain her as 'Victoria'. MiDra's funetion-almost every single verse of Yt. 10 stresses it-is to proteet and lead to vietory those who have kept. to their eontraets. In whatever garb he may appear, he remalllS the personifieation of the abstraet idea designated by his name. 26. MiSra is, in the language of the Yiist, a mainyauó yazató (e. g. Yt. 10.13, 16) 'a god eonsisting of spir~t', in eontradis­tinetion to an 'earthly' (gaé{}ya-), i. e. matenal, mortal (e. g. Yt. 10.106) 01' god (cí. e. g. Y. 25.8). His ehariot is 'fashioned of spirit' (mainyu'hqmtlista-: Yt. 10.67); his horses 'eonsist of

20_ Cf. RV 2.12.10 yás ..• ámanyamanan chárvu jaghlina '[Indra] who has slain them with his arrow ... when they did not think of it.'

21 Benveniste-Renou, Vrlra el Vr{}ragna 189 ff. etc.

Mitra and Aryaman § 24-26 35

spirit' (auruantó mainyauJ~hó: 68) and henee are-as spirits aH over the world-'without shadow' (asaya: 68); their food 'eonsists of spirit' (mainyus'xvw'JDa 125), henee they are 'without death' (anaosa- 125).22

To 'the poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling' even spiritual things are pereeivable. His 'imagination bodies forth / the forms of things unimown ... / turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing / a local habitation and a name. / Sueh trieks hath strong imagination; / that, if it would but apprehend some joy, / it eomprehends some bringer of that joy ... ' (Shakes­peare, A Midsummer Night's Dream, aet 5 seene 1).

It is one of the most familiar trieks of imagination to endow spiritual beings with the properties of light. AH the passages addueed by Lommel op. cit. 64 as expressing MiSra's nature of light and sun ("seine Lieht- und Sonnennatur"), aetually express his nature as spirit. This beeomes elear as Soon as we take the god's name literaHy-whieh Lommel refuses to do-but not the poet's deseription-whieh Lommel does. The poet seems, indeed, eonspieuously eareful not to equate tlle god in plain terms with any particular luminous phenomenon. He works with eomparisons and suggestions, never with naked identifieations.

A elear example for a eomparison would be:

Yt. 10.142 ... ya{}a tanüm mocayeiti ya{}a mJ~hó hváraoxsnó

143 ye~hJ ainikó brázaiti ya{}a tistryó'stámhe

' ... as he (Contraet) makes his body shine like [the body] of the self-Iuminous moon, of whieh [body] the front is brilliant like [the front] of the star Tistrya.'

A clear example for a suggestion ('just at this passage MiSra's nature as light is distinetly expressed': Lommell. c.) would be:

Yt. 10.13 '[Contraet,] who, as the first spiritual god, reaehes aeross the Hara mountain, ahead of the immortal sun that

22 ,1 calI to mind the horses of the gods receiving O:¡.¡!3pÓCYlOV • •• eiBo:p

in the Iliad: 5.369, 13.35, that is 'food containing [miraculous] life-giving strength' (Thiem~, Sludien zur idg. Worlkunde 20).

3"

36 Paul Thieme

has swift horses; who as the first seizes the gold -decora~ed, .. h 'ghts (literally' "backs") [of the Hara mountam]: shlnlng el' ,

from there he looks at the whole country of the Aryans. Luminous as the god himself are his horses:

10.68 ... yim aUl'uanto mainyaualJho aurusa z'aoxsna fl'adJl"Jsl'a spJnta ufoua7Jho asaya maniuasauho uazJnti

'[Contract's chariot,] which horses draw, consisting of spirit, white, luminous, spectacular, sacred, wise, shadow­less, of the swiftness of spirit.'

27. Light is visible, yet it lacks form and shape. Hence the poet's urge to materialize still further. He indulges in it when speaking of those appurtenances that are not part of the living body: the horses' shoes and the god's weapons. Now, light is replaced by its material equivalents: the horses' shoes are gold 01' silver (Yt. 10.125), Contract's club .is moulde~ of yellow metal, 23 of gold (96), his armour lS gold, hIS fmsna-(?) silver (112). .

From the rather difficult verse Yt. 10.136 Lommel (op. cIt. 64) infers that it is the golden wheel of MWra's chariot that is identified with the sun. 1 should never claim that such an identification was impossible. It would be on the same line as when, in the RV, the sun is called Mitra's (and, e. g., VaruJ;la's) eye. 1 have, however, doubts a~ to t~e. validity of Lommel's translation. The subject of zao{}l'a bamztz can hardly be MiSra and the rendering of asan as by "Schleudersteine" (with a question mark) makes so little sense that it is almost certainly incorrect:

Yt. 10.136 ya11mai aUl'usa aUl'uanta yüxta uasa {}anjasante aeua caxz'a Zal'anaena asanas ca ufspo·bama yezi se zao{}l'a bamiti aui se mae{}anJm

23 Cf. the porro:í\6v rrO:yXeXAKEov held in his hands as a hunting weapon by Orioll, Odyssey 11.575.

--~~--,--~---~..,. ----·;:i--.. jjji.!iíiiJiii!íaíí!i •. ~iIiIli __ .. r.I_ ...... - ... 2 ••• 2.a •• "12.liIU •••

lvIitm and Al'yaman § 26-28 37

1 should propose the following translation: 'For whom (Contract) white horses yoked to fue chariot24

will draw [the chaTÍot] towards the place of a man (se) if he ofIers him (Contract) pourings [of sacrificial food]-by the one golden wheel [of that chariot] even the skies are all­luminous. '

1 should hold it possible that the horses and the chaTÍot spoken of here are those ofthe Sun (huw'Jxsaeta), who is wor­shipped together with MiSra at the morning sacTÍfice (Ny 1.5-7, Yt. 6.5) and rises 'for his benefit' (yahmai). This is stated more prosaically in

Yt. 10.90 ... yahmai huw'J CllZl'Uat.aspJm dÜl'at mmo baooayeiti

'[Contract,] fol' whom the sun, that has swift horses, awak­ens worship from afar.'

Cf. RV 5.62.2d ánu uam ékaI;t pauÍl' á uauada 'in compliance wifu you two (Mitra and VarUl;ta) the one tire (= the wheel of the sun) has roUed here (= the sun has arisen)'. 28. It would seem to be an easy supposition that the luminous and shining appearances of God Contract, of his horses, chariot and weapons are an expression of the purity of his ethical character also. However, the poet of the Yast does not give an indication that would point distinctly in this direction. Rather, there is a connection established (e. g. Yt. 10.13, 143) between the luminosity of this god who consists of spirit ancl his capacity to see everytlling: he is light also in so far as there exists for him no crime covering darkness.

If we assume that the poet expressed a common belief­in a more perfect manner, though, than any ordinary man would have been able to do,-no difficulty stands in the way of Meillet's suggestion that the later identification of MiSra with the sun-attested e. g. by Strabo, by Mithra-inscriptions, by N ew Persian mihiz' 'sun' beside mihil' 'friendship' -was due to an amalgamation of the ideas that the sun is the eye that sees everything, even hidden crime, and that nothing escapes the w~tchful, omniscient MiSra (JA 10.150 fI. [1907]).

24 For the cOllstructiOll cf. RV 1.164.19 dhurá . •. yuktás.

38 Paul Thieme

I should even say that this was a predictable type of de­velopment. The ideas of the thinkers and artists are liable to be adapted to the needs of more simple people who want something to look at when they pray. They identify the picture with the god himself. They take the poet's suggestions and comparisons literally to satisfy their craving for a con­crete manifestation of their godo If the poet calls Mary the 'stella maris', playing on the sound of the name and glori­fying her heavenly merey and dependable kindness, the poor fisherman on the stormy sea is likely to address his prayer to his guiding star itself.

C. MITRA IN THE 1;tGVEDA (RV 3.59)

29. The appellative noun mifloá 'contract' (above § 9), found in the RV, is most probably of neuter gender. Though there are no unambiguous forms preserved, it is an a fortiori con­clusion that a noun in tm- originally was a neuter. The usage of classical Sanskrit, which only knows a mitJ'a n., would appear to confirm it. Avestic mif}ra m. 'contract' must be ex­plained in analogy to mantmjmqf}m m. (Meillet, JA 10.14 [1907]). Likethe personification Ved. V,rtm m. (from themore ancient vftmjvara{ha n. [Benveniste-Renou, Vrtra et Vr1h-agna 27]), Mitrá is, of course, masculine as Avestic MWm. 25

Matters are slightly complicated by the existence of an ap­pellative noun mitrá m. in the RV, which means 'friend [by

25 The possibility that already in Indo-Iranian there existed a *mitrá 'contract' with mascnline endings (like *mánira m. 'thought'), can of course not be precluded. The essential point is the distinction between the abstract *mitrá n. (01' m.) 'contract' and the personification *Mitrá m. 'Contract', the abstract *vrlrá n. 'barrage' and the personification Vrlrá m. (RV) '[Demon] Barrage'. Dumézil invokes (Troisieme souverain 137) in vain Meillet's theory on the nse of gender in lE for the purpose of evading the necessity of looking upon Mitra, Aryaman and Vrtra as personifications of abstracts. In the light of Meillet's theory, the question whether the abstracts mitrá, aryamán, vrlrá originally were used only as neuters, becomes otiose. But neither did Meillet himself, nor did Benveniste and Renou ever confound this question of gram­matical theory, which deals with the possibility of treating an abstract gram­matically as "animé", with the issue at hand: a fully developed, serious personification. Nor has this theory any l'elation to the development of lexicographical items like Vedic mitrá m. 'friend-by-contract', Avest. urvaf}a­m. 'friend-by-vow', Vedic aryamán m. 'friend-by-hospitality'.

Mitm and Aryaman § 28-30 39

contract]' and has to be distinguished from Indo-Iranian *Mitrá m. '[personified] Contract'o It is formed in the way in which e. g. A vestic urvaf}a m. 'friend [by vow]' is derived from an old *urvaf}a n. (~Ga.sic urvata-, Ved. vmta n. 'vow'), preserved in aUl'vaf}a- 'without vow'. 26 The procedure involved is well known. Cf. for example my discussion in Heimat del' indogermanischen Gemeinsprache 64 ff.

The special formula for the RV is then:

mitrá n. 'contract' (it): MitJ'á m. 'Contract' (he).

I propose to test it by applying it to RV 3.59, the only hymn that is dedicated to Mitra in its entirety. All western scholars seem to be agreed that this hymn is 'colourless' (e. g. Geldner) and hence without significance. I hold it to be just as colourful and significant as any other hymn of the RV. No hypothesis on the character of God Mitra the truth of which cannot be tested by what this hymn says, can be considered to be validly established.

30. RV 3.59.1a mitl'ó jániin yiitayati bl'Uvii1J.ál;t 'Contract, when named, makes peoples array (arrange)

themselves [with regard to each other] (= 'causes them to make mutual agreements')'.

Meillet translates: 'fait tenir leurs engagements aux hom­mes'. In the light of Oldenberg's discussion ofroot yat (Indog. Forsch. 31.127-34), I prefer my rendering (Geldner, Übel'­setzung2 : 'eint die Menschen', Lüders, Val'U1J.a 1.38: 'bringt zum Vergleich') that would stress Contract's action as estab­lishing rather than as keeping people's mutual relations. For special support I refer to RV 5.66.6 á yád viim ... mítm vayálJ! ca süráyaJ:t!vyáci#he bahupáyye yátemahi svarájye 'that, o Contract, we (the poets) and the hosts (who have invited the poets to sing at their sacrifice) may arrange ourselves mutually (make mutually satisfying arrangements) under your (thy and Varul,la's) rulership, which is of greatest width and of many protections'; VS 27.5 mitJ'é1J.iigne mitmdhéye yatasva 'O Fire, through [God] Contract arrange yourself in

26 Yt. 10.11 Mi.9ra is asked fol' victory over 'those without vow (who do not recognize the sacredness of vows taken in the conclusion of a treaty).'

40 Paul Thieme

friendship'27; RV 10.127.7 fl,H'Í • •• yataya 'have the debts arranged (= payed)'; vairayatana 'arranging (paying) the weregeld'; Yt. 10.78 tüm fa daÍlJhavo nipahi ya hubJraitfm yatayeiti mi{}rahe 'thou observest those countries, [as to] which one has good keeping of its contract arranged'.

Geldner translates mitró . .. bruvaIJál;t 'he who names hiril­self Mitra (friend)'. 1 have agreed to this formerly (Fremdling 16). The rendering is, in fact, grammatically unimpeachable. Yet, at the best, this can be a secondary sense only, due to the possibility of playing on the homonyms lv!itJ'á m. 'Con­tract' and mitrá m. '(contractual) friend' (cf. Meillet, JA 10.145 [1907]: ton a pu jouer sur ce sens ['friend'] du mot mitra en sanskrit'). bJ'uvaIJá can of course mean 'being named' as well as 'naming himself'. It is obvious that here, in the beginning of a hymn to Mitra, we are dealing primarily with the appellative meaning 'Contract' as established by the Avesta. It is borne out, further, by the parallel passage

RV 7.36.2 d jánaIp ca mitl'ó yatati bnzuaIJál;t 'Contract, when named, arranges people (brings them to

agreement). ' By Meillet's interpretation ('quand il est invoqué' JA 10.148

[1907]) both passages become really significant: a contract acquires efficient sacredness, if God Contract is invoked at the time of its conclusion. 'Ve found the same idea expressed in Yt. 10.55, where it is said that God Contract will manifest himself in a contract if-at the time of its conclusion-he is worshipped 'with a worship in which his name is spoken' (above § 20). The very technique of the composition of RV 3.59 testifies to the correctness ofMeillet's translation: not only is Contract actually named in each single verse of the hymn, but each line of the first verse starts with the name Mitra.

Contract is called yatayájjana in 3.59.5 (see below § 42). Also other gods may receive this qualification:

God Pire (Agni), the fire being invoked as a witness at the conclusion of certain contracts (cí. Lüders, Val'UIJa 1 38):

