Indras is requested to yoke his right and his left (horses), to approach, inebriated, his dear wife.[581] By means of the horse obtained from the two horsemen, the Russian Ivan acquires his wife; in the Ṛigvedas, the two Açvinâu themselves, by means of their rapid chariot, became husbands of the daughter of the sun.[582] The horses of the sun are so fully identified with the chariot drawn by them, that they are said to be dependent on it, united with it, and almost born of it.[583] The Açvinâu, therefore, by means of the horse now enable the wife to be found by the solar hero, by the old Ćyavanas made young again (Tithôn),[584] now by the sun, and now find her themselves (perhaps drawing the chariot like horses). Râmas, too, who is represented in the Râmâyaṇam[585] as the deliverer of Sîtâ, is compared to the solar horse, to the sun born upon the mountain. We have seen in the Russian stories how the horse's head possesses the same magic power as the marvellous horse which the two horsemen give to the hero Ivan. Thus, in the Vedic myth, and in the corresponding brâhmanic tradition, the horse's head Dadhyańć stands in direct relation with the myth of the Açvinâu. The wise Dadhyańć shows himself pious towards the Açvinâu, to whom, although he knows that he will pay with his head for the revelation he makes, he communicates what he knows concerning the ambrosia or the Madhuvidyâ. For this, accordingly, Dadhyańć forfeits his head; but the Açvinâu present him with a horse's head (his own), which heroically achieves wonders. With the bones of Dadhyańć, or with the head of the horse Dadhyańć (he who walks in butter or ambrosia), fished up in the ambrosial lake Çaryaṇâvat (the head of the horse Vishṇus in the sea of butter),[586] Indras discomfits the ninety-nine hostile monsters (as Samson the Philistines with the jawbone of an ass).[587] This exchange of heads seems to be common to the traditions which are founded upon the myth of the Açvinâu, that is, to the legends of the two brother or companion heroes. In the Tuti-Name,[588] the heads of the prince and of the Brâhman, who are exceedingly like each other, are cut off and then fastened on again; but, by some mistake, the head of the one is attached to the body of the other, so that the prince's wife is embarrassed between them. This exchange of the husband (which corresponds to the exchange of the wife in the legend of Berta, referred to in the first chapter) is very frequent in the legend of the two brothers, and often ends in the rupture of the perfect concord reigning between them. The two brothers or companions who dispute about the wife, is a variety of the legend of the three brothers who, having delivered the beautiful princess, wish to divide her between them.
The Ṛigvedas does not seem as yet explicitly to exhibit the two Açvinâu at discord—they generally are united in doing good; but as we already know the Vedic blind man and lame man who are cured by the grace of Indras, or of the Açvinâu themselves; as we know that the Açvinâu, in the Ṛigvedas, make Dadhyańć, who has a horse's head, conduct them to the ambrosia, or indicate where it is, probably in order that they may procure health and strength for themselves; as in the ninth strophe of the 117th hymn of the first book of the Ṛigvedas, the marvellous horse of the Açvinâu, which kills the monster-serpent (ahihan), is but one; as we know that the Açvinâu run to gain the bride for themselves; and as we cannot ignore the fact that in the story of the blind and lame man, when a woman comes upon the scene, they endeavour to do harm to each other; as we know that of the two Hellenic brothers, the Dioscuri, one alone had from the gods the gift of immortality; as, finally, it is known to us that of the two brothers, he alone is the true hero who, by means of his horse, gains the victory over the monster,—it is clear that if we have not as yet in the Ṛigvedas the myth of the two brothers at discord, we have, at least, in the ambrosia, and in the bride won by them the origin of the myth already indicated; and from the idea of the privileged brother that of the envious one would naturally arise.
