The birth and marriage of the Aśvins are personal events that take place in the world of the gods alone. The Aśvins are, however, deeply involved in the adventures of humanity, and they are actually criticized by the other gods for associating too much with humans.¹ Their fame and popularity rest on their readiness to come and help people in trouble. In RV 8: 9, 13, we hear that ‘the help of the Aśvins is the best’, and elsewhere we learn that this is already regarded as an ancient tradition about the two gods:
Why do the inspired poets born long ago say, o Aśvins,
that you come the most readily (gamiṣṭhā) to any misfortune?
(RV 1: 118, 3)
The formula ‘coming most readily with help’ (avasā āgamiṣṭhā) is used of the Aśvins and the great hero-god, Indra.² The Aśvins are especially famous for helping those who have been trapped by enemies, for providing people with emergency food-supplies, and for solving marital problems. Some of the hymns give rapid lists of all their rescue missions (RV 1: 112, RV 1: 116, and RV 1: 117), but we shall look closely at four adventure stories that were very famous and inspired a lot of commentary from later Vedic interpreters.
The rescue mentioned most frequently is the story of Bhujyu, which appears in 17 of the Aśvin hymns.³ Bhujyu was lost at sea, and an account of his plight is found in RV 1: 116, 3–5:
[3] Tugra left Bhujyu behind, o Aśvins, in a cloud of water,
just as a man leaves his wealth behind when he is dead.
You brought him back with your living ships
that float in the atmosphere, waterproof.
[4] For three nights and for three days, o Nāsatyas,
you carried Bhujyu with your fliers that pass by
to the shore of the ocean, to the far side of the water,
in three chariots with a hundred feet and six horses.
[5] You did that heroic deed in the ocean that cannot
be held on to, cannot be stood upon, cannot be grasped,
when you brought Bhujyu home, o Aśvins,
after he boarded your ship with its hundred oars.
Bhujyu is the son of Tugra, and his father abandoned him in the middle of the ocean. Most versions of the story leave it at that, and go on to describe his rescue by the Aśvins, but this hymn by Kakṣīvant focuses on the abandonment. It exonerates Tugra by telling us that he abandoned his son unwillingly, just as a man does not willingly let go of his life and everything he holds dear to him.
In another of his hymns, Kakṣīvant says that the Aśvins saved Bhujyu as a favour to Tugra, who was an old friend of theirs.
With your old ways (pūrviyebhir evaiḥ),
you remembered Tugra once again, o young gods,
you carried Bhujyu out of the waves of the ocean
with your grey bird-horses.
(RV 1: 117, 14)
For Kakṣīvant, both Bhujyu and his father are victims to be pitied. Other versions are more critical of Tugra:
You went to the man who was weeping far away,
distressed at his abandonment (tyajas) by his own father.
(RV 1: 119, 8ab)
The word for abandonment, tyajas, is a very negative one, and could also be translated as ‘hostility’ or ‘hatred,’ so the abandonment of Bhujyu is presented here as criminal negligence, if not deliberate murder. An interesting compromise is found in a hymn from the Vasiṣṭha family.
And his friends with their evil ways (durevāsaḥ) abandoned, o Aśvins,
Bhujyu in the middle of the ocean,
but the malicious man (arāvā) who was your devotee rescued him.
(RV 7: 68, 7)
Tugra is, of course, the ‘malicious’ man who goes along with the ‘evil ways’ of the treacherous friends who try to murder his own son.⁴ He must, as Geldner suggests, have repented at the last minute,⁵ and since he was a devotee of the Aśvins, they enable him to rescue Bhujyu. The Aśvins remain loyal to the old ways (pūrvya eva, RV 1: 117, 14a) and to their old friends, unlike Tugra who adopts evil ways and bad company (dur-eva, RV 7: 68, 7a), and abandons his own son. In spite of Tugra's misbehaviour,⁶ the Aśvins remember once again (punar-manya, RV 1: 117, 14b) how things used to be, instead of dismissing Tugra and his son. The Aśvins are good and loyal friends, and they are even closer to Bhujyu than his own father. This is not the only story in which they intervene to save a son from the consequences of his father's anger. When Ṛjāśva is blinded by his ‘cruel father’ (RV 1: 117, 17), the Aśvins intervene to restore his sight. This intimacy with humans, which allows them to intervene in private family quarrels, is an important feature of the Aśvins, but the story of Bhujyu focuses on the surreal plight of the hero and the spectacular manner in which he is rescued.
In most of the hymns, the story is briefly mentioned in four lines or less, and the Aśvins come to the rescue in their usual chariot (ratha)⁷ which is drawn by their ‘bird-horses’ (vibhir aśvaiḥ, RV 1: 117, 14d).⁸ There are, however, two hymns that give a fuller account of this rescue (RV 1: 116, 3–5 and RV 1: 182, 5–7), and they state that the Aśvins used magic ships to reach him and bring him home.⁹ These ships are ‘living ships’,¹⁰ they have a soul (ātman), and they are also flying ships. They sail through the atmosphere (antarikṣaprudbhir, RV 1: 116, 3d), they have wings (pakṣiṇam, RV 1: 182, 5b), and they enable the Aśvins to fly properly (supaptanī petathuḥ, RV 1: 182, 5d).