27 AV 2.6.4b mitréI;tligne milradhá yatasva 'Through Contract, o Pire, arrange yourself, creating a contracto' That mitradhá stands by sandhi for mitradhás is in view of milra-dhéya, mitrá-dhití, milrá-dhita hardly doubtable. Nor is there any reason to doubt the reading.

~~~--.. -.---~ ..... -_.-.~~-~-~-----",p.",,_ .... ___ ¡¡¡¡ti!'!. -_ ••• _kIlC ... SIlll\lS ••• UIllllIlllllIlllll ••••• · •. ·ll.' ••

Mitra and Aryaman § 30 41

RV 8.102.12c [agnfm] mitl'álfl na yatayájjanam '[Pire,] who causes people to make mutual agreements

like Contract.'

01' God Varul,la, that is' the personified Oath (Lüders, VCll'UIJa 1 28-37) 01', as 1 should prefer, the personified True Speech. 28 The. important role of oath, 01', more generally, true speech in the concluding of a contract is evident:

RV 5.72.2 ab vraténa stho dhl'Uvák~ema dhármaIJa yatayájjana

'Y ou two (Mitra and VarUl).a, i. e. Contract and True­Speech) are of firm peace through vow (= you secure peace by seeing to it that vows are kept), you cause people to make mutual agreements through firmness (= you make contractual arrangements desirable as establishing firm relations).' Cp. also below § 53.

5.65.6 ab yuválfl mitl'Cmálfl jánalfl yátathal;t sálfl ca nayathal;t

'You two, Contract [and True-Speech] arl'ange (bring to agreement) these people (host and poets, cf. cd) and bring them together.'

01' Aryaman, that is the personified Hospitality:29

1 . 1 36. 3 f mitJ'ás táyoJ' váJ'uIJo yatayájjano 'l'yamá yatayájjanal;t

'Amongst these two (Contract and True-Speech, mentioned in e), Contract (Mitra) is True-Speech (Varul,la) insofar as he (True-Speech) causes people to make mutual agreements, and [Contract is] Hospitality (Aryaman) in so far as he (Hospitality) causes people to make mutual agreements.'

Geldner's and Dumézil's (Tl'oisieme souvaain 37) trans­lations are unacceptable. They claim the poet to have been "ungeschickt" 01' "gauche", which rather applies to them­selves as they do not realize that the subject, qualified by táyos, logically can be only one of the two names mentioned

28 cr'. below §§ 49-55. 29 Cf. below §§ 57, 62-66.

42 Paul Tllieme

before, and that, consequentIy, both váru{las and aryamá must be the predicate. 30

31. RV 3.59.1b mitJ·ó diidhiil'a prthivím ulá dylim 'Contract has earth and heaven in keeping.'

In the Avesta, Contract 'looks on everything that is between earth and heaven' (Yt. 10.95, aboye § 22), he is 'the guardian and protector of the whole earth' (Yt. 10.103, aboye § 22), not only to be worshipped by mortaIs, but worshipped by gods also (Yt. 10.55, aboye § 20). Yet, he has no distinct cosmic function as such. In the RV, on the contrary, it is very much in evidence. In our line, it is contrasted with his rOle in human society, of which the preceding line was speaking.

It is an outstanding feature of the Rigvedic .Aditya religion that Contract and all the other deified personifications of moral concepts: Hospitality (Aryaman), Portion (Bhaga), Share (A1llsa), and, especially, True-Speech (VaruJ,1a) are credited with the creation and the keeping in order not only of human society but of the whole universe. They exercise this function by pronouncing and keeping their own vows and watching over the vows of all others. I give a few charac­teristic examples:

RV 7.66.11 ví yé dadhúJ;¡. sal'ádar]1 másam ád áhar yajnám aktúrp. cád tcam ...

'[True-Speech, Contract, Hospitality] who have fixed in diverse ways (created) year, month, day and night, worship (which involves contractual relations between mortal s and gods, host and priests) and [sacred] verse (which consists in true speech and is a feature of the hospitality extended to the gods, who are feted and entertained as guests) ... '

30 On occasion, the two Násatyas, too, exercise the function of 'arranging people that are connected by a contract', that is, 'causing them to abide by their contractual terms': RV 8.35.12 a hatázr¡ ca sátrün yátatam ca mitrír;za{! 'you two kill the enemies and arrange (keep united) those connected by a contract'. A statement like this, incidentally, is incompatible with the assertive characterisation of the Násatyas Dumézil gives e. g. Naissance d'archanges 34

("uniquement bienveillants et bienfaisants" etc.).

Mitra and Aryaman § 30-32

5.69.1 tri meaná varu{la tl"iffzl' utá dyíÍn tl"t{li mitra dhiirayatho l"ájárp.si vávrdhánáv amátirp. k~atríyasya­ánu vratárp. l"ák~amá{láv ajuryám

43

'True-Speech and Contract! You two keep (preserve in order) the three [heavenly] luminous spheres (the worlds of light aboye the v'ault of the sky),31 the three heavens, the three spaces; [yo u have] grown strong [so that there be] the might (?, splendour?) of [your] sovereignty, observing (protecting) fittingly (ánu) the unaging (eternal) vow.'

This great cosmic function is in close relation to the .Adityas· funetion of creating prosperity (cí. aboye § 3). For example:

5.62.3 ádhárayatarp. prthivfm ulá dyám mUra riijáná vaI'U{lá máhobhiJ:¡ val"dháyatam ó~adh'iJ:¡ pínvatarp. gá áva vr~fírp. srjatarp. jiradiinü

'You two, king Contract and ldng True-Speech, made firm earth and heaven by your greatness. Cause the plants to grow, cause the cows to swell [with milk], send down the rain, you of live wetness!'

The original motivation for their creating pl'ospel'ity is, of course, that Contraet and True-Speech seCUl'e peace. Cor­respondingly, Contraet in the Avesta is calIed tat'áp- 'by whom the water falIs' and uxsyat'ul"Vara- 'by whom the plants grow' (Yt. 10.61, cf. also aboye § 21). This idea, the age of ,vhich is warranted by the Avesta, is, however, crossed with a different one in the RV: as the guardians of the ethics of the sacrifice, they are responsible for all the beneficent effects the sacrifice is supposed to work. Cf. below § 46.

32. RV 3.59.1ecl mitl'áJ:¡ lcr#íl' ánimi~iibhí ea#e mitJ'áya havyárp. ghrtávaj jullOta

'Contract regards the peoples without blinking (not closing his eyes even for a moment). To Contract pour out a pouring consisting of ghee!'

The correspondellce to the Avestic Contract is complete. He, too, regards (adidiiiti) the countries (dahyu), is wakeful

31 Cf. Lüders, VarUJ;!fl 1.66-71.

44 Paul Thieme

and without sleep (aboye § 22). Closest is the parallelism of the line repeated in the beginning of eaeh karda (beginning with 2) of Yt. 10:

mi{}l'éJm ... yazamaide ... bacual'éJ'casmanéJm ... axua{néJm ... jagaul'uáhéJm.

33. RV 3.59.2 pl'á sá mitl'a mál'to astu pl'áyasuan yás ta aditya Sik~ati umténa ná hCl1lyate ná jfyate tuóto nainam ámho asnoty ántito ná dUl'át31a

'That mortal, o Contraet, may be distinguished (pl'á) as having refreshments (= water froID rain and rivers), who exerts himself for thee, o Aditya, by [keeping his] vow; being helped by thee, he is not slain, not overpowered; narrowness (anxiety) do es not reaeh him neither from neal', nor froll1. afar.'

The literal translation of Mitra by 'Contraet' obviates the neeessity for far-fetehed and unpl'ovable speeulations on the sense of Ul'aténa in b, sueh as the suggestion of Geldner, who infers that the eult of Mitra 'presumably' was eonneeted with a special vow of fasting. It is self-evident (cf. also Yt. 10.11, aboye § 29 n. 26) that the vow 'by whieh one exerts oneself fol' God Contraet' is the vow that is made in eoncluding a eontraet. Our verse tells us that aman who keeps his con­tractual vow is rewarded by God Contraet through 'refresh­ments' (a), helped by him against his enemies in battle (e), and proteeted from lawless attaeks in peaee (d). 34. The faith expressed here is, again, in perfeet agreement with that expressed throughout the Mihir yast. There are even verbal eorrespondenees:

a) pl'áyasuán (a) Yt. 10.112 ... cifh·a mirhahe {rayana

yaséJ tqm dahyiim ácal'aiti ya{}a hub<Jl'éJto bal'aiti pa{}ana ja{l'a gaoyaotae

ala Seven instead of five syIlables before the caesura. 1 should not cou­sider correcting the Hne by a conjecture (thus Oldenberg, Noten), but rather think that the poet by intentionally crowding his Hne wauts to picture the arphas. ef. Thiell1e, Language 31.434 note 4 on RV 5.59.2a.

Mitm and Al'yaman § 32-34 45

'\Vonderful are Contraet' s means of refreshing ({rayana: by whieh he brings what the RV ealls pl'áyas), who comes to that eountry; as he brings ,yhen he is well kept [means of refreshing that are] broad, deep for eattle pasture (the "means of refreshing" obyiously are riyers ,yhieh are a eondition fol' l'ieh pasture).'

Cf. also aboye § 31 on Yt. 10.61 and RV 5.62.3. The relation between Contraet's {l'ayana- and gaoyaoiti- has an aeeurate analogy e. g. in RV 5.69.2 ab il'áuatfl' uaz'uIJa dhenáuo Ucl1!Z/ mádhumad UalJl sindhauo mitra duhre 'True Speeeh and Con­traet! Your eows aTe eharaeterized by liquid (they abound in milk like streams in water); your streams give honey­sweet milk (they abound in sweet water like eows in sweet milk) , ; RV 3.62.16ab á no mitl'aUCl1'UIJá ghrtail' gáuyiitim uk~atam 'Contraet ancI True Speeeh! spl'inkle oul' eattle­pasture with ghee ( fertile rain)', 7.62.5 á no gáuyiitim uk~atcllJl ghrténa, 7.65.4, 5.66.3.

In both the Ayesta and fue RV, Contraet is qualified as 'eharaetel'ized by riehes (whieh he bestows)': Yt. 10.78 (mcuant-), RV 8.47.9 (reuant).

b) ná hanyate ná jfyate (e) The neeessal'y positiye eomplement of this negatiye state­

ment is that aman who does not keep his contractual vow is slain and overwhelmed.

RV 10.152.1b-d [asi] amilzoakhádó ádbhutal:t ná yásya lwnyáte sákha ná jíyate káda caná

'[Thou, o Indra, al't] a mil'aeulous erusher of those without eontracts (who do not lmow 01' keep eontraets), [thou] whose friend is not slain nor oyerwhelmed.'

The yerb gan 'slay' (Vedie han) is eharaeteristieally used of God Contraet's aetion against the 'eontraet deeeiyers' all through the Mihir yast. Once also the yel'b zyá (Ve die jyá):

Yt. 10.38 xl'iima saitayo {iázinte ... yahua mi{}l'o'dmjo syete

'Those ... 32 dwellings are oyerwhelmed ({mzinte = Ved. pl'á + jfyante) in whieh the eontraet deeeivel's liye.'

32 On xrüma- cf. LOll1ll1el, Die Yasfs 116, n. 4.

46 Paul Tllieme

Both roots, gan and zya, describe the avenging action of God Contract with particular aptness, as will be realized when it is called to mind that both verbs may be used with miB-ra 'contract' as an object:

Yt. 10.2 ... mWram ma janya spitama 'Do not slay (break) a contract, o Spitama'33;

Yt. 10.82 (cf. also Y. 61.3) mWrijozyqm mWro'druiam ca (cf. aboye § 17).

Contract 'slays' (gan) and 'overwhelms' (zya) those who 'slay' (break) and 'overwhelm' (violate by force) a contract. He pays back in kind.

c) ná ... áIJ!llo asnoti The Adityas in general (e. g. 7.40.4) 01' VarUJ,la and Mitra

(e. g. 6.3.1cd), 01' Mitra alone (cf. also 4.55.5 ... áIJ!llaso '" mill'ó mit1'Íyat ... na ul'u~yet 'may Contract deliver us from the anxiety that comes from a contract partner [mitm m.]') deliver from 'narrowness' 01' 'anxiety'. Thus the Avestic MiSra, too:

Yt. 10.22 ... yo naJ';¡m anaiwidmxt6 apa qza7Jllat bamiti ...

'[Contract,] who, when undeceived, carries [a man] out of anxiety ... '

35. RV 3.59.3 anamzvtísa ílaya mádanto mitájnavo vál'imann tí prtllivytí1;L adityásya vmtám upak~iyánto vayáIJ! mitrásya sumataú syama

'Without illness, rejoicing through invigoration, with lmees firmly implanted on the width ofthe earth, dwelling (k~iyánto) in the protection of (upa) (01': 'abiding by') fue vow of the Aditya-may we be under the friendliness of Conh'act.'

The statement of faith contained in the preceding verse is followed here by a prayer inspired by this faith, The paral­lelism of the ideas expressed in verse 2 and the wishes voiced in verse 3 is evident, though the poet has taken pains to variate the formulations. The Yiist, in desisting from variation,

33 Cf. the demon's name Mitraghna, Ram. 6.18.11,34 (PW).

Mitra and Aryaman § 34-36 47

makes fue analogy between the statement of faith (Yt. 10.22, quoted aboye § 34 end) and the following prayer more obvious:

Yt. 10.23 apa no llaca qza7Jllat apa llaca qza7Jllibyo mWm barois anadruxt6

36. Sorne of the terms used in verse 3 and my translation of them may call for comment:

a) anamzvtísas:

The wish to be 'without illness' in the Rigvedic prayer to Contract will immediately bring to mind the prayer of the warriors in the Mihir Yast asking for 'firmness for their bodies' (Yt. 10.11, aboye § 23), which is motivated by the belief that Contract helps those battling against 'contract deceivers', In the Rigvedic verse the prayer stands without relation to such special context, just as the Yast's assertion that 'Contract gives quick horses' (Yt. 10.3) is a generalisation of the prayer of the warriors fighting against 'contract deceivers' that Con­tract may give 'swiftness to their horses' (Yt. 10.11, aboye § 23).

The expression 'without illness' corresponds to ná llanyate ná jZyate in verse 2.

b) ílaya mádantas Already Lanman, NOUll inflexion 493 has established that

íla/ír;la is used as a regular supplement for í~ f. in certain forms. Both words mean 'refreshment, invigoration', often designating the 'invigorating drink offered to a god at the sacrifice'. But this latter is a special sense accruing from the context, it is not a necessary element of the word í~/ír;la. Geldner's translation "Opferspeise" is an interpretation not warranted by the context of our verse. 'Contract' and 'True Speech' give 'invigoration' and rain, for example:

7.64.2 cd ílam no mitraval'UJ:;wtá vr#fm áva divá invataIJ! jZradanü

'Contract and True Speech! you who are of live wetness! caUSe invigoration and rain to come to us from heaven!' (Geldner here translates íla by "Segen');

48 Paul Thieme

5.70.2 .,. vilm ... i~am ... asyilma 'May we obtain your (Contraet's and True-Speeeh's) in­

vigoration .. .' (Cf. also 3.59.9 (below § 46).

[layil mádantas is, thus, only a different, more vivid ex­pression for what was said in verse 2 by práyasviln.

e) mitájnavas: 'with lmees firmly implanted'. Geldner: "mit aufgestemm­

ten Knien' subtly ehanges the meaning of mitá (p.p. of root mi 'implant firmly [e. g. a pillaT J') and undeTstands (ef. note on RV 7.82.4) the expTession to refeT to the position ofpraying. There is, however, no kneeling in Ve die pTayers aUested otherwise. The sense seems to be: 'standing firmly [without feaT]', the eontraTy of English 'weak-kneed'. RV 7.82.4 pj·tanasu váhnayas... k~émasya prasavé mitájnavaJ:¡ 'the ehaTioteers in the battIes ... those who aTe standing fiTmly [without feaT] in the promotion of peaee (fighting to establish peaee and seeurity)'. 34

'Standing fiTmly [without fear] on the width of the eaTth' is, again, a pietuTesque variation of the expression: naínam áI[!ho ('nalTowness') asno ti in verse 2.

The parallelism of veTse 2 and 3 beeomes the more aeeurate, the more literal our translation is, whieh eonfirms the eorrect­ness of our proeedure where it disagrees with Geldner's:

Verse 2 a mártas ... pl'áyasviln b yás ta ilditya Sik~ati vl'Clténa e ná hanyate ná jfyate d nainam áI[!ho asno ti a tvótas

Verse 3 a ilayil mádantas e ildityásya vl'Cltám upak~iyántas a anilmfvásas b mitájnavo vál'imann á prthivyáJ:¡ d vayáI[! mitl'ásya sumataú syiima

34 It is a Trói\e¡..lOS elplÍvr¡s Xáplv (Arist. Polit. 7.14.13).

Mitra and Aryaman § 36-37

