home on their chariot, and they are also asked to make the young wife fertile, while among their feats is to give a child to the wife of a eunuch, to cause the barren cow to yield milk, and to grant a husband to the old maid. Moreover they are physicians who heal diseases, restore sight to the blind, and ward off death from the sick. The decrepit Cyavana they released from his worn-out body, prolonged his life, made him young again and the husband of maidens. By means of their winged ship they saved Bhujyu, son of Tugra, from the log to which he was clinging in the midst of the ocean. They rescued and refreshed Atri, whom demons had bound in a burning pit. At the prayer of the she-wolf they restored his sight to Ṛjrāśva, whom his father had blinded for slaying a hundred and one sheep and giving them to the wolf. They gave a leg of iron to Viśpalā when her leg was cut off in battle. They placed a horse's head on Dadhyañc, who told them in reward where the mead of Tvaṣṭṛ was; and they rescued Rebha from death, befriended Ghoṣā, who was growing old childless in her father's house, gave Viṣṇāpu back to Viśvaka, and saved the quail from the wolf's jaws. Many other names of protégés are mentioned, and the deeds recited may have been historical in some cases, while mythical traits doubtless exist in others.
The Indian interpreters of the early period were at a loss to decide the nature of the Aśvins, whom they regarded as heaven and earth, sun and moon, day and night, or even as two kings who were performers of holy acts. It is clear that in essence they are one with the Dioskouroi[1] and with the two sons of the Lettic god who came riding on steeds to woo for themselves the daughter of the Sun or the Moon and who, like the Dioskouroi, are rescuers from the ocean. The older identification with sun and moon has been supported, and they have been regarded merely as succouring giants who have no mythical basis, but the more probable view is either that they represent the twilight (half dark, half light), or the morning and the evening star. The latter interpretation offers the grave difficulty of the contrast
- ↑ See Mythology of All Races, Boston, 1916, i. 26-27, 246-47.