In some hymns, we discover that Bhujyu is not merely lost at sea; he is floundering in a cosmic ocean that includes both the earthly sea and the atmosphere itself. When the Aśvins arrive by flying chariot, their bird-horses carry Bhujyu through the atmosphere (rajobhiḥ, RV 6: 62, 6b); in another chariot-rescue hymn, Bhujyu has been ‘tossed about in the ocean, at the far side of the atmosphere’ (rájasaḥ, RV 10: 143, 5b).¹¹
These hymns conflate the ocean with the atmosphere, and they emphasize the vastness and instability of the undefined space in which Bhujyu has lost himself. In RV 1: 182, 6b, the waters (apsu) are called ‘the darkness (tamasi) that cannot be held onto (anārambhaṇe)’. The terms used here for water (ap) and darkness (tamas) are the same ones that describe the cosmic water and darkness at the beginning of the universe. It is unclear whether he is lost in the ocean or in outer space, whether the Aśvins are flying (petatuḥ, 5d) or sailing (nāvaḥ, 6c) to the rescue. The same adjective, ‘that cannot be held onto’ (anārambhaṇe), is used to describe the ocean (samudra) in RV 1: 116, 5a, but once again, it is unclear whether we are dealing with the normal ocean or an atmospheric one, whether the Aśvins are travelling through the atmosphere (antarikṣaprudbhir, 3d) or by ship across the sea (naubhiḥ, 3c; nāvam, 5b). The ocean is described by a series of adjectives that similarly emphasise the fundamental instability of the region into which Bhujyu has disappeared: ‘it cannot be held onto, it cannot be stood on, it cannot be grasped’ (anārambhaṇe anāsthāne agrabhaṇe, RV 1: 116, 5ab). By way of contrast, Agastya in RV 1: 182, 7 wonders whether there was any tree in the middle of the ocean for Bhujyu ‘to hold on to,’ and the word he uses is ārabhe, the exact opposite of anārambhaṇe, ‘that which cannot be held onto’. The indefinable nature of this confusing space is admirably captured in the word that Kakṣīvant chose to describe it: udamegha, ‘the cloud of water’ (RV 1: 116, 3a), a term that combines and confounds the sea and the sky. We find a close parallel to this conception of the sea in the Greek word pontos, described as follows by Détienne and Vernant:
Pontos, the Salty Deep, is a primordial power of the open sea, the vast expanse bounded only by sky and water […]. In this chaotic expanse where every crossing resembles breaking through a region unknown and ever unrecognizable, pure movement reigns forever.¹²
Such was the view of the sea-faring Greeks. For the land-loving Vedic Indians, the open sea must have been even more terrifying and bewildering. To be lost and alone at the opposite end of the atmosphere, the other side of the darkness, in a chaotic region where sky and sea can no longer be distinguished, where one must fly or sail, but cannot drive a chariot or ride a horse – this Vedic nightmare was the fate of Bhujyu.
Nine times the poets say ‘you two carried him away’ (ūhathuḥ) – a verbal form that appears frequently when the Aśvins are helping people in trouble;¹³ twice we hear that the Aśvins ‘bring him across’ (pāraya)¹⁴ safely. The sense of relief echoes the emotions of the poet when night is finally over, when morning has come and men can pray to the Aśvins once again: ‘we have crossed over to the far side (pāram) of this darkness (tamasas),’¹⁵ ‘the end of the darkness (tamasas) is now visible’.¹⁶ In the vastness of the night, the poets recognize the same chaotic darkness that they see in the ocean and in the atmosphere, they see the primeval disorder from which our universe emerged. The Aśvins have the power to rescue men from this terrifying and unbounded chaos.
Mortals rarely have to face such cosmic forces alone, and most of their troubles are on a smaller scale. Their human enemies cause them quite enough difficulties and often require divine intervention. A very popular rescue story, which has important implications for the cult of the Aśvins, is the adventure of Atri, which turns up in 14 of the Aśvin hymns.¹⁷ Atri was thrown by unidentified enemies into a burning trench, which is referred to as a pit (ṛbīsa), a fire (agni), or gharma, which could mean ‘heat,’ but is more plausibly identified as a cooking pot by Jamison.¹⁸ The Aśvins rescue him from the burning pit,¹⁹ from distress,²⁰ and from darkness.²¹ Oddly enough, this ‘rescue’ does not involve removing him from the pit itself; instead, they make it bearable for him. They ‘keep away the burning fire with snow’ (RV 1: 116, 8a), they (keep away?) ‘the heated pot from Atri with snow’ (RV 1: 119, 6b); they ‘sprinkle the pot with snow for Atri’ (RV 8: 73, 3). The last hymn cited explains that they ‘created a helpful (avantam) house for Atri’ (RV 8: 73, 7), so they have made a safe and cool space within the burning trench for Atri, which will enable him to survive the ordeal. As a result, they ‘keep the fire away so that it won't burn him’ (varethe agnim ātapo, RV 8: 73, 8).
This notion of a ‘helpful house’ within the fire explains a strange expression we find in other hymns: ‘you made the heated pot helpful (omiyāvantam) for Atri’ (RV 1: 112, 7b); ‘you made the heated pit helpful (omanvantam) for Atri, for Saptavadhri’ (RV 10: 39, 9cd). It is not very helpful to be tossed into a burning pit or boiled alive in a pot, but the word ‘helpful’ refers here to the imaginary igloo that the Aśvins have created around him. As another hymn puts it, ‘his life evaded the burning (fire) with your help (omanā)’ (RV 7: 69, 4d). This case makes it clear that ‘with your help’ (omanā) means the same thing as saving him ‘with snow’ (himena), or creating a ‘helpful house’ for him.²² Jamison suggests that Atri is being compared to an embryo that is in danger of being burnt to death in its mother's womb, and needs to be protected by a surrounding ‘membrane of snow’ (himasya jarāyuṇā), a fear mentioned in several Vedic texts that she cites.²³ We must visualise Atri being saved by some such fire-proof membrane.
The Aśvins also help out by providing Atri with refreshment which is, suprisingly, a hot drink of milk, that is confusingly called gharma. So we have a play on the heated pot (gharma) that burns Atri and the heated milk (gharma) that revives him.²⁴ This word-play works well in Sanskrit because the gharma pot is used for heating milk in the Pravargya ritual,²⁵ and this ritual offering of hot milk was presented to the Aśvins. In the myth behind this ritual, they present the hot milk to Atri instead. The Aśvins ‘choose the honeyed drink of hot milk (gharmam madhumantam) for Atri’ (RV 1: 180, 4a).²⁶ The hot milk is called ‘nourishing strength’ (pitumatim ūrjam, RV 1: 116, 8b) or simply ‘strength’ (ūrjam, RV 1: 118, 7b), or ‘the wonderful food (citram bhojanam) that is yours’ (RV 7: 68, 5a). In the last case, this ‘wonderful food’ is equated with the ‘help’ (omānam, RV 7: 68, 5c) given to Atri by the Aśvins. Geldner suggests that this food may be some form of ambrosia,²⁷ but it is surely the hot milk of the Aśvins. The equation of their milk with their help shows that these terms are simply different ways of describing the same action. They provide him with a magic, cooling protection from the fire by giving him a magic, hot drink in the fire. The gharma milk saves Atri from being boiled alive, just as it prevents the gharma pot from cracking in the Pravargya ritual. So Atri is being equated with the gharma milk itself, because he is being boiled in a pot over the fire but is also protected from the fire by that snowy, helpful pot; and he is also being identified with the gharma pot itself, because he is filled with hot milk by the Aśvins which saves his life while he is being heated over the fire.