37. RV 3.59.4 ayáI[! mitz'ó namasyaJ:¡ susévo rájil suk~atz'ó ajani#a vedháJ:¡ tásya vayáI[! sumataú yajníyasya­ápi bhadré saumanasé syama

49

'Contract, [who is] worthy of (saerifieial) reverenee, bene­volent, a king .of good rulership has been born [now] as this leader(?). May we be under the friendliness of this [leader], [who is] worthy of worship, in auspieious gladness.'

Aeeording to Ve die usage, still presupposed by PaJ;lini 3.2.111, the aorist ajani$fa must refer to a happening that has just taken place. The introducing ayám also must refer to something that is before the eye. Consequently, we have to look for a male objeet that is before the eye, is born 'today', and is likely to be identified with God Contraet. This objeet might be, for example, the sun. But more likely, 1 think, it is the fire,

1 have drawn aUention to it that Fire is yiltayájjana like Contraet (above § 30), ealling to mind Lüders' demonstration that in Ve die times a eontraet was-on oeeasion-eoncluded in front of a fire (Val'U~a 1.38):

RV 10.8.4ed rtáya saptá dadhi~e padáni janáyan mitráI[! tanve sváyai

'Thou (Fire) hast put down (established) the seven steps for truth (ef. Lüders' explanation), generating Contraet for thy own body.'

Aeeording to this expression Contraet is as it were the tanuja 'the own son' ("leiblieher Sohn") of Agni.

Fire is identified with several gods (VaruJ;la, Indra), amongst them Contraet, in RV 5.3.1 (ef. below § 67 b). Line b runs:

tváI[! mitró bhavasi yát sámiddhal,l 'Thou (Fire) beeomest Contraet when thou are kindled.'

Cf. ,also RV 2.1.4e tváI[! mitró bhavasi dasmá ftJyah 'Thou (Fire), the wise one, who is to be refreshed, beeomest

Contraet.' 4

...

50 Paul Thieme

The expression vedhás used in RV 3.59.4b is, unfortunately, not quite clear,35 but, to judge by its usage, it is a partieularly apt designation of God Fire. The lines 5.3.1b, 2.1.4e prove beyond doubt that Fire may turn into God Contraet, may beeome his manifestation. The possibility that ayám ... ajani#a vedháJ:¡. in RV 3.59.4 ab identifies Mitra with· Agni is, thus, established. It is raised to an evidenee by a further faet: the lines 3.59.4ed are identieal to lines that oeeur, in the same m aJ;uja la, in a hymn to Fire: 3.1.21ed. 38. The identifieation of God Contraet and God Fire, whieh is suggested in RV 3.59.4, do es not, however, lead the poet to say anything about Contraet that would not suit his par­ticular personality. Gods that are identified in the RV are never, 1 maintain, identified in sueh a way as to make one god aequire attributes whieh do not beeome him. They are said to be identieal only insofar as eertain funetions and properties of theirs are identieal in faet.

AH the attributes that, in our verse, fit Fire, fit Contract too. 1 prove it by eonfronting them with analogous expressions of the Mihir YiiSt:

namasya (a): e. g. Yt.l0.6 mi1}l'Jm ... pairijasái vanta ca nJma7Jha ca

suséva (a): e. g. Yt. 10.29 tüm ... vahistas ca mi1}m ahi ma­syákaeibyo

l·ájá suk§all'ás (b): e. g. Yt. 10.78 mHh'o ... dai7Jhupaitis, 10.29 ... vahistas ca ... dai7Jhubyo

yajnfya ( e): e. g. Yt. 10.1 aZJm spitama áat dfm dadqm avantJm yesnyata ... ya{}a mqm dt yim ahw'Jm mazdqm

The 'gladness, serenity' (saumanasá), whieh derives (3.59.4d) from Contraet's 'friendliness' (sumatf, 3.59.4e), also can be matehed by a passage in the Yiist:

Yt. 10.33 dazdi ahmákJm tal áyaptJm yasJ {}wá yásámahi süra w'vaiti dátanqm srava7Jhqm islfm amJm vJl'J{}mgnJm ca ...

35 Cf. Thieme, Uniersuchungen zur Wortkunde... des Rigveda (1949)

46, n.2.

'WR pu Si $ L

jVitm and Al'yaman § 37-39

34 ya{}a vaem humana7Jho fl'amana7Jhas ca urvázJmna haomana7Jhimna vanáma vfspJ ha[mJ ]n{}ij

51

'Give us [o Contraet!] that gift for whieh (yasJ {}wá: sandhi for yat {}wá) we are asking thee, o hero, by the vow of the words that were set down36 (in the terms and the aeeom­panying ble~sings and curses of the eontraet): prosperity, attacldng force, and victory... so that we may win aH battles, being of good mood (serene), of bold (lit. 'forward') mood, happy, enjoing serenity.'

39. Verse 3, already, has spoken of Contraet's 'friendliness' (sumati), and verse 5 will eaH him 'benevolent' (suSéva) again. Yet, we must not allow ourselves to be deeeived. There is a striet eondition to this friendliness: it exists only for those 'who abide by Contraet's vow' (verse 3), for the man who 'exerts himself fol' Contraet by keeping his vow' (verse 2). It is the eonsequenee of his justiee. Its neeessary eomplement is Contraet' s unfriendliness towards 'eontraet deeeivers'. The Yiist shows quite distinetly that Contraet's friendliness and Contraet's terribleness are not two different, diseonneeted traits of bis personality, but the two sides that make up the eonsistent unity of his ethieal eharaeter: he is friendly to the righteous insofar as he is terrible to the deeeitful and vice versa.

The Yiist sums up MiSra's eharaeter tersely:

Yt. 10.29 tüm ako vahistas ca mi1}m ahi dai7Jhubyo tüm ako vahistas ca mi1}m ahi masyákaeibyo tüm áxstois anáxstois ca mif)l'a xsayehe dahyunqm

'Thou, o Contraet, art bad and very good to the eountries, thou art bad and very good to the mortals, thou, Contraet, art lord of the peaee and the non-peaee of the eountries ... '

36 Lommel translates with an expression borrowed from the Old Testa­ment, which makes sense only for people familiar with the story of God's COVe\lant with Abraham (Genesis, chapter 17). More illustrative might be a reference to a Rigvedic expression like mitrásya dhámabhis (1.14.10, below § 46).

4*

2 ... 1

52 Paul Thieme

There is no justifieation for pretending that it is only Varu~a's wrath and punishment of whieh the Ve die poet is afraid. 'Contraet' is 'friendly' and 'terrible' in exaetly the same way as 'True-Speeeh'. 'Ve have explicit statements in the RV that eannot be brushed aside. The less so as the Avesta eonfirms the presumption that the Ve die poets in aseribing wrath and vengefulness to Mitra mean what they say: it is one of the most serious defeets of Bergaigne's argu­ment that he altogether negleeted the evidenee of the Avesta.

RV 7.62.4ed miÍ héle bhüma uárw;wsya uayór miÍ mitrásya priyátamasya nrIJiÍm

'May we not be under the wrath of True-Speeeh [and] "Vind, not [under that] of Contraet, who is most dear to men (seil.: who keep their contractual vows).' Cf. 1.94.12.

10.36.12be ánaga mitré uáruIJe suastáye ... syíima 'May we be without guilt against Contract and True-Speeeh,

so that well-being prevail.'

7.65.3 ab tá bháripdSíiu ánrtasya sétü dUl'atyétü l'ipáue mál'tyíiya

'These two (Contraet and True-Speeeh) have many slings (in whieh to catch a eunning transgressor), they are fetterers of untruth37, diffieult for the deeeitful mortal to cireumvent.'

The very same is said of all the Adityas:

2.27.16ab yiÍ UD míiyiÍ abhidl'úhe yajatl'ii1:t piÍS6. íidityíi l'ipáve uícrltíi1:t

'The wondrous erafts (míiyiÍ) you have for the deeeitful one (abhidl'úhe: ef. the standing use of aiwidruj in Yt. 10), o you who are worthy of worship, the slings you have knoUed for the crooked one, o you Adityas .. .'. Cf. also 2.29.5. 38

37 The Avesta has no precisely corresponding term, but the affinity of the ideas expressed in Yt. 10.20, 21, 23 (above § 23) can hardly escape notice.

38 It is quite true that 'nets' and 'slings' often are associated with magical ideas. They have, however, a function in practical life, too. A god who uses 'slings' is not necessarily 'a magician', which often seens to be taken for granted too easily. 1 refer to the cJ"Teyavov 8krvov, 'the covering net [of doom]', which Night flings over the Trojan fortress (Aeschylus, Agamemllon

9M

Mitra and A..l'yaman § 39-40 53

7.60.10b ... apfcyena sáhasíi sáhante 'they (Aditi, Mitra, Varu~a, Aryaman: Guiltlessness, Con­

traet, True-Speeeh, Hospitality) overpower by an over­powering that comes from the off-side.' Cf. Yt. 10.19, aboye § 24.

1.167.8 b c~yata fm m'yamó ápmsastíin 'Hospitality punishes (makes pay atonement) the non­

praiseworthy (= 'those who act dishonorably [against guests 01' a host]').

This corresponds exaetly to what is said of Contraet in Yt. 10.26 [mW1'<lm] ... acaetíil'iJm mifh'o'drujqm 'Contraet, the punisher of those that violate a contraet by deeeit'; Yt. 10.35 miihiJm. .. al'iJnat'caesiJm39 'Contraet ... who avenges [un­paid] debts (Lommel: "Sehuldraeher")'.

A more farfetehed, yet precise analogy to the idea expressed in RV 1.167.8b is furnished, for example, by Aesehylus. Zeus 'who proteets the stranger (guest 01' host)' (~ÉV10S) effeets that Alexandros (Paris) is reached by his fate (Agamemnon v. 362-6), whieh he brought on himself: 'Paris coming to the house of the Atrids dishonored (iJaxvvE) [byaeting dishonor­ably] the hospitable board by stealing the wife [of the host]', (Agamemnon v. 399-402). 40. 'AH remedy is futile: guilt40 eannot be hidden, but re­mains eonspicuous as a light of terrible shine', 'none of the gods will listen to [depreeatory] supplieations' (Agamemnon v. 388-9, 396). Yet, whenever mankind has clung to a faith

355 fl'.). From Ed. Fraenkel's commentary on the passage a Vedologist might learn how to analyze an imagery by asking practical questions ('What kind of net and what kind of creatures were in the poet's mind ?') first.

39 1 interpret the orthography as reflecting an older norm: *rna-eaieyam, *caicya- being allalyzable as an intensive adjective of the type Sanskrit nenya (cf. Wackernagel-Debrunner 2.2 § 25). § for ey is normal: Bartholomae, Gl'undriss 1, 1.7 (§ 7), 38 (§ 90, 2 and 2a). t.e for e: Bartholomae o. c. 158 (§ 268,52).

40 1 translate o-ívos 'harm' by 'guilt' to make it clear that Aeschylus is thinking-llot of the 'harm' done to Menelaos personally, but of the 'harm' done to the sacred institutioll of hospitality ('the violation of the rights of hospitality': Ed. Fraenkel, Agamemnon 2.210). EKpÚ<pSr¡ is gnomic aorist (Fralmkel op. cit. 2.202), which Fraenkel's translation (op. cit. 1.115): 'Not hidden is. the harm' does not make obvious.

54 Paul T1Iieme

in heavenly justiee, it has not been able to l'efrain altogether from adding to it a eonfidenee in heavenly merey. Even the relentlessly eonsistent God Contraet of the Avesta, is ealled upon to come 'for merey' (Yt. 10.5 maridikcri) ancI designated as hvcrmaridika- (Yt. 10.140). Sorne of the best lmown hymns of the RV eontain touehing appeals fol' merey (mrlfká) to king True-Speeeh: RV 7.86.2,5; 87.7; 88.6, 7; 89.1-4. Both, Contract and True-Speeeh are qualified as 'mereiful' (mrlayánt) in RV 1.136.1.

RV 2.27.14ab ádite mltra vál'w;wtá mrla yád vo vayáI?l cakrmá káccid ágal:t

'Guiltlessness, Contraet, True-Speeeh! be thou (i. Ef. eaeh ofyou) merciful, too, when we have eommitted any ill against you!'

41. The evidenee is of unambiguous eloquenee: if VaruJ;la can be wrathful, so can Mitra and the other Adityas (§ 39); if VaruJ;la has slings and wondrous erafts, so have Mitra and the other Adityas (§ 39); if Mitra can be ealled 'dear' (pl'iyá), so can there be friendship with VarUl).a (RV 7.88.5, 6); if 'gladness, serenity' comes from Mitra's friendliness (ef. above § 38 on RV 3.59.4a), it comes, likewise, from VaruJ;la's merey (RV 7.86.2): both Mitra and VaruJ;la are said to be 'without bloody hands' (ákravihastcr) for him 'who aets well' (sukft)', and 'not wrathful' (áhf.{lfyamcrncr) (RV 5.62.6). If there be any differenee between VaruJ;la and Mitra in this respeet, it can only be a differenee of degree, not of principIe (ef. below § 54).

42. RV 3.59.5 mahádt adityó námasopasádyo yatayájjano gn;wté suséval:t tásmcr etát pányatamcrya jÚ$tam agnaú mitráya havír á juhota

'The great Aditya, who causes people to make agreements, who is benevolent to the singing [poet], lis] to be approaehed with reverenee. Pour on the fire this [saerificial] pouring that is agreeable to this Contraet, who is most praiseworthy.'

The verse repeats the injunetion given already in verse 1, to pour ghee into the fire as a worshipful offering to Contraet,

Mitra and Aryaman § 40-45 55

summing up, in the first two lines, also the ehief charaeteristies of the god as mentioned in the preeeding verses:

námasopasádyas (a) ycrtayájjanas (b) gp:wté suSévas

namasyas (4a) jáncrn yatayati (la) suSévas (4a)

It looks like a final winding up. In faet, it is the last trii;l1ubh of our hymn. There follow four regular gayatris. Possibly, even most probably, they formed originally a hymn by itself (ef. Oldenberg, Noten).

43. RV 3.59.6 mitrásya car$aI}fdhfto 'vo devásya scrnasí dyumnáJ?1 citrásravastamam

'The help (ef. 2 e) of Contraet, the heavenly one, who keeps (holds) the peoples, is of winning power41, his heavenliness41a

is of most wonderful glory.'

The idea that Contraet 'keeps the peoples' (ef. also e. g. 5.67.2 dhartiÍl'cr cCll'$aI}fnám, of Contraet and True-Speeeh) is in full harmony with what the Yiist says of Contraet as the dahyumlm dailJhupaitis who is 'the lord of peaee and non­peaee of the eountries' Yt. 10.18, 29. This role of his must be anteeedent to the one aseribed to him in 3.59.1b (above § 31).

44. RV 3.59.7 abhí yó mahiná dívam mitró babháva sapráthcrl:t abhí srávobhil:t prthivtm

'Contract, eharaeterized by breadth, has reaehed around heaven by his greatness, around the earth by his fame.'

Cf. Yt. 10.95 (above § 22).

45. RV 3.59.8 mitl'áya páñca yemiu jáncr abhí#iSavase sá deviÍn vísvcrn bibhal'ti

H siinasi: derived from *siinasá 'power of winning', formed from *sánas n. 'winning' (root san). Cf. iiyasá: áyas, siihasa: sáhas (Wackernagel-Debrunner 2.2 § 38e). We should expectthe accent rather on the first syIlable: *sfinasi (cf: Wackernagel-Debrunner 2,2 §§ 189,190).

Ha J. Wackernagel, Sitzungsberichte Preuss. Akademie 1918. 398.

56 Paul Thieme

'For Contract, who has protective strength (01': For making a contract which has protective strength), the five peoples have put reins on themselves ("undergone contractual restric­tions": cf. e. g. 6.67.1 sám . .. yamátw' ... jánan "[Contract and True-Speech, who) hold the peoples in Teins'). He keeps (supports) all the heavenly ones.'

Cf. Yt. 10.13 ('he oyerlooks the whole country of the Aryans', aboye § 22), Yt. 10.55 ('as the ... gods worship me [Contract]', aboye § 20). Contract 'keeps, supports' (bibhal'ti), as a contract (Yt. 10.78, aboye § 30) or God Contract (Yt. 10.112, aboye § 34a) is 'kept' (Av. root bar, cf. mitrabhtt TS 2.4.7.2).

46. RV 3.59.9 mitl'ó devé$v ayú$u jánaya vrktábal'hi$e i$a i$távrata akal;t

'Amongst gods [and] among men Contract has [now]· cTeated refreshments, characterized by desirable vows, for the people who have spread out the (sacrificial) grass seat (= "for the pious who offer sacrifices")'.

The relations between gods and men are of a contractual nature. If men keep their vow to perform sacrifices, the gods will keep their YOW to bestow blessings, which in particular consist of rain and hence are called 'refreshments' (above § 36b). These refreshments are 'characterized by desirable YOWS', that is: 'resting on vows that aTe [mutually] desirable for the contracting parties'.

The aorist akm' anticipates the success of the sacrifice, which is hoped to be instantaneous.

