Transparent and Opaque Gods 181
ception of the Veda he is indeed a sort of Hercules, the most personal of all the gods, so personal that people begin to doubt his existence, and ask, “ Who has seen him?” I have brought much sympathy to Professor Hillobrandt’s interpretation which I hope may in the end turn out to be the right one; for the present it has left me in the frame of mind indicated by the word opaque. I confess, I cannot pass over as lightly as does Irlillebrandt the unanimous Hindu tradition that Vritra is the cloud. The partnership of Indra with Vayu “Wind” is paralleled suggesw tively by the association of Parjanya and Vata, “ Wind.” Parjanya is beyond per-adventure a god of the thunderstorm. It is therefore still possible that the myth of Indra, Vritra, and the waters represents a specialised poetic treatment of a myth of thunder- storm, cloud, and rain. The myth may have, so to speak, been brought down to earth: Indra, the storm god, becomes a Hercules, and kills a dragon who boards in the mountains (formerly, the clouds), the rivers (formerly, the rain of the clouds). For a final solution of this most important theme in mythology it seems to me that we must look to the future. The confirmation of Hillebrandt’s masterly theory, if it comes at all, must come from Iran or Western Asia. Such confirmation should establish more definitely Indra’s and Vritra’s character in the