The Atri family created the Pravargya ritual, and one of their hymns commemorates its origin. The trauma of the original ordeal is forgotten, and the Atri family remembers only the life-saving drink of hot milk that the Aśvins presented to their ancestor, and that they now present to the Aśvins:
Atri thinks about the two of you
with kind thoughts, o heroes,
when he eagerly sips with his mouth
your flawless hot milk (gharma), o Nāsatyas.
(RV 5: 73, 6)
Whether Atri refers to the original hero of the story, or one of his contemporary descendants, he recalls and repays the kindness of the Aśvins to the famous Atri whenever he offers hot milk to them and drinks some himself during the Pravargya ritual.²⁸
The gratitude of Atri's family to the Aśvins is also expressed in RV 1: 180, 3–4, but in this hymn his descendants thank the Aśvins not just for the original offering of hot milk to their founder, but for the creation of milk itself:
You two (gods) placed the milk (payas) in the red cow,
the cooked (milk) in the raw cow, the ancient (milk) of the cow,
which the libation-bearer, like a shining bird,
offers to you in a wooden bowl, o gods whose appearance is true.
You chose the honeyed hot milk (gharma) for Atri,
to come to him like a flood of water.
That was a cattle-raid for you, o heroes, o Aśvins:
like chariot-wheels, (your gifts) of the sweet drink return to you.
The Aśvins are well rewarded for their generosity: they have given one drink of hot milk to Atri, and it is as if they had won an entire herd of cows in a cattle-raid, because they are guaranteed a supply of hot milk offerings in perpetuity. Atri was the first person to receive this drink, so he was under a special obligation to repay the Aśvins by performing the Pravargya ritual in their honour. It is not, however, a ritual duty that is confined to the Atri family alone, because this cycle (or ‘chariot-wheel,’ RV 1: 180, 4d) of gift and counter-gift has a cosmic origin that binds all human beings. Everyone should offer hot milk in a bowl to the Aśvins because everyone has benefitted from their creation of milk inside cows.
The Pravargya ritual was performed in honour of the Aśvins, but Indra also received these offerings of hot milk.²⁹ There is no particular myth to explain why Indra deserves this hot milk, so the poets have to resort to the more general kind of explanation that we find in RV 1: 180.
You placed the cooked (milk) inside the raw (cows),
you raised the sun into the sky.
Heat it up like a cooking-pot (gharma) with chants of praise,³⁰
great and pleasant for the one who loves songs.
(RV 8: 89, 7)
As in RV 1: 180, the original gift of milk to the human race is repaid with offerings of hot milk to the god Indra, who created milk in the first place.
Indra does not, however, play any role in the story of Atri. In fact, the only other god mentioned in connection with Atri is the fire god, Agni. At first sight, this is surprising, because Agni would seem to be the villain of the story, the one from whom Atri must be rescued by the Aśvins. In a hymn to Agni we find the following explanation: ‘Agni saved Atri inside the cooking-pot (gharma)’ (RV 10: 80, 3c). Here, as with the Aśvins, we find the fire-god himself trying to make the ordeal in the fire bearable for Atri. He is not saved from the fire; he is saved in the fire and by the fire god. He is being treated very much like the pot of hot milk in the Pravargya ritual, which could not, of course, take place without the fire to heat the milk. The goal of the Pravargya ritual is not to cremate the milk, but to turn it into a hot nourishing drink, and in the same way, the purpose of Atri's ordeal is not to burn him alive, but to nourish and strengthen him, and his entire family through him.³¹
Atri's ordeal is a dangerous one, but the Pravargya ritual itself is not without its risks: the cooking pot must be handled with tongs, and flames burst out from the heated pot when the milk is poured into it.³² After all this dangerous playing with fire, however, the priests and the gods can quietly enjoy a drink of hot milk. Van Buitenen wonders whether the Aśvins saved Atri from a Pravargya ritual that went badly wrong and started a conflagration,³³ but the story seems rather to celebrate the danger and excitement inherent in every Pravargya performance. The Atris start off with a very ordinary adventure story about a man thrown into a pit by his enemies;³⁴ but they change it into a bewildering and exciting story about a man who is being boiled alive in a cooking pot over a fire. He is saved in the fire by the external protection of that same cooking pot; he is saved in that cooking pot by the internal protection of a hot drink from the Aśvins. The Atris invented this aetiological myth by thinking hard about the origins of the first hot milk drunk by a man, and about the first hot milk offered by that man to the Aśvins.
A strange twist is given to the story of Atri in three hymns. His story melts into that of Saptavadhri, another member of the Atri family, who is mentioned only in connection with the ordeal of Atri in the burning pit. The name Saptavadhri means ‘(tied by) seven straps’, so his function in the story is to be trapped and tied up, though not with ‘seven straps’. The first two of these hymns (RV 5: 78 and RV 8: 73) are in fact attributed to Saptavadhri Atreya himself, though this is probably because his words are quoted in the first and he is directly addressed in the second. In RV 5: 78 Atri is down in the burning pit, as usual, so he cries out to the Aśvins for help, and they respond immediately. Without any transition, we suddenly hear the words of Saptavadhri, who is trapped inside a tree.
[4] When Atri went down into the pit,
he called on you like a young woman in distress,
you came with the fresh and benevolent
speed of a hawk, o Aśvins.
[5] ‘Open up, lord of the forest,
like the womb of a woman giving birth,
hear my cry, o Aśvins,
and free Saptavadhri.’
[6] For the terrified man in distress,
for the seer Saptavadhri,
you Aśvins with your magic powers
closed and opened up the tree.
The hymn ends with a prayer that a pregnant woman may safely give birth to her child, ‘a living boy from a living mother’ (RV 5: 78, 9d).
This poet of the Atri family makes several bold leaps of the imagination in this hymn that honours two of his ancestors. He throws a series of images at us: Atri, trapped in the burning pit; Saptavadhri, enclosed in the tree trunk; and an embryo, enclosed in the womb. Atri's cries for help are compared with those of a young woman crying ‘in distress’ (nādhamānā, 4b); Saptavadhri is likewise ‘in distress’ (nādhamānāya, 6a), and his release from the tree-prison is equated with the release of a child from the womb. Birth is equally distressing for the mother and the child, for the cooking pot or the tree trunk as well as for Atri and Saptavadhri. The hymn moves without transition to a prayer for the trouble-free birth of a child (RV 5: 78, 7–9).