Our verse offers a specific confirmation of the suggestion that Contract and the other Adityas giye refreshments U$/irja) and rule the universe not only because they establish peace and peaceful Telations, which lead to prosperity, in general, but because they are 'the guardians of the ethics of the sacrifice' in particular (above § 31). According to Vedic religion, it is the sacrifice that causes the sun to rise and the rain to fallo Insofar as the .Adityas guarantee ancI watch oyer the truth (Varul,la, cf. also below § 51) of the poet's word (the te), the contractual integrity (Mitra) and hospitable

Mitra and Al'yaman § 45-47 57

sincerity (Aryaman) of the worship (yájña), they have created not only te and yájña, but also day and night, month and season (RV 7.66.11, aboye § 31). The contractual nature of the sacrifice and its relation to the world-preserving functions of Mitra and Varm.la may be illustrated by a further example:

RV 5.69.4 yá dhm·tál'a l'ájaso l'oeanásya­uiádityá divyá pá1'lhivasya ná va1p. devá amtta á minanti vratáni mitl'avaru1J.a dhruvá1J.i

'The immortal gods do not deceive (betray) your firm YOWS, o Contract and True-Speech, who are, as the heavenly .Adityas, the keepers of the space, the luminous sphere [of heaven] and the earth.'

Cf. e. g. 1.14.10 ... somyám mádhv agne ... piba mitl'ásya dhámabhil;t

'Drink, o Fire, the honey which is mixed with sorna, by the establishments of Contract (= "by the stipulations of the sacrificial contract")';

9.97.30b l'ája ná mitl'áI]l pl'á minati dhfl'al;t 'The wise king (Sorna) does not betray (deceitfully break)

the [sacrificial] contract.'

47. Our interpretation has made cIear the composition of the two hymns to Mitra (RV 3.59.1-5, 6-9). The first hymn starts with extolling the three main functions: Mitra induces people to concIude agreements, keeps heaven and earth, and watches the peoples; this is followed by an injunction to pour out for him sacrificial food (v. 1). A statement of faith indicates the rewaTds Mitra holds for the faithful (v. 2), it is accompanied by a prayer for these rewards (y. 3). The next verse gives a mystical identification of God Mitra and Fire, that is: the fire on the sacrificial ground. The hymn closes (v. 5) with a eulogy that recalls the chief points and a repetition of the command to offer Mitra sacrificial food. The second hymn praises Mitra's help and heavell1iness (v. 6), his greatness (v. 7), asserts his importance in protecting men and keeping the gods (v. 8), and applies the general idea of Mitra's signi­ficance <for gods and men to the particular case of the sacrifice : he sees to it that it works satisfactorily for both parties.

58 Paul Thieme

In conclusion let us gather up into brief review what RV 3.59 does and what it does not tell us about God Mitra.

It does not establish Mitra as 'le souverain sous son aspect raisonnant, clair, réglé, bienveillant, sacerdotal' (Dumézil, TJ'oisieme souuerain 26) 01' as 'lumineux' (Bergaigne, Religion uédique 3.117) in contradistinction to any other god, in par­ticular to VaruJ,la. Nor is he depicted as 'soucieux du détail des hommes' (Dumézil, Troisieme souuemin 33).

He is 'a king of good rulership' insofar as he 'keeps the peoples [in peace]' (3.59.6a), watches (v. 1c) and protects them (v. 8c). He does so because he causes them to make agreements with each other (v. la, 5b) and to keep to their [contractual] vows (v. 2b, 3c)-and not because he represents a special 'aspect of sovereignty' (Dumézil).

We hear of his 'friendliness' (v. 3d) and his being 'bene­volent' (v. 3 a, 2 b, 5 a). But these qualities do not derive from his being good-natured in any situation whatever; he is not 'la divinité considérée sous son aspect bienfaisant, amical' (Bergaigne, Religion uédique 3.110) that, without possessing a particular character ("moins un dieu particulier": Bergaigne 1. c.), would be ready to smile at anybody. Like VaruJ,la, he is friendly only to those who keep their vows (v. 2 b, 3 c): we must add that, like VaruJ,la, he has 'wondrous crafts' (miiyá), 'slings' (pása) (RV 2.27.16, 7.65.3) and 'wrath' (héla: RV 7.62.4) to catch and punish transgressors, though, if placated by prayer, he may show mercy, again like VaruJ,la (RV 1.136.1, aboye § 40). Like VaruJ,la, he gives rain and fertility (v. 2 a, 3 a): under his friendliness people live in 'serenity' (v. 3d), just as he who sees VaruJ,la's mercy, is 'serene' (RV 7.86.2).

He exercises cosmic functions too, that again closely cor­respond to those of VanlJ,la. They derive from his character as one of the guardians of the ethics of fue sacrifice (above § 46). There is not even an allusion to the "distinction fonda­mentale" of which Dumézil speaks (TroisiCme souuemin 29) and which is supposed to consist in VaruJ,la being the patron of that part of the religious act which is "plus éloignée" and Mitra of that which is "plus rapprochée de l'homme". He keeps not only earth but also heaven (v. lb), his action con-

Mitm and Aryaman § 47-48 59

cerns gods as well as men (v. 8, 9). His abo de, like that ofthe other Adityas, is heaven (e. g. RV 1.136.2 d dyuk~ám mitrásya sádanam aryamlJó uárulJasya ca)42, yet he may be identified with Fire in his appearance on the sacrificial ground (3.59.4), like other gods, in particular like VaruJ,la (7.12.3a tuám uárulJa utá mitró agne), or VaruJ,la, Aryaman, Arp.sa (5.3.1, 2.1.4, 3.5.3, 4) ..

He is helpful, glorious and great (3.59.7,8) and must be worshipped, particularly by being called by his name (bl'U­uiilJás la) as is actually done in each verse of the hymn and in the beginning of each line of the first verse. The essence of his nature is in this name. So much so that if we, our­selves, do not call him by his na me as it would sound in our language, the whole of RV 3.59 remains 'colourless' and 'insignificant'. As soon as we do so, it acquires sense and beauty. All fue difIerent traits of God Mitra, as sung by the poets, close together into a meaningful and harmonious whole. They reveal themselves, precisely like the features of the Avestic Mi&ra, as a predictably possible result of one single process: the deification of the concept 'contract'. This process must be of Indo-Iranian antiquity. But the poets of the Avesta as well as those of fue ~gveda still understood it and were able to recreate it in their art.

D. MITRA AND VARUNA

48. In forming a hypothesis that would explain the 'oppo­sition' of Mitra and VaruJ,la, we are trying to 'explain' a fact of which the poets of the RV say nothing. The Rigvedic evidence loudly demands an explanation of their basic simi­larity and partial identity. RV 1.136.3 f. (above § 31) shows that this derives from the similarity and identity of their functions (yiitayájjana). They are both kings because of their functions; their functions are similar not because of their kingship, but because of the afflnity of their nature.

Only an appraisal of their affinity will permit an under­standing of their difIerences.

42 Cf. Yt. 10.124, aboye § 25.

60 PalIl Thieme

If Mitra is the personification of an ethical abstract ('con­tract, agreement, treaty'), VarulJa must be the personification of a similar abstracto Already Meillet (JA 10.156 [1907]) has recognized the necessity for this conclusion.

This leaves no possibility for the old equation várw;w ovpCXVÓS 'sky, heaven'. Actually, it has nothing to recommend it seriously, it does not even stand up to an examination from the purely phonologicaI point of view. The two words have in common a vague similarity of sounds, but fuere is no precise correspondence. The different dialectical forms of ovpcxvós have led W"ackernagel (KZ 29.129) to posit an older *voI'sano33, which may be explained as 'fue raining one' (root vel'S 'rain') 01' 'fue high one' (Specht, after vV. Schulze, KZ 66.200, with reference to sanskr. vár~fyas etc. 44).

Just as the etymological analysis of mitI'á 'contract' is of no bearing on fue nature of God Contract (above § 10), the etymological analysis of Vál'lIl)a is irrelevant for God VaTUlJa (cf. Lüders, Vm'lIl)a 1.3, note 2). There is only one difference. The original appellative meaning of mitráfmi{}ra can be accurately established from the contexts in which the word is used (above §§ 9, 10). That of vál'Ul)a is not equally certain. We have to risk a conjecture, for which an investigation of the etymological possibilities may furnish a starting point.

Only two of these have a claim to be seriously considered. Firstly, Vál'lIl)a may be fOTmed with a suffix -lIna (vVacker­

nagel-DebTunner, AUind. Gramm. 2.2 § 302) from root VI' 'enclose'. This analysis \vas defended by BeTgaigne, Rel. véd.

3.113, his most telling argument being that RV 7.82.6 pos­sibly contains a pun on the name VarulJa in the verb form pl'á vl'l)oti 'envelops, emprisons'. On this alternative, the ap­pellative meaning of vál'Ul)a would have been sorne abstract

43 The definite al'guments fol' this l'eeonstruetion and against Solmsen, Untersuchungen 297 f. (quoted by Dumézil, Ouranós- VarU1:za 37) are given by Wackernagel, Sprachliche Untersuchungen zu Romer 136, n. 1. Dumézil sug­gests the aeeent of Lesbic wpavos to be an argument for the equation with várUl;/a (Ouranós- Varu~a 37, n. 2). ls it aetually necessary to refer to Schwy­zer, Griechische Grammatik 1.383 [F 5 el?

44 Cf. RV 4,31.15 vársisthalll dydm iva, 6.47.4 val'imd~am prtlzivyd var$­md~alll divás, 10,63.4, 3.5:9' vál'$man divó ádhi ndbhii prthivydIJ, 4.54.4 prthivyd várimann d. .. vár$man diváIJ,

Mitra and Al'yaman § 48-49 61

clesignated as 'that which envelops, closes in, keeps back'. 45

Lüders, Vm'lIl)a 1.3 n. 2 votes for fuis possibility. He thinks that vál'Ul)a 'that \vhich closes in' was a designation of the concept 'oath' and that VarulJa is Oath personified.

Secondly, vál'Ul)a may be derived, possibly together with vI'-atá 'vow', Aw. lll'vati, Giithic w'vata n,) 'vow' etc., from the LE. roof ver 'speak'. This derivations was considered by Meillet, JA 10.157 f. (1907). Meillet drew attention to the rhyming formation of pUlIna 'calumniator'. He conjectured the appellative meaning of Vál'lll.lCl to have been 'la\Y, order', 49. The particularly close relation of Varu~la to 'truth' (l'tá), as interpreted convincingly by Lüders, Vaz'lIl)a 1.13-27, and to 'YOW' (Ul'cdá) would suggest a concept of a more distinctly ethical value than 'law'. A 'law' is enforced by an organized polítical power, its moral justification is secondary and may be altogether lacking. An undeveloped society cannot rely so much on 'laws' in a technical sense as on the recognition of ethical standards that are protected by gods. Judgments will be pronounced not in accordance with a law code, but in agreement with certain simple principIes, created by custom and necessity, but supposed to be eternal, and understood by everybody.

1 tentatively propose 'true speech', which would be in agreement with Meillet's etymology, and, at the same time, with Lüders' 'oafu', the oath being nothing but a particular solemn and specialízed form of 'true speech'. Certain func­tions of VarulJa (cf. below § 51) would anyhow reach beyond the rather narrow borders given by a definition as 'oath'.

As to the verification of this conjecture, matters do not look quite so hopeless to me, as they did to Meillet (1. c.), who thought that the word is not preserved with its appellative meaning. After recognizing that the name Mitra is used with its appellative sense everywhere, we must assume that the name VarulJa is like\vise. Accordingly, 1 have already in the

45 On a former oceasion, l suggested as appellative meaning for vál'u~a: 'proteetion, protective treaty' (ZDMG 95.88, note 2 [1941]). l could have l'efel'red, with the same right as Bergaigne, to possible 'puns': e. g. RV 7.88,6 [va;u~al yandhí ... várütham. After l'eading Lüdel's' discussion Varu~a 1.1-40, l realized that my conjecture had to be given up.

d $ I tt & = .¡»MB 4 el 6 4J t 4 ji 4 = i

62 Paul Tllieme

preceding chapteT translated Varul).a by 'True-Speech'. This made good sense throughout. If Vanll).a is True-Speech peTsonified, he plays a paTticularly suitable Tole in veTses like 5.66.6, 5.72.2, 5.65.6, 1.136.3 (above § 30), 7.66.11 (above §§ 31, 46), 6.67.1 (above § 45). 50. In ceTtain passages the context demands with special uTgency the Tecognition of an appellative meaning fOT vál·Ul)a. In all of them 'tTue speech' satisfies all requirements, better than 'law' 01' 'oath'. They make no sense if we translate 'binder' (Güntert, Dumézil) 01' leave váz'ul)a untranslated:

RV 10.89.9 pl'á yé milz'ál[l pl'iÍl'yamál)al[l durévii1;L pl'á sal[lgfm1;L pZ'á vál'Ul)am minánti ny amítre§u vadhám indm ... sisfhi

'Sharpen thy weapon, o IndTa, against those without con­tract (= 'who do not Tecognize the sacTedness of contracts'), who deceivejbetray 46 (= violate deceitfully) a contract (mill'á), a hospitality (aryamán), [friendly] agreements (sarp­gfr), true speech (váz·ul)a).'

mitz'á specifically is a contract between fOTmer 01' potential enemies47 ; 'hospitality': a contract between strangers, one contractor being the host, the other one the guest; '[friendly] agreement': a contract between friends (cf. RV 9.86.16b sákhii sákhyur ná pl'á miniiti sal[lgfmm 'the friend does not violate deceitfully the agreement with his friend'); 'true speech' ~the exchange of solemn promises~makes all of these contracts effective and its sacredness is offended by the breaking of any of them. It goes without saying that deception directed against a contract, hospitality and true speech is directed also against the Tespective gods that protect them.

RV 5.85.7 aJ'yamyal[l varul)a mitryalp vii sákhiiyal[l vii sádam fd bhriÍtaral[l vii veSám vii nítyal[l vál'Ul)iÍml)al[l vii yát slm ágas cakrmiÍ SiSl'átlws tát

46 Cf. Thieme, Die beiden Vel'ben mi ZDMG 95.82-114, pal'ticularly 88. 47 Cf. Yt. 10.109 l-n: 'He (a rulel') luakes peaceful the mind even of a

man in hate, who is not contented, by a contract-if he makes well con­tented [God] Contract'. Yt. 10.1111-n: 'He (a ruler) excites the mind even of aman who is contented, wIlo is not in hate-Íf he makes not contented [God] Contracto'

§T7W

Mitra and AZ'yaman § 49-50 63

'O True-Speech! loosen (redeem) the wrong that we have committed against the friend-by-hospitality, o True-Speech, 01' against the friend-by-contract, 01' against any friend what­ever (sádam it), 01' against a brother, 01' against a neighbour (dweller in the same settlement)4S, be he native4sa 01' fOTeign!'

The parallelism of the terms aryamya, milz'ya and sákhii in 5.85.7 and 'of aryamán, mitrá and samgü' in 10.89.9 is obvious. Just as obvious is the analogy between the Tole ascribed to God TTue-Speech in 5.85.7 and the mention of 'true speech' in 10.89.9. milz'ya, derived with suffix -fya from mitrá n. 'contTact', can mean, as a matteT of COUTse, 'friend­by-contract', 01' '[a friend] pTotected by God ContTact'49; conespondingly aryamya is 'friend-by-hospitality' and '[a friend] protected by God Hospitality.' BeTgaigne, Études 193 (s.v. al'yamya), while wTongly denying an appellative meaning to milrya and aryamya in OUT passage, was quite right in refening to 1.185.8ab as a parallel:

deván vii yác cakrmá kác cid ága1;L sákhiiy([[p vii sádam íj jiÍspatÍlp vii

'Whatever wrong we have done against the heavenly (the protectors of contract, hospitality, true speech etc.) 01' against any friend whatever, 01' against the paterfamilias ... '

