[CHAPTER IX.]
THE ANTELOPE, THE STAG, THE DEER, AND THE GAZELLE.
SUMMARY.
Luminous stag and black stag.—The Marutas drawn by antelopes, and dressed in antelopes' skins.—The stag, the gazelle, and the antelope as forms assumed or created by the demon to ruin several heroes whilst they hunt.—Marîćas.—Indras kills the mṛigas.—The solar hero or heroine transformed into a stag, a gazelle, or an antelope.—Aktaion.—Artemis and the stag.—The stags of the Yggdrasill.—The stag Eikthyrner.—The hind as a nurse.—The hind and the old woman on the 1st of January.—The hind and the snow; the white hind.
The stag represents the luminous forms that appear in the cloudy or the nocturnal forest; these, therefore, are now lightning and thunderbolts, now the cloud itself from which the lightning and thunderbolts are discharged, now the moon in the gloom of night. The mythical stag is nearly always either entirely luminous or else spotted; when it is black it is of a diabolical nature, and represents the whole sky of night. Sometimes the luminous stag is a form assumed by the demon of the forest to compass the ruin of the hero.
The Ṛigvedas represents to us the Marutas, or winds that lighten and thunder in the clouds, as drawn by antelopes. The Marutas "are born shining of themselves, with antelopes, with lances, amid thunder-peals and flashes of lightning."[124] "They have yoked, with a red yoke, the antelopes.[125] The young battalion of the Marutas goes of itself, and has an antelope for its horse."[126] The horses of the Marutas, which we already know to be antelopes, are called winged,[127] and are said to have golden fore-feet.[128] The antelopes of the Marutas are splendid.[129] Nor are the Marutas only carried by antelopes; they also wear upon their shoulders antelopes' skins.[130]
But the antelope, the gazelle, and the stag generally, instead of helping the hero, involve him rather in perplexity and peril. This mythical subject is amplified in numerous Hindoo legends.
In the first scene of Kâlidâsas' Çakuntalâ, a black-spotted (kṛishṇasâras) gazelle misleads King Dushyantas.