These comparisons, explicit and implicit, support Jamison's view that Atri's revival in the pit is regarded as a new birth, and that the cooking pot and burning pit are viewed as incubators.³⁵ Jamison's approach would also explain why Atri has to stay in the cooking pot until the burning pit has cooked him properly and he is ready to face the world. The hymn we are looking at right now presents us with the very end of that process, when Atri, Saptavadhri, and the embryo are already fully ‘cooked’ and may at last emerge from their incubators. The connection between Atri and Saptavadhri in these hymns is that both men are seers from the same family, they have been trapped in a pot-womb and a tree-womb, and their stories are metaphors for childbirth, and spiritual rebirth.
We get a similar jump from Atri to Saptavadhri in RV 8: 73, 7–9, but this time there is no explicit connection with birth. The poet (again from the Atri family) has altered the stories considerably.
[7] You two Aśvins made
a helpful house for Atri.
Let your help truly be near.
[8] You prevented the fire from burning
on behalf of Atri who spoke beautifully.
Let your help truly be near.
[9] Saptavadhri by his trust
put to rest the cutting blade of the fire.
Let your help truly be near.
Here we do not make a sudden transition from the burning pit of Atri to the hollow tree of Saptavadhri, as in RV 5: 78; instead, Saptavadhri intervenes in the story of Atri, quenches the fire, and almost makes the assistance of the Aśvins superfluous. At the end of the hymn, however, we have a reference to the usual story of Saptavadhri and the tree, but here again he takes the initiative and destroys the tree through his own efforts.
[17] Looking at the Aśvins,
as a man with an axe looks at a tree –
let your help truly be near –
[18] smash it like a fort, you brave man,
you are harassed by the black tribe.
Let your help truly be near.
The ‘black tribe’ of pagan demons, or demonic pagans, has harassed him, but it is not clear what they have done to him, or what the target of his anger will be. Both the tree and the fort seem to be metaphorical. Saptavadhri's trust in the Aśvins has freed him from the power of his enemies, and now he can attack them from the outside. He is not a prisoner escaping from inside a tree; he is like a man getting ready to fell a tree or demolish a hill-fort, both of which are doomed to destruction.
The stories of Atri and Saptavadhri are once again combined, in a brief reference in RV 10: 39, 9cd:
and you made the hot pit helpful
for Atri, for Saptavadhri.
The composer of this hymn may have regarded Atri and Saptavadhri as one and the same person,³⁶ so the second line could be translated as ‘for Atri Saptavadhri’. The two ṛṣis cannot, however, be conflated in the other two hymns, even though Saptavadhri intrudes into the Atri story in all three hymns.³⁷ Śaunaka's unconvincing attempt to reconcile the two stories is a strong argument against such an identification: he ingeniously suggests that Saptavadhri–Atri was placed in a wooden vat (vṛkṣadroṇī) in a pit (ṛbīsa), thereby combining the ordeals of the tree and the pit (Bṛhaddevatā, 5: 82).
It is not very surprising that the story of Saptavadhri Atreya might be confused with that of the famous Atri, but the two stories are really quite different. Both the name and the story of Saptavadhri focus on his entrapment, from which he must be released immediately; Atri, in contrast, must be nourished so that he will stay in the cooking pot and survive there. If we see these stories as metaphors for pregnancy and birth, then the story of Saptavadhri is about the delivery of the baby, whereas Atri's story is about its nourishment in the womb. Atri must not try to escape from the cooking pot; he must go through his ordeal right to the very end. As a result of his rebirth after this experience, he creates a new ritual relationship between all men and the Aśvins, the Pravargya ritual that honours the horse gods.
The Aśvins saved Bhujyu from the atmospheric ocean, and they enabled Atri to endure the burning fire of a Vedic ritual. They are also famous as doctors (bhiṣajā),³⁸ and the other two stories we shall look at celebrate their medical achievements. One of their greatest miracles fulfils the eternal human fantasy that old age might be curable. Knowing that this is within their power, the poet Atri Sāṃkhya asks the Aśvins to make him young again in RV 10: 143. He reminds them that by their power, his own ancestor Atri became ‘like a horse reaching the winning-post’, and that they made Kakṣīvant, from the Aṅgiras family of poets, ‘new again like a chariot’ (RV 10: 143, 1cd). Kutsa, another Aṅgiras poet, and Ghoṣā, the daughter of Kakṣīvant, celebrate how the Aśvins changed Kali into a young man and found him a wife (RV 1: 112, 15b and RV 10: 39, 8ab).
The most famous of all these rejuvenations was the case of Cyavana, and it was destined to have a long and complicated history. His story is told eight times in the Ṛgveda.³⁹ The name Cyavana derives from the present participle of the verb cyu and means ‘moving’,⁴⁰ or ‘shaking’,⁴¹ and in four of the eight accounts we have the formulaic expression ‘make young again’ (punar yuvan kṛ).⁴² The experiences of Cyavana are presented as the archetypal story of a ‘mover and a shaker’ who has ‘grown old’ (the verb jṛ crops up in five accounts⁴³), but is ‘made young again’. The short account in RV 5: 74, 5 includes all the details of the story:
From Cyavana who had grown old,
you removed his skin like a garment.
When he was made a young man again,
he satisfied his wife's desire.
The reason why the Aśvins help him out is quite obvious in the Ṛgveda. Cyavana offers libations to them (havirde, RV 7: 68, 6b), he is ‘a man without duplicity’ (advayāvinam, RV 5: 75, 5d), and several hymns assure us that the gods protect such people. Addressing the ancient gods Earth and Sky, one hymn proclaims, ‘you two protect (pāthaḥ) the step of any son who is without duplicity’ (advayāvinaḥ, RV 1: 159, 3d). The goddess Aditi is herself ‘without duplicity’ (advayāḥ, RV 8: 18, 6b) and therefore ‘must protect’ (pātu, RV 8: 18, 6c) the cattle of her worshippers.