An offense against contract paTtner and host 01' guest is repTesented here as an offense against the gods who protect them.

RV 10.97.16 mZlncántu mii sapathyild átha val'Ul)yild utá átha yamásya páf;lbf§iit sál'vasmiid devakilbi§iÍt

'May they (the plants used in a particular spell) free me of the shackle [that was put upon me] by an oath (sapátha), and also of the shackle [that was put upon me] by a true speech (like a vow etc.), and also from the shackle of Death, of all sin s against the heavenly.'

48 Cf. Wilhelm Schulze, ]{[eine Schriften 206, note 5. <8

a <tf. W. Schulze, Kleine Schrijten 71!f. 49 mitrlya may, of conrse, be derived from mitl'á m. 'friend-by-contract'

also: RV 4.55.5, aboye S 34c, below § 70, note 61.

, , I

64 Paul Thieme

The side by side of 'oath' and vál'u1,la shows them to be related, but not identical. 'Ve may, of course, also translate val'u1,lyat: '[put on] by God True-Speech': the expression is naturally ambivalent (cp. aboye § 18 note 14a). 51. In the RV, the idea of truth has preeminently ethical and -as Lüders has shown-magical associations. Hence the functions of God True-Speech are preeminently ethical and magical. There are, hmvever, traces of another function, which is equa11y derivable from his character, ifthis character is defined-not as 'law' or 'oath', but-as 'true speech'.

One of the most famous hymns to VarUl).a starts:

7.86.1ab dhíl'a tv asya mahiná jantIIp~i vf yás tastámblw l'ódasl cid Ul'ví

'Wise are the creatures by his greatness, who has stemmed asunder the two broad faces 50 (earth and heaven).'

The assertion acquires significance and, indeed, becomes pTofound when VaTUl).a, refened to by 'he', is the god of true speech. By the magic poweT of spoken truth (¡tá) he has created the universe, hy revealing and protecting the truth he makes people ,vise.

7.86.7 c áeetayad acfto devó aryá{t '[True speech] the heavenly one,· who is friendly to the

stranger (= helpful to those who are without protection and do not lmow their whereahouts), enlightened the unenlight­ened.'

The most hidden and hence most essential truths are found out and pronounced by the poet. 'True Speech' 'knows the hidden names of the ruddy (the cows and/or the dawns), he is a poet rich in many poems like heaven in heauty':

50 I rather follow H. W. Bailey, BSOAS 12.326 (1947-48), than either Mayrhofer, ZDMG 103.146 (1953), who reconstructs a ródas n. '*heaven', or Pisani, ZDMG 104.136 (1954), who reconstructs a ródas *f. 'earth' and an old fem. dual nomo in i from a stem in a consonant. In support of Bailey I draw attention to RV 10.121.6: krándasi 'the two batUe lines [that have their faces turned towards one another, cf. Ved. ani/w 'face', Class. also: 'battleline']' is used as a designation of 'heaven and earth'. The readings of sorne other SaIp.hitiis, which try to get rid of the striking expression, are highly instructiye (cf. Whitney on AV 4.2.3).

Mitra and Al'yaman § 50-51

RV 8.41.5 yó dhal'fá bhúvananaIp yá uSl'á1,lam apleya véda námani gúhya sá kaví{t Hvya puz'ú ]'üpáI[l dyaúl' iva pu~yati

65

As God True-Speech, VaruJ.1a te11s the poet his mystic truths:

RV 7.87.4ah uváea me váru1,lo médhil'aya trf{t saptá námághnya bibharti

'True-Speech told me (Vasi'ltha), the wise one: "thrice seven names does the cow hear".'

Therehy he makes Vasil,ltha a 'Ni':

7.88.4 b f'~iIp eakara svápa máhobhi{t '[True-Speech,] who is of good action hy his greatness, has

made [Vasil,ltha] a sacred poet.'

As the god who creates and watches true speech, who knows hidden truths (8.41.5, 7.87.4) andreveals them (7.87.4), VaruJ.1a is the father of the first poet (brahmán: 'formulator [of truthJ') Vasil,ltha: RV 7.33.11 51• Vasil,ltha's second father is Mitra, who makes the poet fit-thus 1 interpret the legend­to take an essential part in the contractual procedures of the sacrifice (cf. ahoye § 46); his mother is the heautiful nymph Urvasi, from whom, we may assume, the poet inherits the gift to lend his speech that heauty which RV 10.71.1cd, 2d extolls.

Vasil,ltha asks:

RV 7.86.2 h kadá nv cwtár vál'U1,le bhuvani 'when shall 1 get inside of True-Speech'.

This remarkahle expression aims at more, 1 think, than the vague idea of 'hecoming enveloped by [the protection of] the god', 01' 'getting near him' (Geldner). It literally says that the poet wants to reach that point where he is never again to leave the sphere of true speech, never again to he involved in un~ruth. He knows how difficult it will he: V. 6 d svápnas

51 Cf. Thieme, ZDMG 102.114-5.

5

------ "----.-~ --~~----"~'.......----.~--.-.~~~'" --<"~"(:¡----"-~""'~'--,-<-'>-~-~~-..... ¡wwo:w-~ ... xc_-~~··_--;-'--~-

66 Paul Thieme

canéd ánrtasya pl'ayotá 'even sleep will not keep away un­trufu' .

The god who knows and reveals the truth and watches that the poet keeps to it, makes it also magicaUy effective:

RV 4.1.18d mftl'a dhiyé val"U{La satyám astu 'Contract and True-Speech! May there be reality for our

thought.'

The two gods are asked to help fuat the poet's prayer, a!'isen in his thinking (dht) and formulated in his poem, shaU find fulfilment. Mitra, because he presides over the relations of men and gods as defined by primordial contracts (above § 46), VarUJ,1a, because he observes whether fue poet speaks fue trufu and sees to it that his truth shaU have the desired miraculous effect.

If the poet can wish to be 'inside of true speechjTrue­Speech' (RV 7.86.2b), he may even wish that his poem be 'true speech' itself. On this assumption I interpret

RV 1.186.3 pJ'é#haIp. vo átithiIp. gr{Lf~e 'gnfIp. sastfbhis tUl'vá{LiJ:¡. sajó~iiJ:¡.

ásad yáthii no vál"U{LaJ:¡. sukfl'tfl' f~as ca pal'~ad al'igul'láJ:¡. sUl'fJ:¡.

'1 sing (praise) your dearest guest, Fire, together with re­citations, in emulation, so that our praise be true speech and the host, sung by the stranger (guest), give us refresh­ments.'

I take sukf1·ti as a tatpurw;;a with fue meaning 'praise', as it, doubtless, is in aU fue other places where it oecurs in the RV. The host (sw'f) obviously is the sacrificer who extends hospitality to Fire (a) and the singer (designated by al'i- in d): it is hoped that he will make true the attributes given to him (azoigm·táJ:¡. siil'fJ:¡.); Fire, himself a guest and watching con­tracts (above § 37)-here it is the question of a contract between guest and host,-gives security for the fulfilment of fue hopeo 52. The affinity of the eoneepts 'contraet' and 'true speech' fuUy accounts for the affinity of the gods Mitra and VarUJ,1a. No contract ean be eoncluded without the use of 'true speech'.

I I

kIitl'a and Al'yaman § 51-52 67

Archaic contracts always contain, beside the terms of the agreement, solemn vows to keep fue m, and blessings for the party which do es and curses for the party which do es noto 'True speech' is, thus, a necessary supplement of fue contract proper (fue contractual terms), just as VarulJa is the supple­ment of Mitra in the common dvandva Mitl'iival"U{Lau. I am very much inclined to interpret the bahuvrihri vál"U{Lase~as 'whose se~as is true speechjTrue-Speech', which qualifies Mitra in RV 5.65.5, in fue light of this reflection as: '[Con­tract,] whose supplemwt is true speechjTrue-Speech'. Etymo-10gicaUy se~as n. means of course 'that what is left, what remains'. It is used in the RV throughout as a designation of fue descendants : they are 'what is left, what remains [when a person goes to the other worldJ'. Nothing of this kind ean possibly be meant here. The special sense of 'supplement' is, of course, a conjecture that, owing to lack of further material, cannot be strictly verified. But as such it is at least probable. A 'supplement', after aU, is nofuing but 'what is left, what remains to make a thing complete'.

RV 7.82.5 e k~éme{La mi/l'ó vál"U{LaIp. duvasyáti 'Through peace (= by creating peace, cf. e. g. Yt. 10.29,

aboye § 39) Contract befriends (is in friendship with) True­Speech.'

In duvasyati, a denominative from dúvas n. 'friendship' is contained no more fuan that the two-Contract and True­Speech-work together, like Indra and the Maruts in d. PracticalIy the whole of the RV shows them in this friendly colIaboration, whose motive is clearly indieated by fueir names.

The same idea is expressed more concretely in 5.65.6ab (above § 30) and in more literaUy corresponding terms in

5.72.2 ab vl'aténa stho dhl"Uvák~emii dhál'ma{Lii yiitayájjanii

'You two [Contract and True-Speech] are of firm peace through vow (by guaranteeing fue contractual vows: chiefly VarulJa's function), you make people come to agreement 'through firmness (by establishing firm contractual terms: chiefly Mitra's function).'

5*

68 Paul Thieme

VaruJ}.a as yütayájjana is identified witIl Mitra in RV 1.136.3f, aboye § 30. 53. TIle eommon moral funetions of God Contraet and God True-SpeeeIl are, of neeessity, governed by one great prin­ciple: they diseover and punish untrutIl and proteet truth. ,

RV 1.152.1ed áviitimtam ánrtiini vísvii rténa mitriivaruIJ.a sacethe

'Y ou two overwhelmed aH untruths, you are aeeompanied by trutIl, o Contraet and True-Speeeh.'

Their eosmie funetions, too, derive from their relation to truth, in tIle way indieated by Lüders, Vm·uIJ.a 1.13-27. Cf. also aboye §§ 31, 46.

There are eertain distinetions, too. Mitra is more special­ized: he deals witIl truth and untrutIl in eonneetion with eontraets only. VaruJ}.a, on tIle otIler hand, punishes any eoneeivable sin against tIle principIe of true speeeh and, eonsequently, is indeed mueh more dangerous. It is hardly possible to break a eontraet while sIeeping. But there are vows, fol' example the vow of ehastity, that ean be sinned against in a dream:

7.86.6 d svápnas canéd ánrtasya pmyott1 'even sIeep will not keep away untruth'.

N ormally, the breaking of a eontraet is intentional. Offense against true speeeh, however, may oeeur unwittingly, for example on the part of a witness who is deeeived by his memory. Aman may not ,vant to lie (ná sá svó dák~a1;L ... 'it [was] not my dexterity (eunning)' 7.86.6a), but is Ied astray by error (dhl'úti), by intoxieation (súrii), by passionate anger (manyú), gambling passion (vibhtdaka), 01' ignoranee (ácitti) (7.86.6b, cf. also 7.89.5e). 54. The brealdng of a eontract is sure to be notieed by the party offended, even thougIl too late. It is an obvious sin, normally. The breaking of a vow, on the other hand, may be a matter of personal eonseienee onIy. There is, furthermore, in general no means of finding out by valid evidenee whether

Mitm and Aryaman § 52-55 69

a witness has eommitted perjury. Henee the task of God True-Speeeh is of mueh greater subtlety than tIlat of God Contracto VaruJ}.a has to diseover what may be hidden for­ever to mortal eye (ef. as a most illustrative instanee AV 4.16.2-5, as interpreted by Lüders, Vm·uIJ.a 1.29-31). Henee the emphasis Iaid on his 'wondrous erafts' (miiyll), tIle 'slings' (pllsa), and 'shaekles' (pár;lbfsa) with whieh he binds and eatehes: if not exelusively his (above §§ 39, 41), they are eharaeteristieally assoeiated with him.

It is this distinction that is brougIlt into relief by a verse like

RV 7.36.2ed inó vam anyá1;L padavfr ádabdho jánmp ca mitró yatati bruvaIJ.á1;L

'The one of you two (God True-Speeeh) is tIle strong un­deeeivable traeker ,of traees (= he is tIle god who finds hid­den truth); Contraet, when eaIled upon, arrays peoples (= he is the god who makes people to eome to agreement with eaeh otIler).'

55. The faitIl in the diseovery, by Mitra and VaruJ}.a, of every breaeh of a eontraet and every sin against truth finds an imaginative expression, poetie by origin, in tIle idea that the sun that sees everytIling is their eye (Meillet, JA 10.150-2 [1907]): e. g. RV 1.115.1, 6.51.1, 7.61.1, 7.63.1, 10.37.1, 01'

that tIle sun 'tIlat sees what is straight and erooked among tIle mortaIs' (7.60.2 d) tells them 'what is real/true' (satyám): RV 7.60.1. Similar to tIle Avestie Mi,sra (Yt. 10.13, aboye § 26), Mitra and VarUl;1a, at the light of dawn and with the rising of tIle sun, climb on their gárta and look from there at guilt and non-guilt (áditiIp dítiIp ca): RV 5.62.8. Like Mi,sra (above § 22) they have (a thousand) eyes 01' spies (spas): RV 6.67.5, 7.61.3 ete. (Lüders, Philologica Indica 4(2) and observe 'without blinking' (e. g. 7.61.3d, 3.59.1e, ef. aboye § 32).

Sinee 'even sleep \ViII not keep away untruth' (7.86.6) and sinee, on the otIler hand, 'itis impossible to elose tIle eyes even for a moment away from VarUl;1a' (RV 2.28.6 nahí tvád al'é nimi~as canése, ef. also e. g. AV 4.16.5 e), we might ex­pect an oeeasional stress being laid on VaruJ}.a's being able to see even at nigIlt.

70 Paul Thieme

RV 8.41. 9 ab yásya suetiÍ uicaksalJiÍ tisró bhiÍmzl' adhiksitálJ

'Whose (God True-Speech's) two white eyes dwell aboye the three earths (= earth, space, and heavenly vault).'

It is hardly possible to disagree with Oldenberg (Religion des Veda 5 182) and Geldner (Translation) when they under­stand 'VaruI;la's two white eyes' to be sun and moon. The verse tells us that True-Speech's eye is the sun by day (cf. also 1.50.6 and the verses quoted above) , and the moon by night.

8.41.3 sá k~ápalJ pári ~asuaje ny usró miiyáyti dadhe sá ufsuaIp pári darsatálJ ...

'He (God True Speech) holds embraced the nights, he has put inside [himself] the dawns (days) by his wondrous craft, he, the beautiful one,52 is around everything.'

Since the Ádityas in general, and God True-Speech in par­ticular, have created-by the magic of primordial true words, reenacted in the sacrificial rite-day and night (RV 7.66.11, cf. aboye §§ 31, 46), it is evident that the stars and the moon shine and vanish according to the vows of Varm.la (RV 1.24.10), just as he has opened the paths to the sun (7.87.1, 1.24.8). There is in a verse like 1.24.10 no indication of VaruI;la's alleged 'sombreness': on the contrary, we may say that his is the most beneficent action of providing for light even at night. He 'presides' not 'over the night' (Bergaigne, Religion uédique 3.119), but over the lights that shine in the darkness: he is even more 'luminous' than any other Áditya. 56. Matters look somewhat different in later Vedic literature. TS 6.4.8.3 mitró 'har ájanayad uáru.{w riÍlrim 'Mitra pro­created day, VaruI;la night'; TB 1. 7 .1 0.1 maitPaIp uti ahar, utirulJz l'titrilJ 'to Mitra, in truth, belongs day, to VaruI;la night'; TB 1.5.3.3 uárulJ-asya stiyám 'to Varur;ta belongs evening'; Ait. B 4.10.9 ahar uai mill'o ratril' uW'ulJ-ah 'Mitra, in truth, is day, Varm;ta night'. AV 13.3.13 and 9.3.18 (cf. Oldenberg, Religion des Veda 5 182-3) can only be explained

52 Cf. RV 7.88.2ab.

...

MilPa and Aryaman § 55-56 71

by supposing a close association of Mitra with sun and day, and of VaruI;la with night.

1 think it a most likely assumption that the identifications of VaruI;la with night and Mitra with day are developments of Rigvedic statements and ideas as expressed in 8.41.3 a, 8.41.9 a, 1.24.10.

