In the Aitareya Brâhma_n_a we read:[170] "These two worlds (Heaven and Earth) were once joined together. They went asunder. Then it did not rain, nor did the sun shine. And the five tribes did not agree with one another. The gods then brought the two (Heaven and Earth) together, and when they came together they formed a wedding of the gods." Here we have in a shorter form the same fundamental ideas: first, that formerly Heaven and Earth were together; that afterward they were separated; that when they were thus separated there was war throughout nature, and neither rain nor sunshine; that, lastly, Heaven and Earth were conciliated, and that then a great wedding took place. Now I need hardly remind those who are acquainted with Greek and Roman literature, how familiar these and similar conceptions about a marriage between Heaven and earth were in Greece and Italy. They seem to possess there a more special reference to the annual reconciliation between Heaven and Earth, which takes place in spring, and to their former estrangement during winter. But the first cosmological separation of the two always points to the want of light and the impossibility of distinction during the night, and the gradual lifting up of the blue sky through the rising of the sun.[171] In the Homeric hymns[172] the Earth is addressed as "Mother of gods, the wife of the starry Heaven;"[173] and the Heaven or Æther is often called the father. Their marriage too is described, as, for instance, by Euripides, when he says: "There is the mighty Earth, Jove's Æther: He (the Æther) is the creator of men and gods; The earth receiving the moist drops of rain, Bears mortals, Bears food, and the tribes of animals. Hence she is not unjustly regarded As the mother of all."[174] And what is more curious still is that we have evidence that Euripides received this doctrine from his teacher, the philosopher Anaxagoras. For Dionysius of Halicarnassus[175] tells us that Euripides frequented the lectures of Anaxagoras. Now, it was the theory of that philosopher that originally all things were in all things, but that afterward they became separated. Euripides later in life associated with Sokrates, and became doubtful regarding that theory. He accordingly propounds the ancient doctrine by the mouth of another, namely Melanippê, who says: "This saying (myth) is not mine, but came from my mother, that formerly Heaven and Earth were one shape; but when they were separated from each other, they gave birth and brought all things into the light, trees, birds, beasts, and the fishes whom the sea feeds, and the race of mortals." Thus we have met with the same idea of the original union, of a separation, and of a subsequent reunion of Heaven and Earth in Greece, in India, and in the Polynesian islands. Let us now see how the poets of the Veda address these two beings, Heaven and Earth.