The two groups of Teutonic wonder-smiths were rivals; so were the Ribhus and Twashtri. The elfin artisans prove their skill in both cases by producing wonderful gifts for the gods. Loke acts as a mischief-making spy in Germanic myth, and Dadyak in Indian, and both lose their heads for wagers, but save them by cunning.
The Ribhus had provided the Celestials with horses and chariots, but Twashtri fashioned a wonderful bowl which filled itself with Soma for the gods. In the contest that ensued the Ribhus transformed the bowl into four cups. “This bowl”, says Professor Macdonell, “perhaps represents the moon, the four cups being its phases.” One of the Ribhus was a famous archer, like the elfin artisan Egil of Teutonic mythology.
The artisan of Babylonian mythology is Ea, father of Bel-Merodach. He is “King of the abyss, creator of everything, lord of all”. He was the god of artisans in general, and is identified with the sea-deity of the Persian Gulf—half-fish, half-man—who landed “during the day to teach the inhabitants the building of houses and temples, the gathering of fruits, and also geometry, law and letters”. His pupils included “potters, blacksmiths, sailors, stonecutters, gardeners, farmers, &c.”[56]
The Ribhus and Twashtri were the artisans of nature, the spirits of growth, the genii of the seasons, the elves of earth and air. Indra's close association with them emphasizes his character as a god of fertility, who brought the quickening rain, and as the corn god, and the rice god. He was the son of Father Heaven and Mother Earth, two vague deities who were never completely individualized, but were never forgotten. Heaven was the sky-god Dyaus-pita (from div = to shine), the Zeus pater of the Greeks, Jupiter of the Romans, and Tivi[57] (later, Odin) of the Germanic peoples, whose wife was the earth-goddess Jord, mother of Thor. The Hindu earth-mother (Terra mater) was Prithivi. Dyaus is sometimes referred to as a ruddy bull, whose bellowing is the thunder; as the Night heaven he is depicted as a black steed decked with pearls which are the stars; in one of the Vedic hymns reference is made to his “thunderstone”. Prithivi, who is sometimes symbolized as a cow, is the source of all vegetation, the supporter of earth, the female principle. She never assumes the importance of the Assyrian Ishtar, or the north Egyptian “earth-mother” Neith, or the “earth-mothers” of Europe. The Vedic Aryans were Great Father worshippers rather than Great Mother worshippers: their female deities were Night, Dawn, Earth, and the Rivers, but they were not sharply individualized until late; they are vague in the Vedas.
As the Greek Cronus (Roman Saturn) slew his father Urănus (Heaven), so did Indra slay his father Dyaus (Heaven). His earth-mother addresses him, saying: “Who has made thy mother a widow? Who has sought to slay the sleeping and the waking? What deity has been more gracious than thou, since thou hast slain thy father, having seized him by the foot?”[58]
The Indian father-slaying myth appears to be connected with the doctrine of reincarnation. In the Laws of Manu it is stated that “the husband, after conception by his wife, becomes an embryo and is born again of her; for that is the wifehood of a wife, that he is born again by her”.[59] In the famous story of Shakuntălā, the husband is similarly referred to as the son of his wife, the son being a reincarnation of the father.[60] This belief resembles the Egyptian conception which is summed up in the phrase “husband of his mother”.[61]
At the barley harvest in spring and the rice harvest in autumn offerings were made to the gods. A sacrificial cake of the new barley or rice was offered to Indra and Agni, a mess of old grain boiled and mixed with milk and water was given to the other gods, and a cake was also offered to Father Heaven and Mother Earth in which clarified butter was an important ingredient; or the offering might consist entirely of butter, because “clarified butter is manifestly the sap of these two, Heaven and Earth; ... he (the offerer) therefore gladdens these two with their own sap or essence”.
The reason for this harvest offering is explained as follows: The gods and the demons contended for supremacy. It chanced that the demons defiled, partly by magic and partly by poison, the plants used by men and beasts, hoping thus to overcome the gods. Men ceased to eat and the beasts stopped grazing; all creatures were about to perish because of the famine.
Said the gods: “Let us rid the plants of this.”
Then they offered sacrifices and “accomplished all that they wanted to accomplish, and so did the Rishis”.