This development would be in a Hne with all the other state­ments of the BrahmaI;las concerning the relation of Mitra and VaruI;la. It serves a distinct, easily recognizable purpose: the purpose to establish the couple as a pair of opposites, which, most decidedly, it is not in the RV. As a pair of op­posites, which have no other stable function than being opposites, Mitra and VaruI;la now find their place in a theology that may be defined as speculative reflections on the great entities in the macrocosm and their mystic correspondences in the sacrificial rite. Mitra and VaruI;la, like so many other gods of the RV, have beco me merely names that can be handled by the all-powerful magician as suits his will and can be identified with any pair of opposites of the universe according to the requirements of any particular context. This esoteric ritual speculation did scarcely play a decisive role for the development of the gods in the religious sphere. VaruI;la in the religion of the epics, for example, is not a god of the night. But his close relation to the waters, originally founded in his relation to truth (Lüders, VW'ulJa 1.28-37), is common to the RV and the epics.

, C1

111

ARYAMAN

57. 'A precise point of departure' for the explanation of Aryaman is given-not by 'the Vedic theology of Mitra­VaruJ.la' as interpreted by Dumézil (Troisieme souvemin IX), but-by the well established fact that God Mitra/Mi.9ra is the personification of an ethieal eoneept, 'contract', and that the other Adityas: Bhaga 'Portion', Alpsa 'Share', Dak~a 'Dex­terity, Fitness', are personifieations of similar abstracts. More coneretely formulated: if Mitra is not 'friend', but the de­signation of a relationship 01' an act that may lead to friend­ship (above § 8), Aryaman cannot be '(particular friend,) comrade' either, but must similarly be the designation of a relationship 01' an act that may lead to a particular friend­ship. We must, eonsequently, replaee Geldner's definitions: 'Mitra: socius, contractual friend ("V erbündeter' '), Aryaman: host ("Gastfreund")' (note on RV 5.85.7, ef. also e. g. on 5.3.2) by:

Mitra: Contraet, Aryaman: Hospitality

By doing so, we arrive at exaetly the same result at whieh I arrived, independently of Geldner and following up quite a different line of argument, in my Fl'emdling im Rigveda 101-44. 58. " .... l'étude d'un personnage divin .... a pour con­dition primordiale l'analyse exaete du nom divin" (Ben­veniste-Renou, V¡tm et V.rfhagna 1 [Paris 1934]). The value of such an exact analysis obviously lies in its giving us, when successful, a well defined concept that is at the center of an ideal personality created by imagination, a eenter that can be understood as the simple starting point of an often eom-

• _····~·----~--------------------___ jjjii!jo!i!ll!!!o _____ J31"iI

Mitra and Aryaman § 57-59 73

plex deveIopment. Meillet's explanation of jVfitm/Mif}ra, Ben­veniste and Renou's explanations of V¡tm and VJr;J{}mgna are exemplary vindications of the soundness and fruitfulness of the proeedure implied by that principIe. My own explana­tion of Aryaman was nothing but an applieation of their argumentation to a pal'ticular case. M ethodieally, it is bare of any originality.

It seems that the extreme simplicity of my line of argument has been partly hidden by the somewhat compIex nature of the facts we have to contend with. 'Ve cannot simplify this complexity, we cannot 'explain away' facts. 53 AH we can attempt to do is to malee apparent a rationaI order in the mass of 'accumulated facts' seemingly 'lying in disorder'. This can be done only by 'throwing an hypothesis' (above § 6). I shall try to present the essential features of my argument again, referring for further detaiIs to the discussions in my Fremdling im Rigveda. 59. al'yamán clearly is a derivation of al'ya, (ll'ya of al'í. Our interpretation of al'ya and, then, w'yamán depends on the meaning of arí.

In classical Sanskrit ad is an unambiguous, very common term for 'enemy'. A number of passages in the RV vwuld make perfect sense if we translated W'í by 'enemy'. For example:

RV 2.23.13bc vísvii íd al'yó abhidipsvo mfdho bf'haspátil' ví vaval'hii l'áthiirl'1 iva

'Brhaspati has torn asunder like chariots alI the deceitful wiles ("harms") of the enemy.'

In a number of other passages 'enemy' is, however, im­possible. Here we might translate 'guest'. For example:

10.28.1 vísvo hy iwyó w'h' iijagáma máméd áha sváSul'o ná jagiima jak$zyád dhiiná(1tá sómaIp. papzyiit svMital) púnal' ástaIp. jagiiyiit

'[The wife speaks l: Every other guest has come, my own father-in-Iaw, however, has not come: he would have eaten .

63 'Vhich Dumézil, Troisihne solwerain 110 top, seems to expect me to do.

74 Paul Thieme

[roasted] grains, and he would have drunk soma, well fed he would have returned home.'

8.19.36 ádán me paurukutsyáJ:¡. pañcáSátarp trasádasyur vadh iÍnám márphi#ho aryáJ:¡. sátpatiJ:¡.

'[The poet speaks]: Trasadasyu, the son of Purukutsa, has given me fifty brides (as a present), he, the master of tlle mansion (sátpati)54, who is most liberal to the guest.'

In other passages we might translate 'host':

3.43.2 á yáhi pÚ¡'v(r áti car$a1).tl' ári1. aryá ász$a úpa no háribhyám imá hí tvá matáyaJ:¡. stómata$tá indra hávante sakhyárp jU$á1).áJ:¡.

'Come here, across many peoples! Here, to the blessings of the host, to us with thy horses! For these thoughts, fash­ioned into a praise song, call thee, o Indra, finding pleasure in thy friendship.'

A word that is used in typical contexts to designate now the enemy, now a guest, now a host, cannot na me either of these concepts, but must name one single concept under which any of these three may be subsumed. This concept can only be 'stranger'. I refer to homeric ~ETvoS 'stranger' (e. g. Od.9.270), used to designate now a guest (e. g. Od. 8.543), now a host (e. g. n. 15.532), now, in the plural, both of them at the same time (e. g. Od. 1.313), 01' generally, those who are connected in friendship by mutual hospitality (e. g. Od. 15.196); further 1 call to mind Germ. gasti 'stranger' and 'gues1', Lat. hostis, originally 'stranger' (Varro, ling. 5.3), later, like al'i in classical Sanskrit, only 'enemy', but contained in hospes with the acceptation 'stranger, gues1'. The chief part of my Fremdling im Rigveda is dedicated to the attempt of establishing that throughout the RV, al'í may be translated by the one single word 'stranger', also in those places where neither 'enemy' nor 'gues1' nor 'hos1' is possible. FOT example:

54 1 consider vVackernagel's analysis (Altind. Grammatik 2,1 §22c, cf. my Fremdling 21, note 3) to be evident. Gf. now also Thieme, ZDMG 93.124-9, on satkr. Dumézil, Troisieme souverain 63-4 declines and 136 accepts it without offering any valuable argumento

Mitm and Aryaman § 59

RV 10.27.8 gávo yávam práyutá aryó ak$an

hává íd aryó abhítaJ:¡. sám áyan kíyad ásu svápatis chandayáte

75

'The cows, let loose, ate the stranger's barley... The calls of the stranger carne from all sides. How long will the lord of the property find pleasure in them (= will he tolerate them)?'

1.169.6d [yád . .. ] tll'thé ná¡·yáJ:¡. paúrpsyáni tasthúJ:¡. '[When] they (the Maruts' antelopes) have come to a stand­

still like the forces of the stranger at a ford (which he does not dare to cross, being unfamiliar with the country).'

The final proof of my proposition: al'Í = stranger, lies in this possibility, which I tested by investigating each single passage.

The alleged 'difficulties' raised by Dumézil (cf. for example aboye § 8 n. 11) have been discussed by me in detail in ZDMG 107 .96ff. (1957). Theviews ofBenveniste and Brough on the sense of al'í in RV 10.28.1a (above § 5 note 7) are inspired by Dumézil. I cannot doubt that they will give up their pro­posal once they realize their mistake in translating svMuras in line b. As to the position of sorne other eminent Vedologists to the word al'Í, I find it, frankly, puzzling. Lommel sides with Dumézil in theory (Orient 7.383-4), in practice he h'ans­lates 'stranger' (Gedichte des Rig-Veda 81 [1955], transl. of RV 8.48.8). Renou follows a reverse procedure: he sides with me in theory, but follows Geldner in practice. On the one hand he "would array himself "pleinement" behind my vimvs (Studia Indologica Internationalia 1.10, toned down to "volontiers" in Etudes védiques et paninéennes 1.20); on the other hand he carefully avoids the term 'stranger' and trans­lates with Geldner: "rivale" (10.42.1), "concurrent" (1.70.1), "chef" (8.1.4), where 'stranger' would meet all the require­ments of the contexts. It is myvery point that a word cannot mean 'rival' and 'chief' (and besides 'miser' [Geldner]) and 'stranger' at the same time: these words represent uninter­changeable concepts that cannot be put over the same de­nominator. If I am right, Geldner must be wrong, and vice

1

I

1

:1

76 Paul Thieme

versa: no compromise is possible. It is t11.e attempt to effect suc11. a compromise that creates t11.ose (unsurmountable) dif­ficulties w11.ic11. Renou blames-not quite fairly-on t11.e word al'Í. 54a

60. The adjective aryá is to al'Í what 11.omeric ~EíV10S is to ~EivoS. ~Eiv\Os is used in t11.e sense:

a) 'belonging to t11.e strangerjguest' (e. g. Od. 14.158): so is al'yá (e. g. RV 8.33.14, Fumdling 78).

b) 'protecting t11.e stranger, 11.ospitable' (e. g. Od. 9.270 f. 2EVS o' E1TlT1J.l1ÍTOOp iKETÓ:OOV TE ~Eívú)v TE, ~EíVl0S ... 'Zeus, t11.e avenger of the fugitives and strangers w11.o protects t11.e stran­ger'): so is aJ'yá. E. g. Várm;m, w11.o 'arrays (arranges) t11.e stran­ger': yátann aJ'ím 5.48.5, i. e. 'makes t11.e stranger come to an agreement [wit11. anot11.er stranger] (on t11.e basis of an exc11.ange of true promises and vows)', is called devó al'yál;t in 7.86.7 c 't11.e 11.eavenly one who protects t11.e stranger' (cf. aboye § 52). 61. Besides t11.e adjective al'yá t11.ere exists a noun ál'ya (in t11.e RV only in t11.e unaccented vocative m'ya: 8.1.34d, 4.16.17c); it is an obvious nominalization: 't11.e 11.ospitable one, hospitable lord'. A predictable development would lead to 'lord, master' (RV 4.16.17c) and '11.ouse11.older' (cf. O. Slav. gOSpOdh 'lord, master', originally: 'lord of t11.e guestjguests', presumably borrowed from a Got11.ic *gasti-faps). ActualIy, t11.e values 'lord, master' and '11.ouse11.older' suit all t11.e con­texts in which t11.e word occurs (Fl'emdling 89 ff.) and would, t11.us, confirm. our conjecture. 'Ve are, however, in a par­ticularly fortunate position: we need no conjecture. "Ve 11.ave an explicit testimony of t11.e highest value. pal).ini 3.1.103 teac11.es the word al'ya, w11.en accented on the first syllable, to be used in t11.e sense of svamin 'lord, master' and vaiiya 'householderjrepresentative of t11.e cast of t11.e house11.olders'. 'Ve stand on firm ground. Unfortunately, t11.e P"V has-by various mistakes analyzed in my Fumdling-confounded t11.e two words ál'ya and l1l'ya and asserted t11.at ál'ya means 'an Al'yan'.55 aJ'ya '11.ouseholderjvaisya' and al'ya 'al'yan' are ex-

S4a Cf. now also Renou, Études védiques et pii{linéennes 11 (1956) 109-111.

55 Dumézil: 'PaI,lini does not simplify matters' (Troisieme souverain 103); that is: he makes Dumézil's notion that árya is 'Aryen' impossible, to which

Mitl'Cl and Aryaman § 59-62 77

plicitly contrasted in Lat. S. S. 4.3.5-6; ál'ya '11.ouse11.olderj vaisya' and südl'á 'servantjsüdl'Cl' e. g. in Vaj. S. 23.30,31; 20.17; bl'Clhmán, l'ájanya, südrá and ál'ya 'vaisya' e. g. in Vaj. S. 26.2, AV. 19.32.8.

lt is not in India, but in Iran t11.at aJ'ya as a noun is used as an et11.nic name, originalIy: 't11.e 11.ospitable ones'. In India Vire 11.ave, as an ethnic name, excIusively al'ya, t11.at is originally 'belonging to t11.e 11.ospitable ones' (cf. also Debrunner IF

57.147). 62. T11.e no un al'yamán may be analyzed, t11.eoretically, in two ways: as al'ya + man and as al'ya-man.

1) According to t11.e first formula it would be a compound of t11.e type Vrtl'Cl + han, wit11. t11.e root adjective of man 't11.ink, recognize' as its second member. It is t11.is analysis t11.at Dumézil presupposes w11.en opening 11.is 'parap11.rase' of al'yamán wit11. t11.e words: "un 11.omme senti et se sentant aJ'ya" (Tl'oisieme souverain 154). By replacing t11.e x w11.ic11. t11.is equation contains: 'al'ya', wit11. t11.e value obtained by our linguistie analysis, tested by t11.e observation of t11.e usage of t11.e texts, and confirmed by t11.e explicit teac11.ing of Pal).ini, we should 11.ave to say: 'a man who is thoug11.t to be and thinks himself a 11.ospitable one'. T11.us, we arrive at Geldner's 'Gastfreund' (above § 60). We are disappointed in our reason­able expectation t11.at al'yamán originally was the designation not of a person, but of an abstract concept 11.aving affinity to mitl'á 'contract'. T11.is would be sufficient for looking on t11.is analytical possibility wit11. sorne skepsis. 55a

Luckily, we need not decide t11.e question on t11.e basis of w11.at we mig11.t 01' mig11.t not expect. 'Ve 11.ave t11.e word ail'yaman- in t11.e GaSas of Zoroaster. From t11.e usage Zoroaster

he clings (op. cit. 124) in spite of what I established with his explicit ap­proval (op. cit. 104). In dealing with VS 26.2 he follows me, in dealing with VS 23.30, 31 he follows "les interpretes antérieurs", that is: the PW, thus adding up, in a curious way, the refuting argument and the refuted opinion.

55a I cannot suppress the observatioli that it would seem rather strange that the ideas 'il est senti arya' and 'il se sent arya' never are expressed in an unambiguous construction. Contrast vrtrahán: vrtrámlvrtr'd{li halJlsi, hanti, han[wa, hathas, hatas, ghnanti etc. etc.; vrtrd{liim ghanás; rtiivrdh: r taís • •• ávardhaÚl, rténa viviivrdhé, rtásya viivrdhur duro{lé. Nor is there any other compound with the root adjective man as a second member.

78 Paul Thieme

makes of fue word it appears wifu absolute certainty that it does not designate 'a man who is thought to be and thinks himself an arya', rather it must make reference-like xvaetu­'family', VJ1'iJzana- 'clanjcommunity'-to 'a special kind of social relationship', to adopt Dumézil's expression (Troisieme souvC1'ain 156). Zoroaster definitively shows the analysis of al'yamán as a compound with root man to be wrong. 56

2) We turn, then, to the second formula: m'ya-man, that is: al'ya and a suffix -mano Ordinarily, this suffix is added to verbal roots. We have, however, several traces of -man being used as a means of derivation from a nominal stem, too (Wackernagel-Debrunner 2.2 § 607): Av. afsman from apas-, Greek OCXlTVIlWV 'participant in a meal' from OCXlTVS

'meal'. An enlargement with -a results in the suffix -mna in Vedic dyumná (from dyú 'heaven') 'heavenliness'57, nrmIJá (from nf 'man') 'manliness'.

We fuus obtain as an unimpeachable linguistic possibility an arya-man 'hospitable-ness', i. e. 'hospitality' = 'concept of hospitality, collection of those united by hospitality'. This possibility we cannot but accept. It fulfils our theoretical ex­pectation that al'yamán is 'an abstract concept having affinity to mitrá "contract'" and the requirements of the GaSic con­texts that demand 'a special kind of social relationship' which has sorne affinity wifu xvaetu- 'family' and VJ1'iJzana- 'clan, community' . 63. There exists a presumption, evident to every student of comparative grammar, that an abstract no un in -man origi­nally was a neuter 01' could, preferably, be used as a neuter. We do not 'risk' (Dumézil, Troisieme souvemin 161) anything, but we apply a necessary test when putting the question whether there are passages in the RV that would confirm an old al'yaman n. 'hospitality'.