The gods will, of course, be especially protective of anyone who is both ‘without duplicity’ and also their priest. The Hotar priest who prays to the Maruts is ‘without duplicity’ (advayāvī, RV 7: 56, 18d), and all such Hotar priests are ultimately basing their behaviour on the great divine Hotar, Agni himself. Agni is praised as ‘the Hotar priest without duplicty’ (hotāraṃ advayāvinaṃ, RV 3: 2, 15a) and ‘the Seer without duplicity’ (kavim advayantam, RV 3: 29, 5a). This simple-hearted worship from the priest-seer Cyavana is the only reason for the intervention of the Aśvins on his behalf, but later elaborations of Cyavana's story will come up with much more complicated explanations.
The manner in which the Aśvins cure him is likewise clear. They ‘strip away his outer body (vavri) as if it were a garment’,⁴⁴ and they give him a new ‘form’ (varpa, RV 7: 68, 6c) to use from then on. The notion of the body as a garment that can be disposed of has a long and famous history in Indian thought,⁴⁵ but here we are simply dealing with plastic surgery – it is merely the skin that is replaced, the outer appearance that is changed. The same image of the outer form as garment appears in RV 1: 164, 7d, where the rain-clouds ‘dress themselves up in the outer body (vavri)’ of cows. The Aśvins are well qualified to change the outer appearance of Cyavana, because they themselves ‘take on many forms’ (varpāṃsi, RV 1: 117, 9a), leading one exasperated poet to wonder when they will ‘put on their own outer body’ (svaṃ vavriṃ, RV 1: 46, 9c).
The closest parallel to the story of Cyavana appears in RV 9: 71, 2c. When the soma plant has been crushed, it must then be purified in a strainer. As a result of this straining, ‘it leaves its outer body (vavri) behind and goes to its dinner appointment as juice’. Its old body, the pulpy mixture, has been left in the sieve; it now has a new body, soma juice. In the same way, as Jamison has demonstrated from her analysis of Vedic texts, a man removes the external coverings of hair, beard and dead skin;⁴⁶ the outer caul is removed from a newborn child;⁴⁷ infected skin is removed from a woman;⁴⁸ and dark spots are stripped from the sun.⁴⁹ So the Aśvins literally strip off Cyavana's aging skin, and the young skin that is exposed beneath is, in and of itself, the new form that he receives from the Aśvins (RV 7: 68, 6c). Judging by Jamison's parallels, it is not necessary to replace the old skin with a new one; removing the old one is quite enough. The end result is that he satisfies the wife he already has (RV 5: 74, 5d), or marries several young girls (RV 1: 116, 10d).
This short and simple story of a good man who is made young again may hardly seem worth the telling, but it was a popular one and it became very important later on. The Vedic ritualists will turn Cyavana into the priest who had first introduced the Aśvins to the delights of soma.
Later Indian thinkers associated the stories of Cyavana and Dadhyañc,⁵⁰ and since the healing of Dadhyañc is the most spectacular cure performed by the Aśvins, we shall now turn to his story. Throughout the Ṛgveda, the Aśvins receive soma like all the other gods, but this was not always so. A hymn to Soma tells of their exclusion:
The seer is born with an intelligent mind.
The embryo of the divine order is hidden away from the twins.
They were young men when they discovered him for the first time.
One birth is placed in secret, the other is offered.
(RV 9: 68, 5)
The ‘embryo of the divine order’ (ṛtasya garbho, 5b) is soma, and ‘the twins’ are the Aśvins. They are frequently referred to as ‘young men’ (yuvānā) throughout the Ṛgveda, and they are already young men when they are allowed to drink soma. This sacred drink exists in two forms: the divine soma of Tvaṣṭar, which is kept in a secret place, and the soma here on earth, which is offered by humans to the gods.
The divine soma is hidden from the Aśvins and they must use trickery to discover its secret, but even Indra, the greatest soma-drinker of all, was originally compelled to obtain soma by stealth. He stole it directly from his father, Tvaṣṭar (RV 3: 48, 4cd), or he received it from an eagle who had snatched it (RV 4: 18, 13d). In Indra's case, being deprived of soma is quite a serious matter, because he needs it to to perform his mighty deeds (RV 6: 47, 1–2). Soma is Indra's very being, his ātman according to RV 9: 85, 3b, and he is quite helpless until he drinks it (RV 4: 18, 13a–c). Indra must have soma or dwindle away, so these myths explain how he acquired it and eventually handed it on to his worshippers.⁵¹ The Aśvins, in contrast, seem to manage quite well without soma, so in their case, the myth explains why they receive soma in addition to their normal offering of hot milk (gharma) from the priests of the Atri family.
The Aśvins eventually discover the secret of Tvaṣṭar's heavenly soma, and the story of this revelation is told three times in the Ṛgveda. The divine soma is called ‘honey’ (madhu) in each of these tellings (RV 1: 116, 12c; RV 1: 117, 22c; RV 1: 119, 9a).⁵² Originally, the Aśvins had not even known what they had been missing, but a bee told them about the existence of this special ‘honey’ called soma:
That bee whispered to you about the honey.
(RV 1: 119, 9a)
With her mouth, the bee told you Aśvins about the honey,
just as a girl arranges a rendezvous.
(RV 10: 40, 6cd)
Soma is often equated with honey, and the expression somyam madhu, ‘the honey of soma,’ or ‘soma-honey’ occurs 18 times in the Ṛgveda. This explains why the bee knows all about soma and why she describes it as ‘honey’. The Aśvins were already young men at the time they learned of its existence (RV 9: 68, 5c), whereas Indra had demanded soma on the very day he was born (RV 3: 48, 1–3), and then became the great lord of soma in the Ṛgveda.⁵³
Once the Aśvins have discovered that soma actually exists, they want to acquire this wonderful drink. Luckily, they manage to win the friendship of Dadhyañc, a priest who knows all about the production of soma and is also a close ally of Indra's. Dadhyañc is the son of Atharvan, who produced the first sacrificial fire (RV 6: 16, 13), and Dadhyañc assisted his father by stoking this fire (RV 6: 16, 14). Atharvan also taught him about soma, and through its power Dadhyañc helped Indra to break open the fortress of the demon Vala (RV 9: 108, 4a). Indra repays the family by giving support to the father Atharvan (RV 10: 48, 2a) and by presenting the son Dadhyañc with cattle (RV 10: 48, 2d). In a hymn to Indra, we learn that Manu, Atharvan, and Dadhyañc were among the earliest men to sing the praises of Indra (RV 1: 80, 16). Dadhyañc was therefore one of the first men to offer soma, and he was an especially favoured protégé of Indra. In spite of this, the Aśvins ‘win over the mind of Dadhyañc’ (RV 1: 119, 9c) and persuade him to betray Indra by revealing the secret of soma to them.
