A new approach to the Vedas : an essay in translation and exegesis

NOTES

135 The development of Indra, the only one of the Vedic Angels to be completely humanized in later times, corresponds exactly to that of the Olympian deities in Greece, who renouncing the ceaseless activity, processions and recessions of the older Daimones of the Year, would be athanatos = amrta, undying and immutable, whereby in fact they pass out of existence without achieving non-existence. In India it is realised clearly enough that Indra and his likes must be reborn as mortals before they can achieve or realise the non-existence, the true and absolute im-mortality of the Self. To all appearance Vedic amytatva, ““ not-dyingness,”’ is equivalent to diygham ayu, “ full length of deys,”’ and not to an absolute immortality, such as could only be predicated of those who are not “ born’”’; that Agni himself is nava navo jayamana, “ born again and again,” bhirijanma, “ of many births,” necessarily involves that he also dies again and again (cf. prajayat myrtyave, of the Sun, in X, 72, 9) and this must apply a fortiori to all other “born” Angels, who are his “ parts’’ and “ powers.’ That Indra is an Angel jealous of his throne is an especially striking aspect of the psychological parallel: for it is precisely the Olympian gods who “ begrudge a man a glory that may pale their own splendour,” whereas “to the mystery-god Dionysos phthonos is unknown” (Harrison, Themis, p. 469). Hence the spiritual necessity for the defeat and displacement of Indra by Krsna in the Govardhanadhara episode of the Bkagavata Purana, and the Buddhist emphasis on the relative wortblessness of a life in Indra’s heaven.

Cf. Jeremias, Der Kosmos von Sumer, p.9: “ Im aonischen Kreislauf der das Weltgeschick ausmacht, kann die anti-polarische Strémung so stark wirksam werden, dass die gesamte stoffliche Welt von ihr durchimpft zu sein scheint, so dass man den geistigen Fuhrer der Gegenschopfung der “ Fiirsten dieser Welt’ nennen kann, was er in Wirklichkeit nie ist. Dann erscheint die wirkliche Welt als die bése Welt schlechthin und Erlésung wird zur ‘ Uberwindung der Welt.’ ”’

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