RV 5.29.1 try cll'yamá mánu$o devátata trí rocaná divyá dhamyanta árcanti tva mm·útalJ. pütádak$as tvám e$am f'$Ú' indrasi dhtmlJ.

66 This decisive point was overlooked also by Wackernagel-Debrunner 2.2 § 607.

57 Cf. aboye § 43 note 41a.

------

Mitm and Al'yaman § 62-64 79

Dumézil declares fue context in which the word al'yamá appears here to be 'tres obscure'. The 'context' contains not a single unknown word, not a single puzzling construction, not a single idea which would be without parallel in the RV. There is only one difficulty: the word m'yamá itself. It vanishes altogether as soon as we give up the idea that it must be a nonio sing. of a masculine no un, and explain try al'yamá as 'fue three al'yamán n.':

'They keep fue three hospitalities (morning, midday and evening sacrifices) at man's invitation of the gods, [and] the three heavenly luminosities (the furee heavens). They, the Marut of pure energy, sing thee: fuou, o Indl'a, art theil'

wise poet.' We have not only a flawless construction, but a perfectly

suitable concept in connexion with mánu$o devátata: RV 3.26.2 tám ... havamahe ... mánu$o devátataye ... átithim 'we call him (Fil'e) as the guest to man's invitation of the

gods'. On G.l'yamya 'friend-by-hospitality' in RV 5.85.7 see aboye

§ 50. 64. ail'yaman- in fue GaSas (by gender m. 01' n.) must de­signate 'a special kind of social relationship'-Andreas, Ben­veniste, Schaeder, Dumézil, myself are agreed on that. Schae­del' defines "Rechtszustand, del' zwischen Stammeszugehorigen besteht und im gegebenen Fall auf Stammfremde ausgedehnt werden kann" (Orient. Literaturzeitung 43.378 [1940]) and adds that this definition can readily be derived from the original meaning of ail'yaman as postulated by me: 'hos­pitality'. According to Dumézil (Tl'oisieme souvemin 157) it would be the "liaison" which is founded on "l'appartenance a une meme civilisation", which is nothing bu! a vague and modern version of what 1 should define as 'the connection that exists between those who hold hospitality sacred'.

Benveniste, JA 221.124-9 (1932), defends a translation 'men of the district, distdct' (similal'ly Andreas: "Stammes­genossenschaft"). My chief objection to this would be that it leaves out of account, and cannot account for, Rigvedic m'ya­mán: On the other hand, 1 think Benveniste is right when insisting· on the pamllelism between the concepts: nmana-

80 Paul Thieme

'house', v'[s- 'settlement', zantu- 'district, and xvaetu- 'family', v<Jl'<Jzana- 'clan, community', aÍl'yaman-. Only, I think, he has gone too far in asserting 'the identity of the two series'. There is but a certain relation:

In the nmana, the 'house', there lives the xvaetu-, the 'family' ;

in the v'[s-, the 'settlement', there lives the v<Jrnana-, the 'clan/community;

in the zantu-, the territory of the 'tribe', there lives the airyaman-, the 'hospitality', that is: 'those with whom one is connected by hospitality'.

In the dahyu-, the 'country', the widest area, there live the sastal'O 'the rulers' (as the only ones who are known and of interest): Y 46.1. Thus, in Yt. 10.2 the 'he' who harms 'the whole country' when he breaks a contract (above § 18), can only by the 'ruler'.

The pure abstract meaning 'hospitality'-mostly airyaman­is used in the sense of 'those connected by hospitality' -is preserved in

Y. 33.3 y-:¡ asaune vahisto xvaetii va at va v<Jl'<JzJnyo ail'yamna va ...

'Who is very good to the truthful one by family (closest relationship), 01' as aman of the (his) community, 01' by hospitality ... '

It is obvious how 'hospitality' (a single representative of the colIective concept) and 'family' can, by ethical behavior, give a 'good name' (fmsasti-) to the 'community': Y.49.7 (difficult for Benveniste, op. cit. 129). Cf. RV 1.167.8b, § 39.

OccasionalIy we find, instead of aÍl'yaman-, the word hax<Jman- n. 'friendship' beside xvaetu- and v'Jl'<Jzana-: Y. 40.4, a concept, then, that indeed is closely related to 'hos­pitality'. I calI to mind RV 5.85.7 w'yamyi'u:[l ... sákhayaIJ! va sádam ít 'a friend-by-hospitality ... 01' any friend what­ever' (above § 50), whereas for the side by side of xvaélii ancl aÍl'yamna in Y. 33.3 we have a correspondence in RV 5.85.7 al'yamyam ... bhl'átamIJ! va.

Last but not least, I again draw attention to the fact that N ew Persian el'man is 'guest'. Should it realIy be easier to

J.lfitm and Al'yaman § 64-65 81

understand this as a development of 'tribe' (Andreas, Ben­veniste) 01' "communeauté aryenne" (Dumézil) than of 'hos­pitality'? It seems in closest relation57a to the use of airyaman­in Yasna 49.7 e as interpreted in my Fremdling 137. It offers, together with osset. liman 'friend' the strongest support for the correctness of my translation of the GaSa passages in question. If I had neither the RV nor the linguistic analysis of al'yamán, and were faced with the task of making a con­jecture as to the particular nature of that 'special kind of social relationship' which must be denoted by ail'yaman in the GaSas, I should trust myself to the guidance of N ew Persian el'man 'guest' and should hold 'hospitality' to be the most likely translation. 65. What Rigvedic mitl'á m. 'contractual friend' is to Rigvedic mitl'á n. 'contract' and Avestic mi{}m m. 'contract', Rigvedic al'yamán m. 'friend-by-hospitality' is to Rigvedic al'yamán n. 'hospitality', GaSic ail'yaman (m. 01' n.) 'hospitality'.

RV 10.11 7 . 6 e náryamá1).aIJ! pú~yati nó sákhayam 'he [who is miserly unwise] does not posses ("does not

flourish so as to possess") a friend-by-hospitality, nor a friend [in general].'

al'yamá1).am and sakhayam obviously correspond in the same way as ~ÉvoS and <píi\oS in Greek (e. g. Dem. 550.27 6 TOÚTOV

~ÉVOS Kcxi <píi\oS), 01' al'yamya and sákha in RV 5.85.7. Cf. also AV 3.5.5 utlarás ... w·yam1).á utá saIJ!vídaJ;¡. 'superior to friend-by-hospitality and alIy'.

5.54.8 ab niyútvanto gramajíto yátha náro 'z·yamá1).o ná marútaJ;¡. kabandhínaJ;¡.

'The Marut [are] characterized by chariots like army­conquering men; by their skins (filIed with water), like hos­pitable ones (hospitable householders who refresh the stranger).'

This al'yamán m. 'friend-by-hospitality' may be old (cf. Greek OCXlTV¡.Iwv), it may also be a comparatively young development (a starting point could be the use of airyama in Y. 49.7), like mitI'á m. 'contractual friend'. In any case, it cannot be the word that is at the basis of God Aryaman:

57U That·is: the relation of French lzóte to English host.

6

82 Paul Thieme

he must be the personified 'hospitality': Mitra 'Contraet', Bhaga 'Portion', A:rp.sa 'Share' and VaruJ;la 'True-Speeeh' voueh for it.

Dumézil stresses the neeessity for reeognizing that a religion must be of a 'systematie eharaeter' and blames me for not realizing this (Tl'oisieme souuemin 129 f.). 1 beg to compare:

Dumézil: VaruJ;la 'Binder', Mitra 'Contraet' and also 'Friend', Aryaman 'he who is felt to be and feels himself an (ll·ya'.

Thieme: VaruJ;la 'True-Speeeh', Mitra 'Contraet', Aryaman 'Hospitality' . 66. In my Fremdling 141-4 1 have shown that the figure of God Aryaman in the RV beeomes clear and eonsistent on the hypothesis that he is the personified and deified hospi­tality.58 He is the god who rewards the host, proteets the guest, punishes those who aet disgraeefully (against guests) and watehes over truth. His assoeiation with wedding eeremonies in particular is motivated by his eharaeter as god of hospi­tality (Fl'emdling 123_9)58a

. Like Contraet and True-Speeeh he is elosely eonneeted with the saerifiee, whieh, of eourse, is a form of hospitality. Henee he exercises benefieent eosmie funetions (above § 46). Sinee 'hospitality' is nothing but a special form of eontract, the name Aryaman may be eon­strued as an apposition to Mitra (RV 5.67.1, 8.26.11: aboye § 4a). In so far as he 'makes people come to agreement' he is, like VaruJ;la, explicitly identified with Mitra in RV 1.136.3f.

58 The Avesta gives only scant and fragmentary information on the god Airyaman. Nothing more can be said than that he gives protection. 1 refer to my treatment in Fremdling 129-32, and only add that his rOle as a healer of siclmesses has a connterpart in ideas connected with MitrajMi.9ra: RV 3.59.3 anümiv{¡sas •.• vayáT[l mitrásya sumataú syüma (above § 36 a); Yt. 10.5 ü ca no jamyat baesazüi. In a similar way correspond Yasna 27.5 ü airyama isyo

rat~r5rüi janlü . •. and Yt.10.5 a ca no jamyat rat~r5rüi (of Mi.9ra). 68a Lüders, Varu{la 1.39-40 wants to explain Aryaman as 'Freundschafts­

vertrag' and to account for his role at the wedding by the fact that 'marriage' is a kind of 'contract of friendship'. 1 think, this aspect of the ceremony is taken care of by Mitra (below note 59). Lüders' argument is disfigured by the wrong assumption that the feminine of sákha would be sakhi in the RV. It is actually sákha: RV 4.52.2 sákha ... u${¡I;z, 3 sákhasi ... u$aI;z, in the end of a feminine bahuvrihi: 7.96.2 s{¡ .•• marútsakha, 10.86.9 índrapatni marút­

sakha.

Mitm and Al'yaman § 65-67 83

(above § 30). He has a close affinity to VarUl;ta, the god of true speeeh, the eontraet of hospitality being based, like any other eontraet, on mutual solemn promises, eonfidenee and faithfulness: Vanwa who 'arrays the stranger' is ealled deuó al'yá1:t in RV 7.86.7 (above § 63), but deuó (ll'yá1:t in RV7.64.3a is Aryaman. Oeeasionally he is, like Mitra and VaruJ;la, ealled a 'king' (cí. MiSra as dahyunqm daúJhupaitis in the Avesta).

Several times he is qualified by adjeetives that he has not in eommon with other gods. On these oeeasions his eharacter as god of hospitality elearly stands out:

SI1J1'ábhojas 'of fat food', pf"~adyoni 'of a dripping hearth', abhik~adá 'giving what need not be begged for'. 67. Like Mitra, VaruJ;la and other Adityas, Aryaman is identified with Agni. This identifieation is possible even at a mueh later time: Asv. G.S. 1.7.13 al'yamalJ-am (u(ll'ulJ-am, pü~alJ-am) mz deuarp kanyii agnim ayak~ata 'the girls have now worshipped Fire as God Aryaman (God VaruJ;la, God Pü~an)' (ef. Geldner on RV 5.3.2). A striet analysis of RV 2.1.4 permits the relationship between Aryaman and Agni to be defined more aeeurately:

RV 2.1.4 tuám agne l'ájii Uál'W.lO dhrtául'atas tuárp mifl'ó bhauasi dasmá t{lya1:t tuám al'yamá bhauasi yásya sambhújalp tuám álpSO uidáthe deua bhiijayúl;t

'Thou, o Fire, [beeomest] king True-Speeeh of firm vows; thou, the wise one, who is to be refreshed beeomest Contraet; thou beeomest Hospitality, the master of the mansion whose meal [we eat, 01': thou eatest]; thou [beeomest] Share who apportions at the distribution.'

a) The identifieation of True-Speeeh with Fire (cí. also 7.12.3a tuárp uál'ulJ-a utá mUl'ó agne) is explieitly motivated in RV 10.8.5 ab bhúuas cák~w' mahá rtásya gopá bhúuo Uál'UlJ-O yád rtáya ué~i 'thou (Fire) beeomest the eye, the guardian of truth, thou beeomest True-Speeeh when thou strivest fol' truth'; it is more partieularly defined in RV 5.3.1a tuám agne Uál'UlJ-O jáyase yát 'Thou, Fire, [beeomest] True-Speeeh when thou 'art born'. Agni is VaruJ;la in so far as he is 'born in the water' (Lüders, V(ll'UlJ-a 1.13) 01' 'in the truth' (rtájiita),

6'

84 Paul Thieme

which expressions mean that fire is born when churned from the water [in the wood], a procedure accompanied by truth­containing hymns 01' verses (Lüders op. cit. 23).

b) The ielentification of Contract with Fire is motivateel in 10.8.4cd (above § 37); it is, again, more particularly defined in RV 5.3.1b tuáI[l mitl'ó bhauasi yát sámiddha1;L 'thou (Fire) becomest Contract when [thou art] kindled'. The 'kindling' (sam + idh) is a special solemn procedure that takes place at certain occasions ofthe sacrifice. Itis performed immediately before sacrificial food is poured into the Áhavaniya fire, which is situated in the east of the sacrificial ground. Agni, who is Varul,la when he is born, becomes Mitra as the Áha­vaniya fire the moment when it is ldndled before an oblation is offered.

It is in his quality as Áhavaniya that Agni is the heavenly priest (deuá j'tufj), whose sacrificalladles are the flames, anel the heavenly poet (kauf) and recitator (hótr), whose song is the crackling noise of the flames at the time of the kindling when the human hótr also starts his recitation. From the wealth of material available for making these ideas cIear, 1 choose the first verse of the RV:

agnim ¡le puróhitaI[l yajñásya deuám rtufjam hótill'GI[l ratnadhiitamam

'1 refresh [by pourings of sacrificial food] Fire who is placed in front (in the east of the sacrificial ground [as ÁhavaniyaJ) [and thereby honoured], the heavenly priest of the worship, the recitator who creates most treasures.'

Held against the background of these ideas, 2.1.4b becomes quite cIear: Fire is Contract in his form as Áhavaniya: be­cause as the [kindled] Áhavaniya he is the heavenly hótr, he is qualified as dasmá 'wise', and because as Áhavaniya he receives the sacrificial food, he is frJya 'to be refreshed'. At the precise moment when the offering starts, the contractual relation between gods and men becomes a reality.

c) Fire as the heavenly hótr is the Áhavaniya; as the grhápati 'master of the house' and sátpati 'master of the mansion' he is, of course, the Garhapatya fire, which is situated in the west of the sacrificial grounel. On this fire tIle

Mitl'G and Al'yaman § 67-68 85

sacrificial food is bakeel and roasteel. 2.1.4c tells us that Fire 'of whose fooel [one eats]' is Goel Hospitality.

The Garhapatya is the representative on the sacrificial ground of the householeler's fire, the home fire, that has its ordinary place on the hearth in the house.

RV 5.3.2 a tuám al'yamfi bhauasi yát kantnilm 'Thou (Fire) art the hospitality (aryaman n.) which is

[that] of the girls (= the fire on which the girls prepare the meal for the guests).' 01': 'Thou (Fire) art [God] Hospitality when [thou art the fire] of the girls [who prepare the meal for the guests]'. 59

The fire arounel which the briele walks when entering her future home, which is the house of fue joint family of which she becomes a member, is calleel 'fue fire of hospitalityj[God] Hospitality' in AV 14.1.39 (cf. aboye § 4).

d) If Fire as Áhavaniya is God Contract, as Garhapatya Goel Hospitality, we may conjecture that as Dakl?il,lagni (in the south-west of the sacrificial ground) he is Goel Share. The portions (bhaga) for the pitaras, the manes, are poureel into fue Dakl?il,lagni. 1 can, however, not offer a strict veri­fication for this conjecture. 2.1.4 d would also be applicable to the Áhavaniya at fue time when (after the kinelling) the offering is actually poured out. 68. The functions of Goel Aryaman in the AV are-like those of other great gods of the RV-not always on tIle same level of moral height as in the RV. The AV shows us the goel, occasionally, from a more practical point of view. In contra­distinction to the attitude taken in my Fl'Cmdling 127-9, 144, 1 should now be inclined to speak less of a downright mis­understanding than of a popularization. For example:

In AV 14.1.17 Aryaman is called patiuédana 'means for finding a husband'. 1 think it probable that this does not

59 1 withdraw the proposal 1 made in Fremdling 139. My obscene inter­pretation was, indeed, far-fetched and did not suit the context of the verse within the hymn. Lines cd refer most likely to Mitra as the god of the mar­riage contract, which is called in the Avesta (yt.10.116): [miOra] antara ziitniltara x"asura 'the contract between the son-in-law and the paterfamilias (above § 5 note 7).'

h J.

86 Paul Thieme

refer to his function at the wedding ceremony, where he presides over the hospitality involved (Fremdling 123-8), but rather to his protecting the relations between a family, which is part of the settlement (vís), the seat of the clan, on the one hand, and those outside the clan on the other hand, who live in other settlements-not in the vls-, but in the zantu-,· to speak with the Avesta (above § 64). lt is obvious that a marriage will, normally, be arranged with 'friends-by-hospi­tality'. The god of hospitality is, thus, suitably looked upon as 'a means for finding a husband', as 'the one who seeks a husband for the unmarried girl and a wife for the bachelor' (AV 6.60.1).

As the god of hospitality, Aryaman is 'the ideal house­holder (gl'hápati)' (TB 2.3.5.2: Fremdling 142 note 2) and the god of the home fire (above § 67 c). Hence, in texts that distinguish and oppose the three 'casts': bl'iihmar;w, k§aitriya, and vaisyajarya, he is peculiarly fit to become the represen­tative of the third, as Brhaspati is that of the first and Indra that of the second. This distributive coordination is evident e. g. in an ofIering to the three gods: Indra, Brhaspati and Aryaman commented upon in TS 2.3.3-4. 60 lt may account for the invocation of Aryaman e. g. in AV 3.14.2 (together with [Pu~anJ, Brhaspati and Indra). The development, which parallels that of árya 'hospitable lord' into vaiSya, is rectilínear and easy to understand. lt may be identified as the modest grain of truth, out of which has grown Dumézil's proposition that Aryaman, as "le troisieme souverain", is "le dieu du corps social" (Tl'oisieme souverain 130 fI.), a "sorte de ministre de la nationalité" (Les dieux indo-eul'opéens 49). 69. In the widely dispersed evidence of the RV concerning God Aryaman (Fremdling 141-144), two practical functions stand out. They are immediately derivable from. his ethical character as Hospitality personified:

60 While agreeing with Dumézil (Tl'oisieme souvemin 97-8) on the signi­ficance of the grouping of the three gods, 1 am far from accepting his trans­lations of the terms éinujéival'a (allegedly: "de bas rang", in reality: 'later born') and janatéim i (allegedly: "aller dans la masse des gens"; d. below § 70 and note 61), and the conclusions he bases on these mistranslations, which might have been avoided by looking up the P\V- 01' any other good dictionary.

Mitra and Aryaman § 68-70 87

1) he is the god of liberality, he gives presents-as a host does;

2) he is the god of safe convoy; he leads on well protected paths across all dangers and wards ofI malevolent enemies­like a protector of strangers who are threatened by unknown perils.

lt might be .profitable to call to mind e. g. Tacitus, Germania 21: qui modo hospes fuerat, monstrator hospitii et comes.

These two functions of God Aryaman are known also to the BrahmaJ,las. For example:

TS 2.3.4.1 yálJ- khálu vaz dádiiti so 'ryamfi 'God Aryaman is, in truth, he who gives, as is well known', (cf. also KS 8.1 [83.13J, MS 2.3.6 [34.2J, TB 1.1.2.4; TS 2.3.14.4, MS 4.12.4 [190.7]) ;

TS 2.3.4.2 sá evaínalp. lád gamayati yátra jzgami§ati 'it is he [Aryaman] who makes him (the sacrificer) go where he wants to go'.

Thrice in the quoted context (TS 2.3.4.1 and 2), we are, however, told something concerning God Aryaman that seems of an altogether difIerent nature:

asaú vlÍ iidityo 'ryamlÍ 'Aryaman is, in truth, yonder Aditya (= the sun).'

1 am in perfect agreement with Lommel when he demands that such distinct equations be taken seriously, and does not want them to be passed over lightly (Orient 7.382-3). 1 plead guilty of having been superficial in dealing with this point in my Fremdling 133. H. Güntert's explanation of Aryaman's identification with the sun, which 1 adopted, is not sufficient. We must look for a more specific reason. 70. Before entering into a discussion of the details, 1 must emphasize a point of principIe that is sometimes overlooked -not only by Dumézil. The BrahmaJ,las do not give 'ex­planations' intended for people ignorant of the Vedic gods. They presuppose, on the contrary, a belief in these gods. To what is commonly believed and lmown they add esoteric speculations that contain, of necessity, an element 'of surprise.

88 Paul Tllieme

But these speculations-given in sentences that ordinarily contain the word vai 'in truth' -are linked up with certain traits of the god in question, either explicitly mentioned 01'

implicitly presupposed as known to the adept who is. being instructed. The Brahmal).a prose is not descriptive but argu­mentative. It aims at discovering the secret meaning a:rid esoteric significance of ritual acts. Its argumentation artfully intertwines reasoning by rational syllogisms and revelation of mystic irrational truths.

I illustrate the procedure by the three statements I quoted in § 69 from TS 2.3.4.1. and 2.

The sentence: sá evaínaI[! tád gamayati yátm jígami~ati 'it is Aryaman who makes him (the sacrificer) go where he wants to go' does not contain a vaz 'in truth': it is not an esoteric revelation, but a calling to mind of a known trait of fue godo This reminder has the simple function of giving a rational explanation for the fact that a potsherd is offered to Aryaman not only by a sval'gákama 'a man ,vho wants to go to heaven' (TS 2.3.4.1), but also by aman who has the wish: svasti janátam iyam 'with goocl luck (without mishap) I want to go abroad'. 61

The sentence: yáJ:¡ khálu vaz dádiiti so 'l'yamiÍ 'He who gives is, as is well known, [God] Aryaman', is ambivalent. On the one hancl, it calls to mind a well known (khálu) trait of the god as diitiÍ vásünam (TS 2.3.14.4). On the other hand,

61 Literally: '1 want to go to the populaee.' The sense of the expression is established by TS 2.2.6.4 yadá •.• sallwatsáraJp janátayüJp cárati 'when a man roams in the populaee (= "tl'avels abl'oad") fol' one year', TS 2.2.1.4 ápa vá etásmüd indriyárp virydm kl'ümati yá éti janátüm 'Away goes fl'om him, in truth, his stl'ength, his manhood, who goes abl'oad'. janá/ü is the eolleetive designation of all those who belong neithel' to the bandhúlü 'l'eIationship' (= 'aIl those eonneeted by eonsanguinity'), nol' to the gl'ümátü 'village eom­munity' (cf. Pan. 4.2.43).

TS 2.3.4.2 seems to give us the eIue fol' understanding RV 4.55.5e by identifying the páti spoken of here as Aryaman:

RV 4.55.5ed pát pátil' jányüd á'l¡haso no mitró mitríyüd u/á na ul'u§yet

'May proteet us the master (Hospitality) from the anxiety that comes from the peopIe [abroad], and may deliver us Contraet fl'om the anxiety that comes from friends-by-eontraet (ef. aboye § 50 note 49).'

lvIitm and Al'yaman § 70-71 89

it reveals a mystic truth (val): it mystically iclentifies 'hÍln who gives', that is: everybody who gives presents, wifu God Aryaman himself. To do full justice to the weighty impli­cations of the sentence, we should have to give an analytical paraphrase:

'It is well known (khálu) that Aryaman is [the god] who gives; it is an esoteric truth, hidden to the perception of com­mon people, (val) that everybody who gives presents is mystically identical with God Aryaman himself.'

On the popular level, the wish 'diÍnakama me pmjiÍJ:¡ syul;¡' has the sense: 'May [my] progeny be foncl of giving presents to me [i. e. offer me Si'addha sacrifices]'. On the mystic level, it may have the sense: 'May my progeny be fond of giving presents to me [and, fuus, becoming identical with God Arya­man, help me to go to heaven]'.

The third sentence: asaú viÍ adityo 'l'yamiÍ 'Aryaman is, in truth, yonder Aditya (= the sun)' is unambiguously charac­terized by vaz as a statement of esoteric revelation. It is a most important mystic truth: it forms fue chief argument of the whole passage. Thrice it is repeated; fOl' all the three wishes with which aman may make offering of a potsherd to Aryaman, will come true, from the point of view of mystic speculation, because in reality Aryaman is not what common people may think him to be, but the sun: as the sun he helps aman to go to heaven, as the sun he makes a man's progeny fond of giving him presents, ancl as the sun he makes aman go where he wants to go.

We ask how speculation arrives at this identification. 71. The three fire places on the sacrificial grouncl, the khara, have peculiar shapes. The Daki?il).agni, the fire in the south, is a semicircle, the Ahavaniya is a square, the Garhapatya is rouncl. In fue magic interpretation of the sacriflCe, the sacrificial grouncl represents the universe. All that happens at the sacrifice is viewed as a miniature imitation of what happens in the cosmos. The Daki?il).agni must, then, represent the moon, the Ahavaniya the earth, which is considered to be square in early Vedic times (RV 10.58.3 ... bhámiI[! cátur­bhr#im), and the Garhapatya the sun: Lüclers, Val'U~a 1.82.

For this interpretation of the sacrificial fires as representing

90 Paul Thieme

moon, earth and sun, we have already evidence in the RV. In one of the younger hymns we read:

1.164.34 prcchámi tvil páram ántaf!1 prthivyá1:t prcchámi yátra bhúvanasya nábhi1:t prcchámi tvil vrgl.O ásvasya réta1:t prcchámi vilcá1:t paramáf!1 vyoma

'1 ask thee after the utmost border of the earth; 1 ask where there is the navel (hub) of the universe; 1 ask thee after the stallion's semen; 1 ask after the highest heaven of speech.'

1.164.35 iyáJ?1 védi1:t páro ánta1:t prthivyá ayáf!1 yajñó bhúvanasya nábhi1:t ayáf!1 sómo vf§IJo ásvasya dto bl'ahmáyáT[I vilcá1:t paramáf!1 vyoma

'The utmost border of the earth is this vedi; the navel (hub) of the universe is this worship; the stallion's semen is this soma; the highest heaven of speech is this [sacred] poet (literally: "formulator [of truth]").'

The 'sacred poet' (bl'ahmán) and the 'highest heaven of speech' are mystically identified because both are the 'seat oftruth': sádanam rtásya (RV 7.36.1, cf. Thieme ZDMG 102. 112). 'The stallion's semen' is an allegorical expression for 'rain': it is identified with the soma that is poured on the Ahavaniya, like the rain falls on the earth. 'The navel (hub) of the universe' is an allegorical expression for 'earth', which is the center of the cosmos according to all pre-Copernican thinking. The earth is the yajñá, that is 'the place where the worship is actually effected': the square khara of the Aha­vaniya.

The vedi is-in Rigvedic speech usage (cf. Thieme, Güttin­gis che Gelehrte Anzeigen 209. 212 [1955 ])-the grass seat (barhis) which is spread around the Ahavaniya. If the Ahavaniya represents the four-cornered earth, the grass seat around it is, indeed, 'the utmost border of the earth'. 72. Now we are in a position to piece together the various, dispersed scraps of evidence into a meaningful picture that reveals the secret of their disposition:

-, -- ~------'---~----~--'--~---""""'---------------"""'II

Mitra and Al'yaman § 71-72 91

God Aryaman, that is: Hospitality personified, manifests himself in the householder's fire (AV 14.1.39) and its repre­sentative on the sacrificial ground, the Garhapatya (RV 2.1.4c). Since the Garhapatya, as is indicated by its round shape, mystically represents the sun, the esoteric identity can be discovered:

'Aryaman is, in truth, yonder sun.'

Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut.

.. , ........ _________ flFIIII.fll!!'.'.' !;IIIllI'ijli[l!lj","!!!~4.·'!!!2 ____ · 111. __ .... __ ... _ .. _ ... -_ .... ' ...... ___ .. _,._ .. ~~ __ .-~~_c,--~'-"-

\

INDEX

Veda

a) :¡;tgveda 59. 3 6, 46--48, 51, 57, 58,

1. 1. 1 84 82 n.

14.10 51 n., 57 59. 4 6, 8 n., 49-54, 55, 57,

24. 8 70 59

24.10 70, 71 59. 5 6, 40, 54 f., 57, 58

50. 6 70 59. 6 55, 57, 58

94.12 6, 52 59. 7 55, 57, 59

115. 1 69 59. 8 55, 57, 58 f.

136. 1 6, 54, 58 59. 9 56--57, 59

136. 2 59 62.16 45

136. 3 11,41 f., 59, 62, 68, 82

141. 9 10 f. 4. 1.18 66

152. 1 68 16.17 76

164.34, 35 90 55. 5 46, 63 n., 88

167. 8 5, 53, 80 169. 6 75 5. 3. 1 49 f., 59, 83, 84

185. 8 63 3. 2 85

186. 3 66 29. 1 13 n., 78 f. 48. 5 76

2. 1.4 49 f., 59, 83-85, 91 54. 8 1311., 81

12.10 34 n. 59. 2 44n.

23.13 73 62. 2 37

27.10 811. 62. 3 43, 45

27.14 54 62. 6 54

27.16 52, 58 62. 8 69

28. 6 69 63 11

29. 5 52 65. 5 67

41. 6 11 65. 6 41, 62, 67 66. 3 45

3. 1.21 50 66. 6 39, 62

5. 3,4 59 67. 1 12 f., 82

26. 2 79 67. 2 55

43. 2 74 69. 1 43

54.18 13 69. 2 45

59. 1 39-41, 55, 57, 58 f. 69. 4 57

59. 2 44-46, 48, 51, 57, 58 70. 2 48

94

72. 2 85. 7

48 62 r., 79, 80, 81

6. 3. 1 45. 7 48.14

46 811. 5

50. 1 51. 1 67. 1 67. 5 68. 3

7. 12. 3 33.11 36. 1 36. 2 36. 4 38. 4 40. 4

5 69 56, 62 69 811.

59, 83 65 90 40, 69 5 13 46

60. 1,2 69 60.10 53 61. 1 69 61. 3 69 62. 4 6, 52, 58 62. 5 45 63. 1 69 64. 2 47 64. 3 83 65. 3 52, 58 65. 4 45 66.11 42, 57, 62, 70 82. 4 48 82. 5 8 11., 67 86. 1 23 11., 64 86. 2 6, 54, 58, 65 f. 86. 4 6 86. 5 54 86. 6 65 f., 68, 69 86. 7 64, 76, 83 87. 1 70 87. 4 65 87. 7 54 88. 2 7011. 88. 4 811., 65 88. 5 6, 54 88. 6,7 54

Panl Thieme

89. 1-4 6 89. 5

8. 1.34 16. 7 19.36 26.11 33.14 35.12 41. 3 41. 5 41. 9 47. 9

102.12

9. 83. 4 85.12 86.16 86.36 97.30

68

76 811. 74 12 f., 82 76 4211. 70 f. 64 f. 70, 71 45 41

811. 811. 62 811. 57

10. 8. 4 49, 84 8. 5 83

27. 8 75 28. 1 15 f., 73 f. 34. 3 1411. 34.14 20 36.12 52 37. 1 69 58. 3 89 71. 1,2 65 85.25,26 14 89. 9 20, 62 f. 89.12 20 97.16 63f.

108. 3 20 117. 6 81 121. 6 64 n. 152. 1 45

b) Atharvaveda

2. 6. 4 4011. 3. 4. 6 13

5. 5 81 14. 2 86

4.16. 2-5 69

Mitm and Al'yaman

6.60. 1 86 6.4. 8.3 70 9. 3.18 70 Viij. S. 20.17 77

13. 3.13 70 23.30,31 77 14. 1. 7 85 f. 26. 2 77

1.19-20 14 27. 5 39 1.39 14 f., 85, 91

32. 8 77

d) EriihmaJ;1a e) Yajurveda Ait. El'. 1.27 8 n.

KS 8. 1 87 4.10.9 70 MS 1. 6.11 8 n. 7.15.1-6 8 11.

2. 2. 1 8 n. SE 4. 1. 4. 1 8 n. 2. 3. 6 87 4.12. 4 87

TS 2.3. 3-4 86

25.8 27.5 33.3 40.4 49.7

2.3. 4.1-2 87-91 TE 2.3.14.4 2.4. 7.2 4.3.10.1

87, 88 56 8 11.

Avesta

a) Yasl1a 22

34 23

8211. 24 80 26 80 27

80, 81 28 29 33

b) Yast 34

6. 5 37 35 10. 1

2

3 4 5 6 7

11 13 16 17 18 19 20 21

50 38 27, 29, 46 43 2~~f.,~ « 25, 29 45 29, 54, 82 n. 50

50 51 29, 30, 31 54 32, 39 n., 44, 47 55 31, 34, 35 f., 37, 56, 69 61 34 65 29 67 24, 55 68 34, 53 70 33, 5211. 78 52n. 80

11. 4. 3.10,11 8 n. 12. 8. 3.10 8 n. 13. 4. 3. 7

1. 1. 2. 4 1. 5. 3. 3 1. 7.10. 1 2. 3. 5. 2

46 f.

8 11. 87 70 70 86

33, 47, 52 n. 29, 31 29, 32, 53 33 29 50, 51, 55, 67 50 f. 51 31, 53 45 28 31 31 31 31 31 28 f., 42, 56 29, 32, 43, 45 29 34 34 f., 36 34

29, 45, 50, 56 20, 25, 31

95

96 Paul Tllieme

82 26, 31,46 124 34, 59 n.

87 27 125 34, 35, 36

90 37 128 tI. 34

95 31 f., 42, 55 136 36 f.

96 34, 36 140 54

97 30 142 35

101 f. 34 143 35, 37

103 31, 42 106 34 e) Vendidad 109 62 n. 4. 2 29 f. 111 62 n. 4.11 30 112 36, 44 f., 56 113 34 116 16 n., 85 n. d) NyaiS

121, 122 30 1.5-7 37