In virtue of the idea that the soul is a spark, and that the production of fire resembles generation, Bhrigu, lightning, is a creator. The son of Bhrigu marries the daughter of Manu, and they have a son who at his birth breaks his mother's thigh, and therefore takes the name of Aurva (from uru a thigh). This is only the lightning which rends the clouds asunder.
Many Græco-Latin myths, beginning with that of Prometheus must be referred to Mâtariçvan and to the Bhrigu, and we can trace in the name of Prometheus the equivalent of a Sanscrit form prâmathyus, one who obtains fire by friction. Prometheus is, in fact, the ravisher of celestial fire (a phase of the polytheistic myth in a perfectly human form); he is a divine pramantha. It is Prometheus who in one version of the myth cleaves open the head of Zeus, and causes Athene, the goddess who uses the lightning as her spear, to issue from it. The Greeks afterwards carried on the evolution of myth in its transition from the physical to the moral phenomenon, and, forgetful of his origin, they made Prometheus into a seer. As Bhrigu, he created man of earth and water, and breathed into him the spark of life. Villemarqué tells us that in Celtic antiquity there was an analogous myth, as we might naturally expect, since the Celts belong to the Aryan stock; Gwenn-Aran (albus superus) was a supernatural being which issued like lightning from a cloud.
The more thoughtful Greeks did not limit the Promethean myth to the idol and to anthropomorphic fancies, but it passed into a moral conception, and we have a proof of this transition in Æschylus.
In fact, as Silvestro Centofonti observes in a lecture on the characteristics of Greek literature, the grand figure of the Æschylean Prometheus is a poetic personification of Thought, and of its mysterious fates in the sphere of life as a whole. First, in its eternal existence, as a primitive and organic force in the system of the world; then in the order of human things, fettered by the bonds of civilization, and subject to the necessities, lusts, and evils which constantly, arise from the union of soul and matter in unsatisfied mortals. Thought is itself the source of tormenting cares in this earthly slavery, yet the sense of power makes it invincible, firm in its purpose to endure all sufferings, to be superior to all events; assured of future freedom, and always on the way to achieve it by reverting to the grandeur of its innate perfection; finally attaining to this happy state, by shaking off all the enslaving bonds and anxious cares of the kingdom of Zeus, and by obtaining a perfect life through the inspirations of wisdom, when the revolutions of the heavens should fill the earth with divine power, and restore the happiness of primeval times. It is evident that in this stupendous tragedy Æschylus is leading us to the truth in a threefold sense: æsthetic, morally political, and cosmic. The supreme idea which sums up the whole value of the composition is perhaps that of an inevitable reciprocity of action and reaction between mind and effective force, between the primitive providence of nature and the subsequent laws of art, both in the civilization of mankind and in the order and life of the universe.
In this way the evolution of the special myth was transformed into poetry by the interweaving, collection, and fusion with other myths, and in the minds of a higher order it was resolved into an allegory or symbol of the forces of nature, into providential laws or a moral conception.
This law of progressive transformation also occurs in the successive modifications of the special meaning of words, so far as they indicate not only the thing itself, but the image which gave rise to the primitive roots. For a long while, those who heard the word were not only conscious of the object which it represented, but of its image, which thus became a source of æsthetic enjoyment to them. As time went on, this image was no longer reproduced, and the bare indication remained, until the word gradually lost all material representation, and became an algebraical sign, which merely recalled the object in question to the mind.
When, for example, we now use the word (coltello), coulter, the instrument indicated by this phonetic sign immediately recurs to the mind and nothing else; the intelligence would see no impropriety in the use of some other sign if it were generally intelligible. But in the times of primitive speech, the inventors of this rude instrument were conscious of the material image which gave rise to it, and they were likewise conscious of all the cognate images which diverged from the same root, and in this way a brief but vivid drama was presented to the imagination.
If we examine this word with Pictet and others, we shall find that the name of the plough comes from the Sanscrit krt, krnt, kart, to cleave or divide. Hence krntatra, a plough or dividing instrument. The root krt subsequently became kut or kutt, to which we must refer kûta, kûtaka, the body of the plough. This root krt, kart, is found in many European languages in the general sense of cutting or breaking, as in the old Slav word kratiti, to cut off. It is also applied to labour and its instruments: kartóti, to plough over again, karta, a line or furrow, and in the Vedic Sanscrit, karta, a ditch or hole. Hence the Latin culter a saw, cultellus, a coulter, and the Sanscrit kartari, a coulter. The Slav words for the mole which burrows in the earth are connected with the root krt, or the Slav krat. In very remote times, men not only understood the object indicated in the word for a coulter, but they were sensible of the image of the primitive krt and its affixes, which were likewise derived from the primitive images, and with these they included the cognate images of the several derivatives from the root. In these days the word coulter and the Sanscrit kartari are simply signs or phonetic notations, insignificant in themselves, and everything else has disappeared. But in primitive times an image animated the word, which by the necessary faculty of perception so often described was transformed into a kind of subject which effected the action indicated by the root. As this personality gradually faded away, the actual representation of the image was lost, and even its remote echo finally vanished, while the phonetic notation remained, devoid of life and memory, and without the recurrence of cognate images which strengthened the original idea by association. All words undergo the like evolution, and this may be called the mythical evolution of speech.
Thus the Sanscrit word for daughter is duhitar; in Persian it is dôchtar, in Greek Θυγἁτηρ, in Gothic dauhtar, in German Tochter. The word is derived from the root duh, to milk, since this was the girl's business in a pastoral family. The sign still remains, but it has lost its meaning, since the image and the drama have vanished. This analysis applies to all languages, and it may also be traced in the words for numbers. The number five, for example, among the Aryans and in many other tongues, signifies hand. This is the case in Thibet, in Siam, and cognate languages, in the Indian Archipelago and in the whole of Oceania, in Africa, and in many of the American peoples and tribes, where it is the origin of the decimal system. In Homer we find the verb Πεμπἁζειν, to count in fives, and then for counting in general; in Lapland lokket, and in Finland lukea, to count, is derived from lokke, ten; and the Bambarese adang, to count, is the origin of tank, ten.
When the numerical idea of five was first grasped, the conception was altogether material, and was expressed by the image of the five-fingered hand. In the mind of the earliest rude calculators, the number five was presented to them as a material hand, and the word involved a real image, of which they became conscious in uttering it. The number and the hand were consequently fused together in their respective images, and signified something actually combined together, which effected in a material form the genesis of this numerical representation. But the material entity gradually disappeared, the image faded and was divested of its personality, and only the phonetic notation five remained, which no longer recalls a hand, the origin of the several numerals, nor words connected with it. It is now a mere sign, apart from any rational idea. The same may be said of the other numerals.