Before Dadhyañc can explain it to them, the twin gods have to behead him and replace his own head with a horse's head.
On Dadhyañc son of Atharvan, o Aśvins,
you placed the head of a horse,
upholding the divine order, he taught you about the honey
of Tvaṣṭar, an intimate secret for you, o wonder-workers.
(RV 1: 117, 22)
The strangest part of this story is the detail about the horse's head, and the unusual exchange of heads that takes place. Dadhyañc replaces his own head with a horse's head; using this head, he tells the secret of soma to the Aśvins; Indra punishes this betrayal by cutting off his horse-head; the Aśvins bring Dadhyañc back to life by putting his human head back on his shoulders. These details were later explained in the Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa (ŚB 14: 1, 1¹⁸–²⁴) as a legal fiction that would enable Dadhyañc to avoid betraying the secret (it did not escape from his lips) but to communicate it nonetheless. In RV 1: 119, 9d we hear that ‘the horse's head spoke,’ so the poet Kakṣīvant was probably aware of this legal trick. Unfortunately, Indra beheaded Dadhyañc anyway, so the legal subterfuge obviously did not work; and in any case it is not the real reason for the exchange of heads.
The story of Dadhyañc and the horse's head is an extremely ancient one. It originates in northern Asia, and from there it eventually came down to the poets of the Ṛgveda. Archaeologists have found the body of a decapitated man with the head of a horse in a north Asian tomb dating from around 2100–1700 BC.⁵⁴ Both were presumably sacrificial victims, and this gruesome ritual is remembered in the Ṛgvedic story of Dadhyañc.⁵⁵ The story has, however, been revised by the addition of some Central Asian elements. The hero, Dadhyañc, is called the son of Atharvan, and *atharwan is a Central Asian term meaning ‘priest,’ which survives in both Sanskrit and Avestan;⁵⁶ Dadhyañc knows about soma, and the soma plant likewise comes from Central Asia and once again retains its Central Asian name (*anću) in India and Iran.⁵⁷
In the new Central Asian version of the story, the priests (who must be Indo-Iranian) learn the secret of soma from the local *atharwan priests.⁵⁸ In Vedic times, however, the Adhvaryu priests were beginning to challenge the management of Vedic ritual by the Hotar priests.⁵⁹ So the story about Indo-Iranian priests acquiring soma from Central Asian priests is reinterpreted as a story about Adhvaryu priests taking over the soma ritual from the Hotar priests. Indra and the other gods represent the ancient Hotar priests, and the Aśvins represent the upstart Adhvaryu priests. In order to overrule the Hotar priests, the Adhvaryus naturally appeal to the ancient authority of the Atharvans, which is represented by Dadhyañc in their reinterpretation of the Central Asian story. The revised myth of Dadhyañc proclaims that the Atharvans are siding with the Adhvaryu priests against the Hotar priests; they are sharing their ancient knowledge with the modern Adhvaryus.
By the time the story of the horse's head on the man's body has reached South Asia, it has acquired yet another new significance. Although the South Asian story of Dadhyañc still includes the north Asian beheading of a horse and a man, and the substitution of their heads, it does not accept this double decapitation as a ritual practice. On the contrary, the Indian story-tellers use this exchange of heads to guarantee that there will not be any human sacrifices; that there will be just one animal victim, which will replace the double sacrifice of a horse and a human. So the horse becomes a substitute for the human victim, Dadhyañc, and this story becomes a justification for the practice of ritual substitution. The gruesome exchange of heads is now seen as the first step on a long march to non-violence in ritual, and when the Adhvaryus take over the sacrificial space from the Hotars in the Middle Vedic period, they will completely eliminate decapitation from Vedic ritual. They will insist on suffocating the victim rather than beheading it.⁶⁰ Ultimately the killing of an animal will also be considered improper, and the victim will be replaced by bread or rice.⁶¹ Through the Ṛgvedic story of Dadhyañc, the Adhvaryus are asserting their status as important players in Vedic sacrifice, and are setting up a precedent for their practice of ritual substitution.⁶²
The story of the horse-head does not end here, because another hymn tells us that Indra defeated his enemies with ‘the bones of Dadhyañc’ (dadhīco asthabhir, RV 1: 84, 13), and that the horse's skull was hidden in Lake Śaryaṇāvant (RV 1: 84, 14). Śaryaṇāvant is celebrated as one of the places where the best soma grows,⁶³ and the horse's skull has special powers because it is associated with Dadhyañc, soma, and Śaryaṇāvant. There is even an obscure story that Indra used the horse's skull to extract the secret of soma from its guardian.
One man had an internal vision of soma,
but the guardian revealed it to the other one because of the bone (asthā),
he wanted to fight against the bull with the sharp horns,
but he stood caught in the thick (noose) of his treachery.
(RV 10: 48, 10)
The man who had the ‘internal vision’ is Dadhyañc, the ‘other one’ who uses ‘the bone’ is Indra with the horse's skull. The soma-guardian wanted to resist Indra (‘the bull with the sharp horns’), but such ‘treachery’ did him no good, and he finally revealed the secret to Indra.⁶⁴
This unusual story is a variation on the story of Dadhyañc and the Aśvins. In each version, Dadhyañc knows how to produce soma juice; his secret knowledge is hidden from the Aśvins by Indra, or from Indra by the guardian; but the secret is discovered by means of a horse's head, which is used as a microphone by the Aśvins, and a threatening weapon by Indra. These similarities suggest that the connections between the Atharvan priest, soma, and the horse's head are ancient, and were not simply invented at a later stage by the Adhvaryus to liven up their story about the Aśvins. These associated themes were part of a shared Vedic tradition. It was probably the Hotar priests who combined a northern Asian story about the beheading of a man and a horse with a Central Asian story about learning the secret of the *anću plant from an *atharwan priest. Dadhyañc was the teacher, and Indra was the student. Later, the Adhvaryus declare that they are the true heirs of the Atharvan tradition, so Dadhyañc teaches the secret of soma to their patron gods, the Aśvins, and the Ṛgvedic Hotars acknowledge this claim in their own collection of hymns.
