immediate and palpable effects, for good or ill, upon the lives and fortunes of the beholders. Hence these phenomena were noted and designated with a watchfulness and wealth of imagery which made them the principal groundwork of all the Indo-European mythologies and superstitions."

Professor Schwartz, in his excellent essays on Mythology,1 ranges himself determinately on the same side:

"If, in opposition to the principles which I have carried out in my book 'On the Origin of Mythology,' it has been remarked that in the development of the ideas of the Divine in myths, I gave too much prominence to the phenomena of the wind and thunder-storms, neglecting the sun, the following researches will confirm what I indicated before, that originally the sun was conceived implicitly as a mere accident in the heavenly scenery, and assumed importance only in a more advanced state in the contemplation of nature and the formation of myths."

These two views are as diametrically opposed as two views of the same subject can possibly be. The one, the solar theory, looks to the regular daily revolutions in heaven and earth as the material out of which the variegated web of the religious mythology of the Aryans was woven, admitting only an interspersion here and there of the more violent aspects of storms, thunder and lightning; the other, the meteoric theory, looks upon clouds and storms and other convulsive aspects of nature as causing the deepest and most lasting impression on the minds of those early observers who had ceased to wonder at

1 Der heutige Volksglaube und das alte Heidenthum, 1862 (p. vii.) Der Ursprung der Mythologie, 1860.

the regular movements of the heavenly bodies, and could only perceive a divine presence in the great strong wind, the earthquake, or the fire.

In accordance with this latter view, we saw that Professor Roth explained Saranyû as the dark stormcloud soaring in space in the beginning of all things, and that he took Vivasvat for the light of heaven.1 Explaining the second couple of twins first, he took them, the Asvins, to be the first bringers of light, preceding the dawn, (but who are they?) while he discovered in the first couple, simply called Yama, the twin-brother, and Yami, the twin-sister, the first created couple, man and woman, produced by the union of the damp vapor of the cloud and the heavenly light. After their birth he imagines that a new order of things began, and that hence, their mother-the chaotic, storm-tossed twilight-was said to have vanished. Without laying much stress on the fact that, according to the Rig-Veda, Saranyû became first the mother of Yama, then vanished, then bare the Aśvins, and finally left both couples of children, it must be observed that there is not a single word in the Veda pointing to Yama and Yami as the first couple of mortals, as the Indian Adam and Eve, or representing the first creation of man as taking place by the union of vapor and light. If Yama had been the first created of men, surely the Vedic poets, in speaking of him, could not have passed this over in silence. Nor is Yima, in the Avesta, represented as the first man or as the father of mankind. He is one of the first kings, and his

1 Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft, iv. p. 425. • Spiegel, Érân, p. 245. "According to one account, the happiness of

reign represents the ideal of human happiness, when there was as yet neither illness nor death, neither heat nor cold; but no more. The tracing of the further development of Yima in Persia was one of the last and one of the most brilliant discoveries of Eugène Burnouf. In his article, "Sur le Dieu Homa," published in the "Journal Asiatique," he opened this entirely new mine for researches into the ancient state of religion and tradition, common to the Aryans before their schism. He showed that three of the most famous names in the epic poetry of the later Persians, Jemshid, Feridún, and Garshasp, can be traced back to three heroes mentioned in the Zend-Avesta as the representatives of three of the earliest generations of mankind, Yima - Kshaêta, Thraêtanr, and Keresa spa, and that the prototypes of these Zoroastrian heroes could be found again in the Yama, Trita, and Krisáśva of the Veda. He went even beyond this. He showed that, as in Sanskrit the father of Yama is Vivasvat, the father of Yima in the Avesta is Vivanghvat. He showed that as Thractana, in Persia, is the son of Athwya, the patronymic of Trita in the Veda is Aptya. He explained the transition of Thraétana into Feridún by pointing to the Pehlevi form of the name, as given by Neriosengh, Phredun. Burnouf, again, it was who identified Zohak, the tyrant of Persia, slain by Feridun, whom even Firdusi still knows by the name of Ash dahák, with the Aji dahaka, the biting serpent, as he translates it, deJima's reign came to an end through his pride and untruthfulness. According to the earlier traditions of the Avesta, Jima does not die, but, when evil and misery begin to prevail on earth, retires to a smaller space, a kind of garden or Eden, where he continues his happy life with those who remained true to him."

stroyed by Thraêtana in the Avesta. Nowhere has the transition of physical mythology into epic poetry -nay, history-been so luculently shown as here. I may quote the words of Burnouf, one of the greatest scholars that France, so rich in philological genius, has ever produced:

"Il est sans contredit fort curieux de voir une des divinités indiennes les plus vénérées, donner son nom au premier souverain de la dynastie ario-persanne; c'est un des faits qui attestent le plus évidemment l'intime union des deux branches de la grande famille qui s'est étendue, bien des siècles avant notre ère, depuis le Gange jusqu'à l'Euphrate.” 1

Professor Roth has pointed out some more minute coincidences in the story of Jemshid, but his attempt at changing Yama and Yima into an Indian and Persian Adam was, I believe, a mistake.

Professor Kuhn was right, therefore, in rejecting this portion of Professor Roth's analysis. But, like Professor Roth, he takes Saranyû as the storm-cloud, and though declining to recognize in Vivasvat the heavenly light in general, he takes Vivasvat as one of the many names of the sun, and considers their first-born child, Yama, to mean Agni, the fire, or rather the lightning, followed by his twin-sister, the thunder. He then explains the second couple, the Asvins, to be Agni and Indra, the god of the fire and the god of the bright sky, and thus arrives at the following solution of the myth:-" After the storm is over, and the darkness which hid the single cloud has vanished, Savitar (the sun) embraces once more the goddess, the cloud, who had assumed the shape 1 On the Veda and Zendavesta, by M. M., p. 31.

of a horse running away. He shines, still hidden, fiery and with golden arm, and thus begets Agni, fire; he lastly tears the wedding-veil, and Indra, the blue sky, is born." The birth of Munu, or man, he explains as a repetition of that of Agni, and he looks upon Manu, or Agni, as the Indian Adam, and not, as Professor Roth, on Yama, the lightning.

It is impossible, of course, to do full justice to the speculations of these eminent men on the myth of Saranyû by giving this meagre outline of their views. Those who take an interest in the subject must consult their treatises, and compare them with the interpretations which I have proposed. I confess that, though placing myself in their point of view, I cannot grasp any clear or connected train of thoughts in the mythological process which they describe. I cannot imagine that men, standing on a level with our shepherds, should have conversed among themselves of a dark storm-cloud soaring in space, and producing by a marriage with light, or with the sun, the first human beings, or should have called the blue sky the son of the cloud because the sky appears when the storm-cloud has been either embraced or destroyed by the sun. However, it is not for me to pronounce an opinion, and I must leave it to others, less wedded to particular theories, to find out which interpretation is more natural, more in accordance with the scattered indications of the ancient hymns of the Veda, and more consonant with what we know of the spirit of the most primitive ages of man.