The Hindus (23 page)

One long poem (10.85) celebrates the story of the marriage of the moon and the daughter of the sun, and another (10.17.1-2) briefly alludes to the marriage of the sun to the equine goddess Saranyu. But these are not simple hierogamies (sacred marriages), for the celestial gods also share our sexual frailties. To say that a marriage is made in heaven is not necessarily a blessing in the Vedic world; adultery too is made in heaven. (In the
Ramayana
[7.30], Indra’s adultery with a mortal woman creates adultery for the first time on earth.) The moon is unfaithful to the sun’s daughter when he runs off with the wife of the priest of the gods (Brihaspati) (10.109). And the sun’s wife, Saranyu, the daughter of the artisan and blacksmith Tvashtri, gives birth to twins (one of whom is Yama, god of the dead) but then runs away from the sun. She leaves in her place a double of herself, while she herself takes the form of a mare and gives birth to the horse-headed gods, the Ashvins (10.17.1-2).
⁶²
Saranyu belongs to a larger pattern of equine goddesses who abandon their husbands, for while stallions in Vedic ritual thinking are domesticated male animals (
pashus
), fit for sacrifice, mares belong to an earlier, mythic Indo-European level
⁶³
in which horses were still thought of as wild animals, hunted and perhaps captured but never entirely tamed.

Not all the females in the
Rig Veda
are anthropomorphic. Abstract nouns (usually feminine) are sometimes personified as female divinities, such as Speech (Vach)
⁶⁴
and Destruction (Nirriti). There are also natural entities with feminine names, such as Dawn and Night and the Waters (including the Sarasvati River) and terrestrial goddesses, such as the nymphs (Apsarases), the forest, and Earth (Prithivi), who is regarded as a mother. And there are divine wives, named after their husbands (Mrs. Indra, Mrs. Surya, Mrs. Rudra, Mrs. Varuna, Mrs. Agni)
⁶⁵
and at least one divine husband, named after his rather abstract wife: Indra is called the Lord of Shachi (
shachi-pati
),
pati
meaning “husband” or “master” (literally “protector”) and
shachi
meaning “power” (from the verb
shak
or
shach
). Together, they suggest that Indra is the master of power or married to a goddess named Shachi, which became another name for Indrani. So too later goddesses played the role of the
shakti
(another form derived from the same verb) that empowered the male gods. But no goddesses (except Vach, “Speech”) have any part in the sacrifice that was the heart of Vedic religion.
⁶⁶

Most Vedic creator gods (like most Vedic gods in general) are male, but one Vedic poem imagines cosmic creation through the down-to-earth image of a female, called Aditi (“Without Limits,” “Infinity”), who gives birth to a baby:

The dominant visual image of this poem is the goddess of infinity, who crouches with legs stretched up (
uttana-pad
), more particularly with knees drawn up and legs spread wide,
^bw
a term that designates a position primarily associated with a woman giving birth.
⁶⁷
This position is later associated with yoga and might have yogic overtones even in this period.

Again we encounter the paradox of mutual creation:
^bx
The female principle of infinity and the male principle of virile dexterity create each other as Brahma and Vishnu will later create each other. A Vedic commentary takes pains to explain that for the gods, two births can mutually produce each other.
⁶⁸
The creator often has the tautological name of “self-existing” or “self-created” (
svayambhu
):
^by
He creates himself, as does circular time itself, and the cosmos, according to the theory of the four Ages.

In the house of the
Rig Veda
there are many divine mansions. We have noted the importance of multiplicity to Hindus and Hinduism, and it begins here. The
Rig Veda
has a kind of polytheism, but one that already has in it the first seeds of what will flower, in the philosophical texts called the Upanishads, into monism (which assumes that all living things are elements of a single, universal substance). A much-quoted line proclaims this singular multiplicity, in a context that is clearly theological rather than philosophical: “They call it Indra, Mitra, Varuna, Agni, and it is the heavenly bird that flies. The wise speak of what is One in many ways; they call it Agni, Yama, Matarishvan” (1.164.46). This is a tolerant, hierarchical sort of devotional polytheism: The worshiper acknowledges the existence, and goodness, of gods other than the god that he or she is addressing at the moment. This creative tension between monism and polytheism extends through the history of Hinduism.

