The Dawn of History: An Introduction to Pre-Historic StudyKeary, C. F. (Charles Francis)
History
The Dawn of History: An Introduction to Pre-Historic Study
Keary, C. F. (Charles Francis)
Archaeology; History, Ancient; Mythology
Swarga is the Bright Land (_svar_, to shine), _i.e._ the Home of the
Sun. The names of the two guardian dogs, too, are interesting. They are
the sons of that Saramâ whom we have already seen sent by Indra to
recover his lost cattle, whose name signifies the breeze of morning.
Saramâ’s two sons, the dogs of Yama, being so closely connected with the
god of the under-world--as Saramâ is with Indra the sun-god--might be
guessed as the winds of evening or, more vaguely, the evening, as Saramâ
is the morning. They are so; and by their name of Sârameyas, are even
more closely related to Hermes than Saramâ was.[100] We now know why to
Hermes was allotted the office of Psychopomp, or leader of the shades to
the realm of Hades--or at least we partly know; for we see that he is
the same with the two dogs of Yama in the Indian myth. But they are also
connected by name with another much more infernal being, Cerberus. Their
individual names were _Cerbura_[101] the spotted, and Syama the black.
Thus the identity of nature is confirmed by the identity of name.
Death and Sleep are twin-brothers, and we need not be surprised to find
the Sârameyas, or rather _a_ god Sârameyas, addressed as a sort of god
of sleep, a divine hound, the protector of the sleeping household, as we
do find in a very beautiful poem of the Rig-Vedas.[102]
‘Destroyer of sickness, guard of the house; oh, thou who
takest all shapes, be to us a peace-bringing friend.
Bay at the robber, Sârameyas, bay at the thief; why bayest
thou at the singer of Indra? why art thou angry with me?
sleep, Sârameyas.
The mother sleeps, the father sleeps, the dog sleeps, the
clan-father[103] sleeps, the whole clan sleeps; sleep thou, Sârameyas.
Those who sleep by the cattle, those who sleep by the wain,
the women who lie on the couches, the sweet-scented ones,
all these we bring to slumber.’
How these verses breathe of the fragrant air of early pastoral life! In
their names, again, of ‘black’ and ‘spotted’ it is very probable that
the dogs typified two appearances of night--black or starry.
[Sidenote: The heavenward journey.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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