THE MYTHOLOGY OF THE BRAHMANAS 97
Many other spirits of dubious character and origin are also
found, among whom Nirrti ("Decease") is the most prominent: sacrifice is frequently made to her, and black is the colour
appropriate for use in such offerings; while dice, women, and
sleep, as evil things, are brought into association with her.
At the royal consecration the wife who has been degraded in
position is regarded as her representative, and in the house
of such a woman the offering to Nirrti is made. Other deities are
much less important and appear chiefly in the Sutras, which
show their connexion with the life of the people. Thus the
Sdiikhayana Grhya Sutra (ii. 14) describes an offering which,
besides the leading gods, enumerates such persons as Dhatr,
Vidhatr, Bharata, Sarvannabhuti, Dhanapati, Sri, the night-walkers, and the day-walkers. The Kausika Sutra (lvi. 13)
names Udankya, Sulvana, Satrurhjaya, Ksatrana, MartyuMjaya, Martyava, Aghora, Taksaka, Vaisaleya, Hahahuhu,
two Gandharvas, and others. The "Furrow," Sita, is replaced
by the four, Sita, Asa, Arada, Anagha; and so on. We even
find the names of Kubera, 4 the later lord of wealth, and
Vasuki, the later king of snakes, but only in Sutras and, therefore, in a period later than that of the Brahmanas proper.
They serve, however, to show how full of semi-divine figures
was the ordinary life of the people, who saw a deity in each
possible form of action. Naturally, too, they regarded as divine
the plough and the ploughshare and the drum, just as in the
Rgveda, and the ritual is full of the use of symbols, such as
the wheel of the sun, the gold plate which represents the sun,
and the like.
In the world of demons the chief change in the Brahmanas is the formal separation of Asuras and gods. Vrtra, whose legend is developed, remains the chief Asura; but the story of Namuci is also elaborated, stress being laid on the use of lead in the ritual, apparently to represent the weapon (the foam of the sea) with which Indra destroyed him when he had under- taken to slay him neither with wet nor with dry. The myth of