The story of Dadhyañc and the Aśvins represents the adoption of the Adhvaryus into the community of soma-drinkers. This late adoption will radically alter the nature of the soma sacrifice, as the Adhvaryus refine the ritual by gradually eliminating its more blatant elements of bloodshed and violence. The story of Dadhyañc and the horse's head will go through some interesting developments in the Middle Vedic period, when the Adhvaryus reinterpret it from a very different point of view, and the original role of Dadhyañc as the man who introduced the Aśvins to soma will be completely forgotten.⁶⁵ For the Early Vedic period, however, Dadhyañc is the great innovator who placed soma at the centre of correct ritual practice.
The story of Dadhyañc reveals that there is some discord between Indra, the lord of power (śacīpati), and the Aśvins, the lords of beauty (śubhaspatī). Indra and the twins are helpful and powerful gods, but there is a contrast in their mode of operation, between demonstrating one's divine power (śacī) and offering one's assistance (ūti), between defeating the enemies of a favourite, and rescuing a friend from danger.⁶⁶ The Aśvins, as we have seen, ‘go most readily towards misfortune’ (praty avartiṃ gamiṣṭā, twice in the Ṛgveda), ‘come most readily with their help’ (avasā āgamiṣṭhā, five times in the Ṛgveda). Their only rivals in this respect are Indra (avasā āgamiṣṭhaḥ, twice in RV 6: 52) and the ancestors (āgamiṣṭhāḥ, RV 10: 15, 3d). Since Indra is the most powerful god, it is not surprising that people would call on him, and it is reassuring to learn that he responds, but the case of the ancestors (pitaraḥ) is more interesting. They cannot help much (the word avasā has disappeared from the formula), but they do, of course, come most readily to the calls of mortals because they are former humans themselves.
The Aśvins are also very close to the human race because they, like the ancestors, are related to us, being brothers of the first human couple, Yama and Yamī, and half-brothers of Manu, who is the ancestor of the human race according to a different story.⁶⁷ Some hymns draw attention to this relationship between the human race and the Aśvins.
You have an ancestral friendship with us,
the same relationship (bandhur), remember this.
(RV 7: 72, 2cd)
You have the same family (sajātiyaṃ),
you have the same relationship (bandhur), o Aśvins.
(RV 8: 73, 12ab)
The Nāsatyas are my ancestors (pitarā), they care for their relatives (bandhupṛchā),
(to have) the same family (sajātiyaṃ) as the Aśvins is a beautiful honour.
(RV 3: 54, 16ab)
The term used in two of these hymns to describe the relationship between the Aśvins and humans, ‘belonging to the same family’ (sajātyam, RV 3: 54, 16b and RV 8: 73, 12a), is a very strong one,⁶⁸ but it would be unwise to read too much into one word.⁶⁹ As Geldner reminds us in this context, ‘relationship and friendship are almost equivalent expressions’.⁷⁰ Nevertheless, the accumulation of striking terms in RV 3: 54, 16ab – ancestors, concerned relatives, family members (pitarā, bandhupṛchā, and sajātiyaṃ) – must surely refer to the real, biological relationship between Manu and the Aśvins.
This blood relationship explains why poets will have little hesitation in appealing to the Aśvins, and why the Aśvins will respond so readily, but it also explains why the other gods, especially Indra, might not be so willing to share their heavenly soma with them. After all, the other offspring of Vivasvant and Saraṇyu were mortal, so the Aśvins are a little too close to humanity. The ṛṣis are perhaps protesting a little too loudly when they proclaim that the Aśvins are ‘most like Indra and the Maruts’ (indratamā […] maruttamā, RV 1: 182, 2a), that they come ‘to exercise their power (śaktim) at the critical moment, like Indra’ (RV 4: 43, 3b). This second comparison with Indra is no small honour, because Indra and the Aśvins are the only gods who intervene ‘at the criticial moment’ (paritakmiyāyām).⁷¹ Indra might not, however, have been too flattered by the comparison.
In the Middle Vedic period, the Aśvins are regarded as inferior gods because they are doctors and move among humans too much (Taittirīya Saṃhitā, 6: 4, 9). The significance of the second objection is that humans are unhealthy creatures who are constantly sick or dying, and therefore expose the Aśvins to the pollution of sickness and death. The Ṛgveda, in contrast, acknowledges that the Aśvins are doctors and perform menial tasks, but does not think any the less of them for that. Their right to receive offerings of soma is unquestioned, and even if the secret of the soma ritual was hidden from them in the past, there is no hint that they were too ‘impure’ to drink soma. It was, after all, Dadhyañc,⁷² a member of the ancient priestly family of the Atharvans, who introduced the Aśvins to the secrets of the ancient soma sacrifice. Doctors are mentioned in the Ṛgveda, but never regarded as unsuitable. This reflects the less rigid class divisions of the Ṛgveda; later, in the Middle Vedic period, medicine will be denounced as unsuitable for a Brahmin.
The Aśvins are called ‘doctors’ (bhiṣajā) throughout the Ṛgveda,⁷³ and are expected to ‘heal’ (bhiṣajaya) human afflictions.⁷⁴ Many of the stories about the Aśvins involve miraculous healings. They restore youth and male fertility to Cyavana (RV 5: 74, 5) and to Kakṣīvant (RV 10: 143, 1cd); they enable Puraṃdhi (RV 10: 39, 7d) and Vadhrimatī (RV 1: 117, 24ab) to get pregnant; they restore his eyesight to Ṛjrāśva (RV 1: 116, 16), and provide Viśpalā with an artificial leg (RV 1: 116, 15cd); they perform a head-transplant for Dadhyañc (RV 1: 117, 22ab); and they even bring Rebha (RV 10: 39, 9ab) and Śyāva (RV 1: 117, 24cd) back to life. In short, they are ‘the healers of the blind, the weak, and the broken’ (RV 10: 39, 3cd).
