in his hand along with the mighty bow the beneficial consequences of the storm are no doubt to be understood. In the Atharvaveda, Rudra with Bhava is invoked under the name of Çarva as a mighty, darkly-glancing archer, with black hair, a thrower of the spear, who dashes on with a thousand eyes, and slays the Andhakas. Here also he is entreated not to be angry, not to smite men nor cattle, to hurl his heavenly weapons against others and not against his suppliant.[418] He is more highly exalted still in the Çatapatha-Brahmana, which unites in him the attributes and functions of various gods, of Vayu, Chandra, Bhava, Parjanya, _i.e._ the rain-god, and of Agni, represents the gods as afraid of his power, and denotes him by the name Mahadeva (great god). A long and extraordinary prayer which this Brahmana prescribes for appeasing him, ascribes to him the most extensive power: it calls him the inhabitant, the lord of the mountains, forests, and fields, of the wild beasts, of the streets and hosts, who slays from before and from behind, red in colour, with a blue neck. If the anger of the mighty deity is appeased, he brings rain and blessing, and then he is the gracious one, Çiva. The fruitfulness of this deity and the necessity of propitiating him appear to have brought it about that this name, which is found as an epithet of other gods, became his peculiar title. In the old sutras of the Buddhists he is thus called, though he more frequently bears the name Çankara, _i.e._ bringer of happiness. We see that the deity whose strong power drove up the rain-clouds to the coast of Surashtra (Guzerat) and the heights of the Himalayas was victorious over the ancient god of tempest. In this god there was a destroying power, but his anger and rage were followed by the fructifying showers of rain, causing vegetation to revive and the springs to flow, cooling the air and refreshing man and beast. So the nation looked up with thankful eyes to the god of storm who had now, in reality, become a god of increase and prosperity, a healer of wounds and sickness, as was already indicated in the poems of the Rigveda. Among his retinue is a being of the name of Nandin, who appears later as a bull, and is without doubt nothing more than an indication of the wild force of the storm, and its fruitful operation.[419] As he is more especially a lord of the mountains, and is said to be throned on Kailasa, and the Ganges flows down over his head, as the Epos represents the heroes as going to the Himalayas to worship Çiva, and the storm rages fiercest in the hills, we may assume that it was the inhabitants of the Western Himalayas who elevated Rudra-Çiva to be their protecting deity, just as Vishnu became the god of the nations on the Ganges.[420] FOOTNOTES: [384] Cp. p. 76, 145, 321. [385] Burnouf, "Introduction à l'histoire du Bouddhisme," p. 208, 209, 151. [386] Burnouf, _loc. cit._ p. 152. [387] Burnouf, _loc. cit._ p. 150. [388] Burnouf, _loc. cit._ p. 138, 205, 208.