The polytheism of Vedic religion is actually a kind of serial monotheism that Müller named henotheism or kathenotheism, the worship of a number of gods, one at a time, regarding each as the supreme, or even the only, god while you are talking to him. Thus one Vedic poem will praise a god and chalk up to his account the credit for separating heaven and earth, propping them apart with a pillar, but another Vedic poem will use exactly the same words to praise another god. (In addition, each god would have characteristics and deeds that are his alone; no one but Indra cures Apala.) Bearing in mind the way in which the metaphor of adultery has traditionally been used by monotheistic religions to stigmatize polytheism (“whoring after other gods”), and used by later Hinduism to characterize the love of god, we might regard this attitude as a kind of theological parallel to serial monogamy, or, if you prefer, open hierogamos: “You, Vishnu, are the only god I’ve ever worshiped; you are the only one.” “You, Varuna, are the only god I’ve ever worshiped; you are the only one.” “You, Susan, are the only woman I’ve ever loved; you are the only one.” “You, Helen, are the only woman I’ve ever loved; you are the only one.” Vedic kathenotheism made possible a quasihierarchical pantheon; the attitude to each god was hierarchical, but the various competing practical monotheisms canceled one another out, so that the total picture was one of equality; each of several was the best (like the pigs on George Orwell’s Animal Farm: They’re all equal, but some are more equal than others).

This time-sharing property of the Vedic gods is an example of individual pluralism: Each individual worshiper would know, and might use, several different poems to different gods. And the text is intolerant of intolerance. One Rig Vedic poem curses people who accuse others of worshiping false gods or considering the gods useless (7.104.14). When the double negatives in this statement cross one another out, we are left with an extraordinary defense of heretics and atheists. But the broader intellectual pluralism of the Vedas regards the world, or the deity, or truth itself as plural; the Vedas tackle the problem of ontology from several (plural) different angles, branching off from an ancient and still ongoing argument about the way the world
is
, about whether it is basically uniform or basically multiform.

One Vedic poem ends: “Where did this creation come from? The gods came afterward, with the creation of this universe. Who then knows where it came from? Where it came from—perhaps it formed itself, or perhaps it did not—the one who looks down on it, in the highest heaven, only he knows—or perhaps he does not know (10.129).” There is a charming humility and open-mindedness in this poem, which begins, most confusingly, with the statement “There was neither existence nor nonexistence then”—easy enough to say, impossible actually to visualize. Its final phrase (“or perhaps he does not know”) seems almost to mock the rhetoric in the line that comes right before it: “—the one who looks down on it, in the highest heaven, only he knows.” The poem asks a question about the very nature, perhaps the very existence, of god.

The unanswered cosmic question (“Who really knows?”) recurs in the
Rig Veda
in another cosmogonic poem, in which each stanza ends with the questioning refrain: “Who is the god whom we should worship with the oblation?” Thus: “He by whom the awesome sky and the earth were made firm, by whom the dome of the sky was propped up, and the sun, who measured out the middle realm of space—who is the god whom we should worship with the oblation? (10.121).” The Veda shows a tolerance, a celebration of plurality, even in asking unanswerable questions about the beginnings of all things.

The great gods of later Hinduism, Vishnu and Shiva (in the form of Rudra), make only cameo appearances in the Veda.
⁶⁹
By contrast, the most important gods of the Veda, such as Agni, Soma, Indra, and Varuna, all closely tied to the Vedic sacrifice, become far less important in later Hinduism, though they survive as symbolic figures of natural forces: fire, the moon, rain, and the waters, respectively. Other Vedic gods too are personifications of natural forces, particularly solar gods, as Müller rightly noted but overemphasized. (He was mocked for it too; one scholar wrote an article proving that by his own criteria, Max Müller himself was a solar god.
⁷⁰
) There are exquisite poems to the goddesses Dawn (1.92) and Night (10.127) and to the god Surya, the sun.