It is true that Rudra (RV 2: 33, 4d) and Varuṇa (RV 1: 24, 9a) are also called doctors in the Ṛgveda, but their case is somewhat different. They are more famous as gods who inflict illness on mortals as a punishment, and they are doctors only in the sense that they can remove this affliction. The stanzas where Rudra is praised as a healer begin with an expression of fear that improper worship or praise might arouse his anger.⁷⁵ The appeal to the ‘gentle healing hand’ of Rudra (RV 2: 33, 7ab) is wishful thinking, as is his later name Śiva, ‘the gentle one’. Varuṇa punishes sinners by tying them in the ‘bonds without ropes’ (RV 7: 84, 2b) of illness. His worshippers ask him to ‘heal’ them only in the sense of begging him not to kill them (RV 7: 89)!
The Aśvins, in contrast, are healing gods alone. Nobody expresses any fear that the Aśvins might kill them or harm them. There is only one strange case where they use their medical knowledge to kill an enemy,⁷⁶ but otherwise they are characterized throughout the Ṛgveda as helpers and healers alone. This in itself will be a source of criticism later, but there is no such prejudice against medicine in the Ṛgveda.
One hymn may seem to poke fun at doctors: ‘the carpenter wants something to break, the doctor wants someone to be injured…’ (RV 9: 112, 1c). It regards doctors and carpenters as craftsmen and mocks both of them for their love of money, but then the poet continues with the self-mocking words, ‘… and the brahmin wants someone to press soma’ (RV 9: 112, 1d). Brahmins are no better than carpenters or doctors, and this hymn does not exhibit the later Vedic contempt for craftsmen.⁷⁷ The same ṛṣi remarks later in this hymn, ‘I am a poet, daddy is a doctor, mammy grinds grain, everyone has different ideas for getting rich’ (RV 9: 112, 3), once again making it clear that priest-poets, doctors, and millers are all alike. The lack of any prejudice against medicine is also obvious from a hymn to the herbs used in healing: ‘when the herbs have been gathered, like kings at an assembly, the inspired poet-priest is proclaimed as a doctor, a killer of demons, an expeller of illnesses’ (RV 10: 97, 6cd). It is perfectly acceptable, therefore, and indeed something of an honour, for a poet-priest to practise medicine. The hymn itself is actually attributed to ‘the Atharvan doctor,’ which makes it clear that even the most ancient family of priests had no objections to medicine.⁷⁸ So the fact that they are doctors is not something that could be held against the Aśvins.
The Aśvins are also described as Adhvaryu priests (adhvaryantā, RV 1: 181, 1b), and in one hymn where Agni takes on his traditional role of Hotar priest (RV 10: 52, 2a),⁷⁹ he assigns the task of acting as Adhvaryu priests (adhvarayaṃ, RV 10: 52, 2c) to the Aśvins.⁸⁰ Such close cooperation between the Hotar and Adhvaryu priests is taken for granted in the Ṛgveda. In RV 1: 83, 3ab we hear that Indra has ‘assigned the song of praise to the two of them, the pair (mithunā) who worship (saparyataḥ) while holding the ladle’. This intimate pair of priests (the word mithunā really implies a ‘married couple’ or ‘a set of twins’) are the Hotar and the Adhvaryu. Strictly speaking, the Hotar priest alone recites the hymn and the Adhvaryu priest alone works with the ladle, but they are treated in these verses as almost indistinguishable, and therefore the poet attributes both tasks to both priests.⁸¹ The same expressions, ‘the pair’ (mithunā) and ‘worship’ (saparyataḥ), occur again in a hymn to Agni: ‘whom the two men of equal age worship (saparyataḥ), the pair (mithunā) who live together in the same womb’ (RV 1: 144, 4ab). The similarity in the vocabulary of these two hymns supports Sāyaṇa's interpretation that the pair from the same womb are, once again, the Hotar and Adhvaryu priests.⁸² The Hotar is the highest-ranking priest, so by pairing him with the Adhvaryu, these hymns make it clear that the Hotar needs the Adhvaryu, and that the Aśvins as Adhvaryus are as essential as Agni the Hotar.
There is, however, a contrast between the activities of the Hotar and the Adhvaryu. The Hotar has a more dignified role: he addresses the gods themselves, he recites the verses from the Ṛgveda. The Adhvaryu is his acolyte: he does the physical work of the sacrifice, he mutters formulas as he goes through his tasks, he has ‘fine hands’.⁸³ A description of the Aśvins working as Adhvaryu priests brings out this point: ‘O Aśvins with your auspicious hands (bhadrahastā), with your good hands (supāṇī), hurry here and mix (the soma) with honey in the waters’ (RV 1: 109, 4cd). The focus on their hands emphasises that the Aśvins, as Adhvaryu priests, have to do manual labour. Supāṇi, used here of the Aśvins, is elsewhere used mainly of Tvaṣṭar, the craftsman of the gods.⁸⁴ Its equivalents, suhasta and suhastya, describe the Adhvaryu priests and also the Ṛbhus, who were once again craftsmen working for the gods.⁸⁵ This association of the Adhvaryus with craftsmen and manual labour may explain why the helpful but low-class Aśvins are regarded as Adhvaryus, but these features are not problematic in the Early Vedic period.
In examining the status of the Aśvins in the Ṛgveda, we discover that the Aśvins are close to human beings, both by birth and by choice. They are hard-working gods, who intervene physically to save mortals from embarassing predicaments, but they intervene rather as rescuers than as conquering heroes, and they never threaten anyone. They are doctors, healing people from all sorts of personal maladies, and even providing remedies for old age and death. Finally, they are Adhvaryu priests, the men who did most of the actual work in a Vedic sacrifice, while the Hotar recited, the Udgātar chanted, and the Brahmin looked on in silence. Even though they are rescuers who work among mortals, and doctors, and Adhvaryu priests, the Aśvins are treated with the same respect that is given to the other gods, because the early society depicted in the Ṛgveda regards doctors as proper Brahmins, and the Adhvaryu priest as a respected acolyte of the Hotar priest.
The Aśvins may have been unusual gods who were exceptionally close to human beings, they may have received offerings of hot milk and remained blissfully ignorant for some time about the delights of soma, but such diversity was well accepted in the Early Vedic age. During this period, people who spoke different languages were welcomed inside the fold of Vedic culture, the class system had not yet been formed, different tribes and priestly families held onto their own version of the hymns, and ritual had not yet been standardized for all of northern India.⁸⁶ This situation would change in the age of the Kuru-Pañcāla monarchy, and it is to the era of these kings that we must turn to discover the role of the Aśvins in Vedic ritual.