The stories about the Asvins when they have once become mythological characters, heroes, saviours, and physicians, are endless, but they need not detain us. The important point is to perceive their physical background, and that can always be discovered even behind the thick veil of legend. Nothing is more instructive for the student of mythology than to see how this natural conception of Day and Night, of Light and Darkness, as the Asvins, becomes the germ from which spring in time ever so many half-legendary and even half-historical fables, the so-called Itihâras.
Most of the hymns addressed to the Asvins are very tedious, and repeat again and again the numerous miracles which they performed and the kindnesses which they showed to their friends and worshippers. I give here one short hymn only (V, 76), enough, however, to show what physical background there was for them, a background which in many cases had entirely vanished from the purview of the Vedic Rishis, but which is clear enough to the student of mythology.
I have endeavoured in these translations to keep strictly to the metre of the original, which is not always easy. I must therefore crave the indulgence of my readers for certain infelicities of expression which I could not avoid without departing too much from the original.
Hymn to the Asvins, Day and Night.
1.
Agni shines forth, the shining face of Ushas[[20]],
The priests’ god-loving voices have ascended,
O Asvins, on your chariot hither tending,
Come to our overflowing morn-libation.
2.