victories, found all the worlds, attained the superiority, pre-eminence, and supremacy over all the gods, and having won the overlordship, the paramount rule, the self rule, the sovereignty, the supreme authority, the kingship, the great kingship, the suzerainty in this world, self-existing, self-ruling, immortal, in yonder world of heaven, having attained all desires he became immortal."[10] Thus we see that amidst the maze of obscure legends about Indra there are three points which stand out with perfect clearness. They are, firstly, that Indra was a usurper; secondly, that the older gods fought hard but vainly to keep him from supreme divinity, and that in his struggle he killed his father; and thirdly, that he was identified with the warrior class, as opposed to the priestly order, or Brahmans. This antagonism to the Brahmans is brought out very clearly in some versions of the tales of his exploits. More than once the poets of the Ṛig-vēda hint that his slaying of Vṛitra involved some guilt, the guilt of brahma-hatyā, or slaughter of a being in whom the brahma, or holy spirit, was embodied[11]; and this is explained clearly in a priestly tale (TS. II. v. 2, 1 ff.; cf. ŚB. I. i. 3, 4, vi. 3, 8), according to which Indra from jealousy killed Tvashṭā's son Viśvarūpa, who was chaplain of the gods, and thus he incurred the guilt of brahma-hatyā. Then Tvashṭā held a sōma-sacrifice; Indra, being excluded from it, broke up the ceremony and himself drank the sōma. The sōma that was left over Tvashṭā cast into one of the sacred fires and produced thereby from it the giant Vṛitra, by whom the whole universe, including Agni and Sōma, was enveloped (cf. the later version in Mahābhārata, V. viii. f.). By slaying him Indra again became guilty of brahma-hatyā; and some Ṛigvēdic poets hint that it was the consciousness of this sin which made him flee away after the deed was done.

These bits of saga prove, as effectually as is possible in a case like this, that Indra was originally a warrior-king or chieftain who was deified, perhaps by the priestly tribe of the Aṅgirasas, who claim in some of the hymns to have aided him in his fight with Vṛitra, and that he thus rose to the first rank in the pantheon, gathering round himself a great cycle of heroic legend based upon those traditions, and only secondarily and by artificial invention becoming associated with the control of the rain and the daylight.

The name Aśvinā means "The Two Horsemen"; what their other name, Nāsatyā, signifies nobody has satisfactorily explained. But even with the name Aśvinā there is a difficulty. They are described usually as riding together in a chariot which is sometimes said to be drawn by horses, and this would suit their name; but more often the poets say that their chariot is drawn by birds, such as eagles or swans, and sometimes even by a buffalo or buffaloes, or by an ass. I do not see how we can escape from this difficulty except by supposing that popular imagination in regard to this matter varied from very early times, but preferred to think of them as having horses. At any rate they are very ancient gods, for the people of Iran also have traditions about them, and in the far-away land of the Mitanni, in the north of Mesopotamia, they are invoked together with Indra, Mitra, and Varuṇa to sanction treaties. In India the Aryans keep them very busy, for they are more than anything else gods of help. Thrice every day and thrice every night they sally forth on their patrols through earth and heaven, in order to aid the distressed[12]: and the poets tell us the names of many persons whom they have relieved, such as old Chyavāna, whom they restored to youth and love, Bhujyu, whom they rescued from drowning in the ocean, Atri, whom they saved from a fiery pit, Viśpalā, to whom when her leg had been cut off they gave one of iron, and Ghōshā, to whom they brought a husband. Many other helpful acts are ascribed to them, and it is very likely that at least some of these stories are more or less true. Another legend relates that they jointly wedded Sūryā, the daughter of the Sun-god, who chose them from amongst the other gods.[13]

Amidst the medley of saga and facts and poetical imagination which surrounds the Aśvinā, can we see the outlines of their original character? It is hard to say: opinions must differ. The Aryans of India are inclined to say that they are simply divine kings active in good works; but the priests are perhaps beginning to fancy that they may be embodiments of powers of nature—they are not sure which—and in course of time they will have various theories, partly connected with their rituals. But really all that is certain in the Vēdic age about the Aśvins is that they are an ancient pair of saviour-gods who ride about in a chariot and render constant services to mankind. We are tempted however to see a likeness between them and the [Greek: Diòs kórô] of the distant Hellenes, the heroes Kastor and Polydeukes, Castor and Pollux, the twin Horsemen who are saviours of afflicted mankind by land and sea. There are difficulties in the way of this theory; but they are not unsurmountable, and I believe that the Aśvinā of India have the same origin as the Twin Horsemen of Greece. At any rate both the pairs are hero-gods, whose divinity has been created by mankind's need for help and admiration for valour. Whether there was any human history at the back of this process we cannot say.

Now we may leave the heroes and consider a god of a very different kind, Vishṇu.

The Ṛig-vēda has not very much to say about Vishṇu, and what it says is puzzling. The poets figure him as a beneficent young giant, of unknown parentage, with two characteristic attributes: the first of these is his three mystic strides, the second his close association with Indra. Very often they refer to these three strides, sometimes using the verb vi-kram, "to step out," sometimes the adjectives uru-krama, "widely-stepping," and uru-gāya, "wide-going." The three steps carry Vishṇu across the three divisions of the universe, in the highest of which is his home, which apparently he shares with Indra (RV. I. xxxii. 20, cliv. 5-6, III. lv. 10; cf. AB. I. i., etc.). Some of them are beginning to imagine that these steps symbolise the passage of the sun through the three divisions of the world, the earth, sky, and upper heaven; certainly this idea will be held by many later scholars, though a few will maintain that it denotes the sun at its rising, at midday, and at its setting. Before long we shall find some priests harping on the same notion in another form, saying that Vishṇu's head was cut off by accident and became the sun; and later on we shall see Vishṇu bearing as one of his weapons a chakra, or discus, which looks like a figure of the sun. But really all this is an afterthought: in the Vēda, and the priestly literature that follows directly upon the Vēda, Vishṇu is not the sun. Nor do we learn what he