In the Avesta, the name and the myth of Kereçâçpa seems to me to be of special interest. To the Zend word kereçâçpa corresponds the Sanskṛit kṛiçâçvas (the name of a warlike ṛishis and hero), that is, he of the lean horse. The hero Kereçâçpa has, in the Avesta, a brother called Urvâksha (a word which is perhaps the same as urvâçpa, and, if this equivalence is admitted, urvâksha would mean him of the fat or great horse, of the heroic horse.[607] We have already noticed that the Vedic and Slavonic hero begins his fortune with an ugly and bad horse; the hero Kereçâçpa, too, of the two brothers of the Zend myth, is the good, the heroic, and truly glorious one. His brother, Urvâksha, according to a Parsee tradition,[608] was banished to hell because he had struck the fire which did not obey his commands (the evening sun which descends into the infernal night); Kereçâçpa avenges him. This is evidently a Persian form of the myth of the Dioscuri, who, as it seems to me, reappear once more in the two Zend brothers, Gustâçp and Açpâyaodha (he who fights with the horse).
In the epic poem of Firdusi, the two brothers Piran and Pilsem, who fight together against the Turanians, and of whom the former and elder delivers the latter and younger from the dangers that he is exposed to among the enemies, seem to me re-embodiments of the same myth.
We find the cloudy or tenebrous sky of night represented in the Ṛigvedas and in the Avesta as açman, or mountain of stone. When the evening sun falls upon the mountain, it turns to stone, and the whole sky assumes the colour of this mountain. When the hero of the popular story follows the monster, the latter hides under a rock; the hero lifts up the rock and descends into the grotto, that is, hides himself in the mountain of stone, or is turned to stone, and if he has a horse, it undergoes the same transformation. In the story of Merhuma, who is stoned (the aurora lost in the mountain of stone), in the Tuti-Name,[609] we have the brother possessed by a demon, who seduces the wife of his brother, who is travelling abroad. In that of Mansûr, in the same Tuti-Name,[610] the monstrous Fari assumes the very shape of the absent husband, and succeeds in seducing his wife. In another story in the Tuti-Name,[611] two brothers, finding themselves deceived in their expectations, set out together, each, for love of the other, wandering about the world in search of a better fate. These are three forms of the myth of the Açvinâu. With them is connected the story of the maiden who comes out of the wood, of whom as many men, when she appears, become enamoured.[612]
The fifth Calmuck story (of Hindoo origin) is unmistakably a reproduction of the myth of the Açvinâu, even to the very mythical names themselves. The king, Kun-snang (he who illumines all, like the Vedic Viçvavedas and the Slavonic Vsievedas, the all-seer), has by two different mothers two sons—Sunlight (born in the year of the tiger; perhaps in the sol-leo, in July, in summer, under the solar influence) and Moonlight. The second wife does not love her step-son Sunlight, and persecutes him, but the two brothers are devoted to each other, and when Sunlight goes into exile (like Râmas), Moonlight follows him (as Lakshmaṇas follows Râmas, as the white lunar twilight follows the sun in the forest of night). On the way, Moonlight is thirsty; Sunlight goes to find water for him, but in the meantime Moonlight dies.[613] Sunlight returns, and is in despair at the sight of his dead brother; however, a hermit has pity upon him, and, having resuscitated Moonlight, adopts the two brothers as his own sons. Near his abode there is a kingdom where the dragons keep back the waters, unless they are given a young man born in the year of the tiger. It oozes out that Sunlight is such a young man, and he is led away to the king of that country. The daughter of the king falls in love with him, and begs Sunlight not to be given to the dragons. The king is furious against his daughter, and has her thrown with Sunlight into the swamp where the dragons are.[614] The young couple break out into such piteous lamentations, that the dragons are touched, and let Sunlight and the young princess go free. When free, they find Moonlight, who also becomes the husband of the beautiful princess, the two brothers being inseparable, like the Vedic Açvinâu. The three personages (white twilight, or white moonlight, aurora, and sun) return together into the kingdom of their birth, where, upon seeing them arrive, Sunlight's step-mother (Night) dies of terror. Here the legend has all its mythical splendour.
In the sixteenth Mongol story, on the contrary, the friendship of the two companions cannot last, because of the perfidy of one of them; while they are travelling in the forest, the minister's son kills the king's son.
In the history of Ardshi-Bordshi, the two men born in the palace are so like each other in everything, in shape, complexion, dress, and horses, that they cannot be distinguished one from the other; hence they dispute between themselves for the possession of everything, of wife and sons. One is made like the other by witchcraft; he is the son of a demon; and it is the marvellous king of the children who discovers the secret.[615]
This exchange of husbands, or heroes, by means of demoniacal craft, often occurs in European fairy-tales, like the exchange of wives. The demon is now a water-carrier, now a washerman, now a woodcutter, now a charcoal-burner, now a gipsy, now a Saracen, and now the devil in propria persona.
The Russian fairy-tales show us the two forms of the two brothers or companions, i.e., the two that remain friends usque ad mortem, and the friend betrayed by his perfidious companion.
We find a zoological form of the legend of the two friends in one of Afanassieff's stories. The horse delivers the child of one of his masters from the bear, upon which his grateful masters feed him better, whereas before they had almost let him die of starvation. The horse (the sun) remembers in prosperity his companion in misfortune, the cat (the moon), who is also allowed to starve, and gives it a part of what he receives from his masters. The latter perceive this, and again ill-treat the horse, who then forms the resolution of killing himself, in order that the cat may eat him; but the cat refuses to eat his friend the horse,[616] and is also determined to die.
The two brothers who, because they have eaten one the head and the other the heart of a duck, are predestined, in Afanassieff,[617] one to be king and the other to spit gold, flee from their perfidious mother (probably step-mother), who persecutes them in their father's absence. They meet with a cowherd taking his cows to the pasturage, and are hospitably entertained by him. Then, continuing their journey, they come to a place where two roads meet, where, upon a pillar, this is written, "He who goes to the right (to the east) will become a king; he who goes to the left (to the west, into the kingdom of Kuveras, the western sun, the god of riches; when the sun rises in the east the moon goes down in the west) will become rich." One goes to the right; when it is morning, he rises, washes, and dresses himself. He learns that the old king is dead (the old sun), and that funeral honours are being paid to him in church. A decree says that he whose candle lights of itself will be the new Tzar.[618] The Vedic god also has the distinctive attribute of this wonderful candle, that of being lighted by himself, of shining of himself, i.e., he is svabhânus. The candle, therefore, of our youth predestined to be king lights of its own accord, and he is immediately proclaimed the new king. The daughter of the old king (the aurora) marries him, recognising in him her predestined husband, and makes with her golden ring (the solar disc) a mark upon his forehead (as Râmas does with Sîtâ). The young man (the sun), after having remained some time with his bride (the aurora), wishes to go towards the part where his brother went (that is, to the left, to the west). He traverses for a long time different countries (i.e., the sun describes the whole arc of heaven which arches over the earth), and finds at last (in the western sky, towards the setting sun) his brother, who lives in great wealth. In his rooms whole mountains of gold arise; when he spits, all is gold; there is no place to put it,[619] (the evening sky is one mass of gold). The two brothers then set out together to find their poor old father (the sun during the night). The younger brother goes to find for himself a bride (probably the silvery moon), and the wicked mother (the step-mother, night) is forsaken. Here, too, the legend is entirely of a mythical character. In the two brothers we see now twilight and sun, now the two twilights, now the spring and autumnal lights, now the sun and the moon, but always the Açvinâu, always two deities, two heavenly beings closely connected with the phenomena of the lunar and solar light.