But most of the gods, even those representing natural forces, are vividly anthropomorphized. The gods are like us, only more so. They want what we want, things like marriage (and adultery), and fame, and praise. And most of the gods are closely associated with particular social classes: Agni is the Brahmin, Varuna the Brahminical sovereign, Indra the warrior, and the Ashvins the Vaishyas. There are no Shudra gods in the Vedas.

Agni, god of fire, serves as the divine model for the sacrificial priest, the messenger who carries the oblation from humans to the gods, brings all the gods to the sacrifice, and intercedes between gods and humans (1.26.3). When Agni is pleased, the gods become generous. The building of the fire altar is a foundational Vedic ceremony,
⁷¹
and the kindling and maintaining of three fires—the household fire (
Garhapatya
), the ceremonial fire (
Dakshina
), and the sacrificial fire (
Ahavaniya
)—were a basic responsibility of every householder.

Agni and Soma connect in many ways. As fire and liquid they are complementary oppositions that unite in the concept of the fiery liquid, the elixir of immortality, or ambrosia; Soma is the fiery fluid and Agni the fluid fire. As ritual elements, the embodiments of the sacrificial fire and the sacrificial drink, they are invoked more than any other gods of the
Rig Veda
. As metaphorical symbols they are the pivot of speculations about the nature of the cosmos. Their mythologies join in the image of the sunbird, a form of Agni (the firebird) who brings Soma to earth (10.123, 177). They are two contrasting sources of the inspiration that enables the Vedic poet to understand the meaning of the sacrifice and of his life: Where Soma is Dionysian, representing the wild, raw, disruptive aspect of rituals, Agni is Apollonian, representing the cultivated, cooked, cultured aspects of rituals. The Vedic sacrifice needs both of them.

Indra, the king of the gods, the paradigmatic warrior, and the god of rain, is (in English) a homonym: He reigns and he rains. As the great soma drinker he appears often in the soma poems, and he is the one who brings Agni back when the antigods (Asuras) steal him (10.51, 124). The poets also praise Indra for freeing the cows that have been stolen and hidden in a cave (3.31, 10.108), but his greatest deed is the killing of the dragon Vritra, who is called a Dasa, and who dams up the waters, causing a drought (1.32). Both Indra and Vritra are drinkers, but Vritra cannot hold his soma as Indra can (on this occasion). By killing Vritra, Indra simultaneously releases the waters or rains that Vritra has held back and conquers the enemies of the Vedic people, getting back the waters and the cows trapped in the cave.

This myth of dragon slaying, linked to the myth of the cattle raid,
⁷²
is foundational to the Kshatriya class,
^bz
as “Poem of the Primeval Man” is for the Brahmin class. Indra’s famous generosity—particularly when he is high on soma—and his endearing anthropomorphism emboldened at least one poet to imagine himself in Indra’s place (8.14). But these same qualities may have led worshipers even in Vedic times to devalue Indra;
^ca
one poem records doubts about his existence: “He about whom they ask, ‘Where is he?’ or say, ‘He does not exist,’—believe in him! He, my people, is Indra (2.12.5).” Yet even that poem ultimately affirms Indra’s existence.

Varuna combines aspects of the roles of priest and king. His original function was that of a sky god, in particular the god of the waters in the heavenly vault (Ouranos, also a sky god, is his Greek counterpart). But by the time of the
Rig Veda
Varuna had developed into a god whose primary role was watching over human behavior (as a sky god was well situated to do) and punishing those who violated the sacred law (
rita
) of which Varuna was the most important custodian. He would snare miscreants in his bonds (
pasha
), which often revealed their presence through disease.

One hymn to Varuna is extraordinary in its introspective tone, its sense of personal unworthiness and uncertainty (“What did I do?”):