Vedic Mythology
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Presented to the LIBRARY of the UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO by PROFESSOR A. K. WARDER III. BAND 1. HEFT A. Subskriptionspreis M. 8.20. Einzelpreis 9.70. GRUNDRISS DER INDO-ARISCHEN PHILOLOGIE UND ALTERTUMSKUNDE UNTER MITWIRKUNG VON A. BAINES-LONDON, R. G. BHANDARKAR-PUNA, M. BLOOMFIELD-BALTIMORE, J. BURGESS-EDINBURGH, O. FRANKE-KONIGSBERG, R. GARBE- TUBINGEN, \V. GEIGER - ERLANGEN, K. GELDNER- BERLIN, G. A. GRIERSON- CALCUTTA, A. HILLEBRANDT-BRESLAU, H. JACOBI-BONN, J. JOLLY-WURZBURG, H. KERN-LEIDEN, E. KUHN-MUNCHEN, C.R. LANMAN- CAMBRIDGE (MASS.), E. LEUMANN-STRASSBURG, B. LIEBICH-BRESLAU, A. MACDONELL- OXFORD, R. MERINGER-WIEN, R. PISCHEL-HALLE, E. J. RAPSON-LONDON, J. S. SPEYER-GRONINGEN, M. A. STEIN-LAHORE, G.THIBAUT- ALLAHABAD, A. VENIS-BENARES, SIR R. WEST-LONDON, M. WINTERNITZ- OXFORD, TH. ZACHARIAE-HALLE HERAUSGEGEBEN GEORG BttHLER. VEDIC MYTHOLOGY BY A. A. MACDONELL. STRASSBURG VERLAG VON KARL J. TRUBNER 1897. \_Alle Rechte, besonders das der Uebersetzung, vorbehalten.~\ of Research In diesem Werk soil zum ersten Mai der The Encyclopedia Indo-Aryan einen Gesamtiiber- Versuch gemacht werden, contains the first attempt at a complete, syste die einzelnen Gebiete der blick iiber indp- of in matic and concise survey of the vast field arischen Philologie und Altertumskunde zu Indian knapper und systematischer Darstellung languages, religion, history, antiquities, Die Mehrzdil der wird geben. Gegenstande and art, most of which subjects have never eine zusammen- damit iiberhaupt zum ersten Mai before been treated in a connected form. Though hangende abgerundete Behandlung erfahren; Gewinn deshalb darf von dem Werk reicher the Encyclopedia is primarily intended as a fur die Wissenschaft selbst erhofft werden, book of reference for students, it will never trotzdem es in erster Linie fur Lernende be- be useful to all connected with stimmt ist. theless India; Gelehrte aus Deutschland, Etwa dreissig and though it chiefly summarises the results Osterreich, England, Holland, Indian und achieved, it will also contain much that is Amerika haben sich vereinigt, urn diese Auf- gabe zu losen, wobei ein Teil der Mitarbeiter new and leads up to further research. ihre Beitrage deutsch, die ubrigen sie englisch About thirty scholars of various na abfassen werden. from Besteht sclion in der raumlichen Ent- tionalities, Austria, England, Germany, fernung vieler Mitarbeiter eine grossere India, the Netherlands and the United States als bei anderen ahnlichen Unter- Schwierigkeit have promised to unite in order to accomplish nehmungen, so schien es auch geboten, die this task. 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Auch fur die Tafeln und Karten a of 20 wird den Subskribenten eine Ermassigung von scribers will also enjoy reduction 20 auf den Uber % Einzelpreis zugesichert. percent for plates and maps. die Einteilung des Werkes giebt der auf For the plan of the work see page 3 of Seite 3 dieses Umschlags befindliche Plan Auskunft. this cover. STRASSBURG, im Oktober 1901. Die Verlagshandlung. The Publisher. Bei Begrundung des Grundrisses war in Aussicht genommen, die einzelnen Hefte spater in drei Bande zusammenzufassen und jedem dieser Bande ein Ge- samtregister fur die darin enthaltenen Hefte beizugeben. Da aber die bis jetzt erschienenen Hefte einen weit grosseren Umfang einnehmen als ursprioglich dafiir angesetzt war und das Bedlirfnis fur Register zu den einzelnen Heften sich als dringend herausgestellt hat, haben sich Herausgeber und Verleger entschlossen, besondere Register fur jedes Heft herzustellen. Dem hier vorliegenden Heft sind Indices beigefligt; fur die berets er schienenen Hefte liegen fertig vor die Indices zu: I. 3b: Zachariae, Die indischen Worterbiicher. I. 6 : Speyer, Vedische und Sanskrit Syntax. II. ib: Bloomfield, The Atharvaveda. II. 3b: Rapson, Indian coins. II. 8: Jolly, Recht und Sitte. III. i a: Macdonell, Vedic Mythology. IIL 4: Garbe, Samkhya und Yoga. Til. 8: Kern, Manual of Indian Buddhism. Die Verlagshandlung. GRUNDRISS DER INDO-ARISCHEN PHILOLOGIE UNO ALTERTUMSKUNDE (ENCYCLOPEDIA OF INDO -ARYAN RESEARCH) HERAUSGEGEBEN VON G. BUHLER. III. BAND, 1. HEFT A. VEDIC MYTHOLOGY BY A. A. MACDONELL. STRASSBURG VERLAG VON KARL J. TRUBNER 1897. 