Discordant Deities

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<pre style="font-size: 13px; line-height: normal; text-align: left;">DISCORDANT DEITIES.

ledge of good and evil has not yet been tasted. In some

of the earlier hymns of the Rig- Veda, the Maruts, the

storm-deities, are praised along with Indra, the sun ;

Yama, king of Death, is equally adored with the goddess

of Dawn. * No real foe of yours is known in heaven, nor

in earth.' * The storms are thy allies.' Such is the high

optimism of sentences found even in sacred books which

elsewhere mask the dawn of the Dualism which ulti-

mately superseded the harmony of the elemental Powers.

* I create light and I create darkness, I create good and

I create evil.' 'Look unto Yezdan, who causeth the

shadow to fall.' But it is easy to see what must be the

result when this happy family of sun-god and storm-god

and fire-god, and their innumerable co-ordinate divinities,

shall be divided by discord. When each shall have be-

come associated with some earthly object or fact, he or she

will appear as friend or foe, and their connection with the

sources of human pleasure and pain will be reflected in

collisions and wars in the heavens. The rebel clouds will

be transformed to Titans and Dragons. The adored

Maruts will be no longer storm-heroes with unsheathed

swords of lightning, marching as the retinue of Indra,

but fire-breathing monsters — Vritras and, Ahis, — and the

morning and evening shadows from faithful watch-dogs

become the treacherous hell-hounds, like Orthros and Cer-

berus. The vehement antagonisms between animals and

men, and of tribe against tribe, will be expressed in the

conception of struggles among gods, who will thus be

classified as good or evil deities.

This was precisely what did occur. The primitive pan-

theism was broken up : in its place the later ages beheld

the universe as the arena of a tremendous conflict between

good and evil Powers, who severally, In the process of

time, marshalled each and everything, from a world to a

worm, under their flaming banners. </pre>

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