Indra fashioned the universe in the simple manner that the early Aryans built their wooden houses.[49] How he obtained the requisite material puzzled the Vedic poets. It may be that there was a World Tree, however, like the great ash Ygdrasil of Teutonic mythology. After measuring space with the sun, Indra set up four corner posts and constructed the world walls; the roof was the cloud-thatched sky. The wide doors of the world opened to the east, and every morning they were opened to admit the sun, which Indra flung at evening into the darkness as a Neolithic man may have flung out a house torch. These doors are the “gates”, celebrated in the Vedic hymns, through which the gods entered to partake of the sacrifices and libations. Indra, who is called “an accomplished artisan”, is lauded as the god who “firmly secured the dominion of air in the frame of heaven and earth”. In another hymn it is told: “Indra measured six broad spaces, from which no existing thing is excluded: he it is who made the wide expanse of earth and the lofty dome of the sky, even he”. (V. i, 47·3, 4.) [49] _Cosmology of Rigveda_, Wallis. [Illustration: INTERIOR OF A TEMPLE TO VISHNU (BRINDABAN) 5] In the work of shaping the universe Indra is assisted by the shadowy deities Savitri, who merged with Surya, the sun god, Brihaspati, “Lord of Prayer”, who merged with Agni, god of fire, and Vishnu, god of grace. He was also aided by the Ribhus, the artisans of the gods, who dwelt in the region of mid-air. Their number is given variously as three or the multiples of three; they were the sons of Sudhanvan, who was apparently identical with Indra, because “Indra is a Ribhu when he confers gifts”; indeed, the artisans are referred to as the children of the Thunder god. They make grass and herbs, and also channels for streams. In some respects they resemble the earth-gnomes, the Khnumu, “the modellers”, the helpers of the Egyptian artisan god Ptah, who shaped the world. “Countless little figures of these gods are found in Egyptian tombs; for even as once the Khnumu had helped in the making of the world, so would they help to reconstruct in all its members the body of the dead man in whose tomb they were laid.”[50] The Ribhus similarly renovated aged and decrepit parents; “they reunited the old cow to the calf”; they are also credited with having shaped the heavens and the earth,[51] and with having fashioned the “cow of plenty”, and also a man named Vibhvan.[52] [50] _Religion of the Ancient Egyptians_, Professor A. Wiedemann, p. 137. [51] _Rigveda_, iv, 34. 9. [52] _Cosmology of Rigveda_, Wallis.