the flashing of their arms and hear the sound of their
flute-music and songs, with their challenge calls and the
cracking of their whips.^ Tumultuous though they are,
they are none the less beneficent. They are dispensers of
the rains, and from the udder of Prigni, the spotted cow,
their mother, they cause her milk to flow in the showers.^
From their father, Eudra, they inherit the knowledge of
remedies.^ This last, whose name probably meant the
reddish one," before it was interpreted to mean "The
Howler," is, like his sons, a god of storm. In the Hymns,
which certainly do not tell us everything here any more
than elsewhere, he has nothing of that gloomy aspect
under which we find him become so famous afterwards.
Although he is armed with the thunderbolt, and is the
author of sudden deaths,* he is represented as pre-emi-
nently helpful and beneficent. He is the handsomest of
the gods, with his fair locks. Like Soma, the most excel-
lent remedies are at his disposal, and his special office is
that of protector of flocks.^ He is a near relation of Vdyu
or Vdta, the wind, with whom he is sometimes confounded,^
a god of healing like him, and owner of a miraculous cow
which yields him the best milk.'^ He is also similarly re-
lated to Parjanya, the most direct impersonation of the
rain-storm, the god with the resounding hymn, who lays the
forests low and causes the earth to tremble, who terrifies
even the innocent when he smites the guilty, but who
also diffuses life, and at whose approach exhausted vege-
tation begins to revive. The earth decks herself afresh
when he empties his great shower- bottle ; he is her
husband, and it is through him that plants, animals, and
men are capable of reproduction ; and, as may always be
1 Rig- Veda, i. 64, 4 ; viii. 20, 1 1 ; 5 Rig. Veda, ii, 33, 3, 4 ; i. 43, 4 ; i. 85, 2, 10; 37, 3, 13. 114, 5 ; ii. 33, 2 ; vi. 74; i. 43 j 2 Rig- Veda, i. 37, 10, ii ; 38, 7, 1 14, 8; x. 169. 9; 64, 6 ; V. 53, 6-10 ; ii. 34, 10. ^ Rig- Veda, x. 169. He is, like 2 Rig- Veda, i. 38,2; ii. 34, 2; him, father of the Maruts: i. 134, viii. 20, 23-26 ; ii. 33, 13. 4 ; 135, 9. •* Rig- Veda, ii. 33, 3, 10-14; vii. Rig- Veda, x. 186; i. 134, 4. 46. * . '