15" GRUNDRISS DER INDO-ARISCHEN PHILOLOGIE UNO ALTERTUMSKUNDE (ENCYCLOPEDIA OF INDO-ARYAN RESEARCH) HERAUSGEGEBEN VON G. BUHLER. III. BAND, I. HEFT A. VEDIC MYTHOLOGY BY A. A. MACDONELL. I. INTRODUCTION. i. Religion and mythology. Religion in its widest sense includes on the one hand the conception which men entertain of the divine or supernatural powers and, on the other, that sense of the dependence of human welfare on those powers which finds its expression in various forms of wor ship. Mythology is connected with the former side of religion as furnishing the whole body of myths or stories which are told about gods and heroes and which describe their character and origin, their actions and surroundings. Such myths have their source in the attempt of the human mind, in a primitive and unscientific age, to explain the various forces and phenomena of nature with which man is confronted. They represent in fact the conjectural science of a primitive mental condition. For statements which to the highly civilised mind would be merely metaphorical, amount in that early stage to explanations of the phenomena observed. The intellectual difficulties raised by the course of the heavenly bodies, by the incidents of the thunderstorm, by reflexions on the origin and constitution of the outer world, here receive their answers in the form of stories. The basis of these myths is the primitive attitude of mind which regards all nature as an aggregate of animated entities. A myth actually arises when the imagination interprets a natural event as the action of a personified being resembling the human agent. Thus the observation that the moon follows the sun without overtaking it, would have been transformed into a myth by describing the former as a maiden following a man by whom she is rejected. Such an original myth enters on the further stage of poetical embellishment, as soon as it becomes the property of people endowed with creative imagination. Various traits are now added according to the individual fancy of the narrator, as the story passes from mouth to mouth. The natural phenomenon begins to fade out of the picture as its place is taken by a detailed representation of human passions. When the natural basis of the tale is forgotten, new touches totally unconnected with its original significance may be added or even transferred from other myths. When met with at a late stage of its development, a myth may be so far overgrown with secondary accretions unconnected with its original form, that its analysis may be extremely difficult or even impossible. Thus it would be hard indeed to discover the primary naturalistic elements in the characters or actions of the Hellenic gods, if we knew only the highly anthropomorphic deities in the plays of Euripides. B. DELBRUCK, ZVP. 1865, pp. 266 99; KUHN, Uber Entwicklungsstufen der Mythenbildung, Berliner Ak. der Wissenschaften 1873, pp. 123 51; MAX MULLER, Comparative Mythology. Oxford Essays. II; Philosophy of Mythology. Selected Indo-arische Philolo^ie. III. 1 A. 1 III. RELIGION; WELTL. WlSSENSCH. U. KUNST. I A. VEDIC MYTHOLOGY. 2 from a IV , Essays. I; Chips German Workship, 155 201; Physical Religion 276-8 ; SCHWARTZ, Der Urspfung der Mythologie; MANNHARDT, Antike Wald- und Feldkulte, Berlin 1871, Preface; MULLENHOFF in preface to MANNHARDT S Mythologische For- schungen, Strassburg 1884; LANG, Mythology. Encyclopaedia Britannica; GRUPPE, Die griechischen Culte und Mythen. Introduction; BLOOMFIELD, JAOS. XV, 1356; F. B. IEVONS, Mythology. CHAMBERS Encyclopaedia; Introduction to the History of Religion, London 1896, pp. 23. 32. 249-69. 2. Characteristics of Vedic mythology. Vedic mythology occupies a very important position in the study of the history of religions. Its oldest source presents to us an earlier stage in the evolution of beliefs based on the than personification and worship of natural phenomena, any other literary monument of the world. To this oldest phase can be traced by uninterrupted development the germs of the religious beliefs of the great majority of the modern Indians, the only branch of the Indo-European race in which its original nature worship has not been entirely supplanted many centuries ago by a foreign monotheistic faith. The earliest stage of Vedic mythology is 1 as was at one time but it is not so primitive supposed , sufficiently primitive to enable us to see clearly enough the process of personification by which natural phenomena developed into gods, a process not apparent in other literatures. The mythology, no less than the language, is still transparent enough in many cases to show the connexion both of the god and his name with a physical basis; nay, in several instances the anthropomorphism is only incipient. Thus usas, the dawn, is also a goddess wearing but a thin veil of personification; and when agni, fire, designates the god, the personality of the deity is thoroughly interpenetrated by the physical element. The foundation on which Vedic mythology rests, is still the belief, surviving from a remote antiquity, that all the objects and phenomena of nature with which man is surrounded, are animate and divine. Everything that impressed the soul with awe or was regarded as capable of exercising a good or evil influence on man, might in the Vedic age still become a direct object not only of adoration but of prayer.