But why, it may be asked, was Daphne supposed to have been changed into a laurel-tree? The dawn was called daphne, the burning; so was the laurel--as wood that burns easily, and whose flame throws a bright light--two different objects, but alike under one aspect, though two distinct acts. The root _dah_ is found in daphne for laurel equally with Daphne, dawn, the synonymy of the two names producing the myth of Daphne. Although this legend first came to life on Greek soil, it would have been unintelligible without the help of the Veda, as the later Sanscrit supplied no key to it. The Sanscrit root _Ah_ is also the germ of the name of Athena, the termination of the name corresponding to Ahana; Athene is said to spring from the head of Zeus. This extraordinary birth, though post-Homeric, is no doubt of ancient date, since it repeats exactly the birth of Ahana. The Hellenists maintain that the Greeks were unconscious that the word Athene meant the dawn; doubtless few amongst them knew that Zeus originally meant the surface or forehead of the sky. It is also true that when the people of Athens worshipped Athene as their tutelary deity, she became something very different from the Indian Ushas; but if we notice carefully all the many and various ideas concerning this Greek goddess, we shall be led to the supposition that her cradle was no other than that of the dawn, namely, the east, the forehead of the sky, or Zeus. Neither in the Veda, nor in Homer, is there any mention of the mother of the dawn, although both mention _her parents_. It is a curious fact that in the mythology of Italy, Minerva, who was identical with Athene, should from the beginning have assumed a name apparently expressive of the intellectual rather than the physical character of the Dawn-goddess. Minerva or Menerva is clearly connected with _mens_, the Greek _menos_, the Sanscrit _manas_, mind; _mane_ in Latin is morning; _manare_ is specially used of the rising sun; and _matuta_, another name of the same category, is the Dawn. The root _man_, which in all Aryan languages means thought, was at a very early time, like the Sanscrit _budh_, destined to express the revived consciousness of the whole of nature at the approach of the light of the morning. The equation Ahane = Athene is both phonetically and mythologically irreproachable, the correlative Minerva can also be explained mythologically. To reject the explanations of these myths which Comparative Philology furnishes, it would be necessary to prove that Ahana and Eos do not mean the dawn, that Athene does not correspond with Ahana, and that Helios is not the sun.