In Hesiod's Theogony we have the two brothers Chrysäor and Pêgasos, that come out of the Medusa (the evening aurora), who is made pregnant by Poseidôn, after Perseus has cut off her head. Pêgasos, the younger brother, becomes the heroic horse. In Hesiod himself, and in the Metamorphoses of Ovid, he carries the thunder and the thunderbolts for Zeus. The hero Bellerophontes rides him, and vanquishes, by his help, the Chimaira and the Amazons; he becomes the horse of the aurora, the horse of the Muses, the ambrosial steed. The monstrous Chimaira appears, in the Theogony of Hesiod, as the daughter of Typhaon and the Echidna, the monstrous daughter of Chrysäor. Therefore in the conflict which Bellerophontes maintains against the Chimaira, we have a form of the battle which goes on between the twin horses Pêgasos and Chrysäor, the one divine, the other demoniacal.
In the analogous myth of the Hellenic Dioscuri (the sons of the luminous one, i.e., of Zeus, just as the Vedic Açvinâu are the sons of the luminous sky;[589] Zeus is united with the Dioscuri, as Indras is with the Açvinâu), we again find the twins who fight to recover a woman who had been carried off from them, i.e., their own sister Helen. One of the two brothers is mortal, and the other immortal; he who is immortal passes the night in hell with his mortal brother. The double aspect of the sun, which at evening enters and loses itself in the night, now black, now illumined by the moon, and which, in the morning, comes forth in a luminous form, has enriched the story of the two brothers of mythology. One of the two brothers, the red horseman, is in especial relation with the morning sun; the other, in intimate connection with the silvery moon, the white horseman, and when the latter is amissing, with the infernal gloom.
Several mythologists have interpreted the Açvinâu as only the two twilights; but it seems more exact, inasmuch as they are often found together, whilst the two twilights are always apart, to recognise in them two crepuscular lights, the lunar of evening and autumn, and the solar of morning and spring.[590] Of the twin-brothers, one is always imperfect; the lunar crepuscular light offers us a similar imperfection, with respect to the sun. Inasmuch as the Açvinâu are affiliated both to the sun and the moon, when they come out of the two ears of the horse of night, we should understand, it would appear, that on one side the moon goes down, while on the other the sun is born, or that the solar horse arises, upon which the young hero lost in the night mounts and wins the princess aurora. In the Russian stories referred to in the preceding chapter, we have seen how the maiden abandons her hero-husband, or brother, to give herself into the monster's hands; the evening aurora forsakes the sun to throw herself into the night, and the evening twilight stays for a long time with the evening aurora (the reddish sky of evening), when the sun is already gone. In the morning the two lovers, the twilight, or sun and moon, and the aurora, meet once more; when the sun, or solar hero, arrives, he surprises them in flagrante delicto, and punishes them. Sometimes, on the contrary, the twilight and the aurora stay together, preserving their chastity; in this case the brother twilight figures as the good and honest guardian of the rights of his brother the sun. This appears to me to have been the most ancient, as it is the most subtle, interpretation of the myth; afterwards, it is possible, and even probable, that in the two Açvinâu only the two gods of morning and of evening were seen, with their respective twilights, considered as two brothers, so like that they were easily mistaken for each other. But from the data of the Russian story, which gives us the lunar twilight as a white horseman and the rising sun as a red one, the aurora being found exactly between the white and the red horsemen, between the moon or the white dawn (alba) and the sunrise, and seeing that the Ṛigvedas, which makes the aurora mount upon the chariot of the Açvinâu, considers them in the celebrated nuptial hymn as the paranymphoi of Sûryâ, the daughter of the sun or of the aurora herself, I venture to insist upon my interpretation as the most obvious, and perhaps the most logical one. The two brothers may very naturally be conceived of as contending for the possession of the bride when they have her between them, since the Açvinâu, considered as lunar light and sun, really take the aurora between them. The Vedic hymn cited above shows us how both the Açvinâu, arriving on the swift-running chariot, became the husbands of Sûryâ, the daughter of the sun. But this very Sûryâ, in the Vedic nuptial hymn, must be satisfied with one husband, who is called Somas, so that the Açvinâu can only occupy the place of paranymphs. The Açvinâu, therefore, would appear to be excluded from the wedding of Sûryâ as principal personages; they would seem to be nothing more than assistants, and, in fact, they often assume this part in the Vedic hymns, by enabling now the bride to find a husband, now the husband to recover his bride. We know already that by means of them Ćyavanas, the old sun (a Vedic Tithôn), became young again, and was able to espouse the aurora. We know that they gave sight to Vandanas (properly, the Face), that they made the blind see,[591] the lame walk, and performed sundry other works of charity, which would, however, have been much more glorious if these acts did not, in fact, always issue in benefit to themselves, as blind, lame, or drowned. It is hence very probable that when they give a bride to the hero, they, being now lunar, now solar heroes, do only appropriate her to themselves. When, therefore, we read that the Açvinâu assist as paranymphs at the nuptials of Sûryâ and Somas, we are much inclined to think that under Somas in this case one of the Açvinâu is hidden. In Indras and Somas, often sung of together in the Ṛigvedas, it seems to me that we have just another form of the Açvinâu, the more so because I also find them both, like the Açvinâu, personified in one and the same horse, whose back is covered with honey, and who is terrible and swift,[592] and because they are invoked together against the yâtudhânas, which, by the grace of the Açvinâu, the hero Rebhas succeeds in discovering and then chasing away.[593] The Tâittiriya Brâhmaṇam[594] represents to us the daughter of the sun (Sâvitrî) by the name of Sîtâ, as enamoured of Somas, who, on the contrary, loves another woman, the Çraddhâ (i.e., Faith), almost as if the daughter of the sun, the aurora, were, for him at least, a symbol of infidelity. Probably this embryo of a myth refers to the passage of the aurora, in the morning, from her amours with the white horseman (the white twilight), which, as we have said, was supposed to be in particular relation with the moon (Somas), to her amours with the red horseman (the sun), or, vice versa, to the aurora who, in the evening, abandons the red horseman, the sun (now her father, now her husband), to throw herself into the arms of the white horseman, the white twilight, the king Somas, or silver god Lunus. Moreover, Yâskas, in the Niruktam,[595] already notices that the Açvinâu were identified now with the day and the night,[596] now with the sun and the moon.
When, therefore, we read that the Açvinâu obtained for their wife the daughter of the sun, and when we learn that she chose both for husbands,[597] we must interpret the passage with discrimination, and conclude that one of them was sometimes preferred, inasmuch as the Vedic nuptial hymn speaks of only one husband of Sûryâ, with the name of Somas, with whom, as we have said, Yâskas identifies one of the Açvinâu. We read in Pausanias that, among the Greek usages, when the bride was conducted to the bridegroom's house, she was accustomed to mount a chariot and sit down in the middle, having the bridegroom on one side, and on the other her nearest relation as paranymphos. The preference given to one of the two brothers over the other is naturally suggestive of a contention between them; however, as I say, the Ṛigvedas, which offers us already the myth of the third brother abandoned in the well by his relations, does not record any example of an open strife between the two brothers (i.e., the Açvinâu, the lunar and the solar light).
An evidently Hindoo variation of this myth is contained in the well-known episode of the Mahâbhâratam, which relates the adventures of Sundas and Upasundas, two inseparable brothers, who lived together in love and concord, each being ruled by the will of the other, and who had never all their lives either said or done anything to displease each other. The gods become envious of their virtue, and wish to prove it, and send to seduce them a nymph of enchanting beauty. The two brothers, on seeing her, desire each the exclusive possession of the divine maiden, and strive between themselves to carry her off. They fight so long and so desperately that they both die (the moon and the sun see the aurora in the morning, and dispute for her; they see her again in the evening, and fight so long that they both perish miserably, and die in the night). The gods who are envious of the virtue of the two brothers Sundas and Upasundas, are the same as those who, envying the good which the Açvinâu do to mankind, treat them as celestial Çudrâs, under the pretext that they pollute themselves by their contact with men, and refuse to admit them, being impure, to the sacrifices.[598]
In the twin brothers, Nakulas and Saladevas, sons of the Açvinâu, the Açvinâu themselves revive again, are made better, according to the expression of the first book of the Mahâbhâratam. The first-born, Nakulas, too, is perhaps the real Açvin who kills the monster. Nakulas is the name given to the viverra ichneumon, the mortal enemy of the serpents, which refers us back to the horse Ahihan (or killer of the serpent), as the horse of the Açvinâu, or perhaps rather of one of the Açvinâu, is called, in the Ṛigvedas. Of the two Dioscuri, moreover, one alone is especially the horseman; the other is the valiant in combat.[599] The mortal brother, he who has to remain in hell, and who has to fight the monsters of night, is Castor the horseman. Pollux, the strong-armed, is, on the contrary, the immortal one, the daily sun, he who profits from the victory obtained by his brother who has fought in the night, during which the Gandharvâs (the horses in the perfumes, they who walk in perfume) also ride upon war-horses, heroic, invulnerable, divine, exceedingly swift, who change colour at will—the Gandharvâs, whose strength increases during the night, as one of them informs Arǵunas in the Mahâbhâratam, when communicating to him Gandharvic knowledge.[600]
In the Râmâyaṇam, the two brothers Râmas and Lakshmaṇas are compared to the Açvinâu, to the sun and moon, as similar the one to the other; and their reciprocal love reminds us of that of the Açvinâu.[601] Râmas and Lakshmaṇas are always at peace with each other; there is, however, a passage which may serve as a link to connect the myth of the two friendly brothers and that of the two hostile ones. When Râmas combats alone in the forest thousands of monsters, Lakshmaṇas stays with Sîtâ, hidden in a cavern.
But the Râmâyaṇam itself shows us the two brothers in open strife in the legend of the two brothers Bâlin and Sugrîvas, children of the sun, beauteous as the two Açvinâu, so perfectly like one another that it is impossible to distinguish one from the other; and so that when Râmas, to please Sugrîvas, wishes to kill Bâlin, he does not know which to strike, until Sugrîvas puts a garland on his head as a sign of recognition.[602] Once Bâlin and Sugrîvas were intimate friends, but, on account of a woman, they became mortal enemies. Sugrîvas complains that Bâlin, his elder brother, has deprived him of his wife Rumâ;[603] but it is not certain that Sugrîvas did not rather steal Bâlin's wife. Bâlin seems especially to represent the evening sun; the Râmâyaṇam[604] says of him that, while the sun is not risen (i.e., in the night), he is unweariedly passing from the western to the eastern ocean; by this is described the supposed voyage of the sun in the ocean of night, in the grotto or the darkness. When Bâlin is in the grotto, he is betrayed by his brother Sugrîvas. The two brothers, Bâlin and Sugrîvas, while still friends, set out together to follow the monster Mâyâvin (the brother of Dundubhis, who, in the Râmâyaṇam itself,[605] fights in the shape of a demoniacal buffalo against Bâlin, near the entrance of the cave). The moon rises to show them the way. The monster escapes into the cavern, upon which Bâlin enters and follows him, whilst Sugrîvas remains without, awaiting his return. After waiting a long time, Sugrîvas sees blood flow out of the cave (in analogous legends, instead of blood, it is a treasure, or else a princess or a beautiful maiden comes out in shining garments). This is the blood of the monster, killed by Bâlin; but Sugrîvas believes it to be that of his brother Bâlin. He returns home, and showing his sorrow in public, declares that Bâlin is dead, and allows himself to be consecrated king in his stead (probably also enjoying with the crown the wife of his brother). Meanwhile Bâlin, after having killed the monster Mâyâvin, endeavours to come out of the cavern, but he finds the entrance closed. Attributing at once this wicked action to the brother Sugrîvas, he succeeds, after great efforts, in effecting an opening; he comes out, returns to the palace, and expels Sugrîvas from it, whom he persecutes ever after.[606] Even Añgadas, Bâlin's son, irritated one day with Sugrîvas, accuses him of having once shut up his brother Bâlin in the cave, in order to possess himself of the latter's wife.