The Great Lunar Cycle: The Horse Twins and the Grail: Part 2 of 12
Chyavana and the Asvins
The Chyavana story in Vedic myth goes back at least to the hymns of the Rig Veda, and is told as well in the Mahabharata and the Brahmanas, and can only be described as an extremely central myth of the deities known as the Horse Twins. Remarkably, this story actually appears in recognizably similar form in Irish myth as well, and by this comparison we can begin to narrow down a picture of these deities. Comparing, then, the myth of Chyavana as found in the Rig Veda, the Mahabharata and the Brahmanas with the Irish The Wooing of Etain, we find that these stories preserve key dramatic beats and remarkable small details, though sometimes in altered forms, across a vast amount of space and time. As such it seems that this myth may date back to a time before the Rig Veda, to before the time when these ethnic branches split from one another, in the mists of Indo-European prehistory.
Debatably the earliest recorded mention of the myth occurs in the Rig Veda in a hymn addressed to the Asvins: "That gift, which all may gain, ye gave Cyavana, when he grew old, who offered you oblations, when ye bestowed on him enduring beauty" (Rig Veda Book 7 LXVIII "Asvins," verse 6). This verse contains the general outline of the myth in question.
However, this is not all that is relevant to this connection. Three different “wooing” story groupings, which as we will see have become intertwined, present themselves to us stretching from Ireland to Wales to Scandinavia to India. These groupings are marked by uncanny similarities down to minute details difficult to explain at such a distance of space and time. We must trace these groupings in succession, then, and pay close attention to the ways in which they have begun to overlap and become blended together.
Firstly, we have the aforementioned tale of Chyavana: in its essential structure this is the marriage story of a figure who gets poked in the eye and then demands a fair maiden in recompense, ultimately participating in a “choosing” scene. This very same narrative pattern can be found in the story of Irish Midir. This grouping, then, equates Irish Midir with Indian Chyavana.
Grouping 1: Chyavana = Midir
1.Eye Poking, Maiden in Recompense
- Chyavana gets eyes poked with a branch by the “frolicking” Princess or clods of dirt thrown at his eyes by youths while they are playing. He asks the king for the Princess' hand in marriage in recompense. (Mahabharata, Satapatha Brahmana)
- Midir gets eye poked out with a “spit” of holly that is thrown at him by a group of quarreling youths while they are playing. He asks Aengus to woo Etain for him in recompense. (Wooing of Etain)
2.Encounters Rival Wooers (Named “Horseman”)
- Chyavana's wife is approached with attempt to woo by the Asvins (name meaning horsemen). (M)
- Midir's wife is approached with attempt to woo by Eochu (name meaning horseman) Airem (name meaning ploughman). (WoE)
3.Transformation Test
- Chyavana goes into a lake and emerges young and rejuvenated. He now appears similar to the Asvins, and Sukanya has to pick him out from among them in his changed form. She chooses correctly and they live happily. (M)
- Midir makes Eochu pick Etain out from among a group of other identical women. Eochu chooses incorrectly and confuses his daughter for his wife. Midir and Etain live happily. (WoE)
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We can see, then, a direct line between Chyavana and Midir. And yet the identity of each remains mysterious. However, from an analysis of the Rig Veda hymns, it becomes apparent that one of the main religious traditions belonging to the Asvins is that they were the rival wooers to the Moon God Soma for the hand of the Daughter of the Sun, Suryā. Furthermore, it is said that after their wooing they became bridesmen at the joyous wedding of Soma and Suryā just as the rival Asvins ultimately aid Chyavana and his wife Sukanya. This wedding tale is told in a long and detailed hymn in book 10 of the Rig Veda, called "Suryā's Bridal," which becomes key to our further interpretation of the larger puzzle.
The hymn narrates,
14 When on your threewheeled-chariot, O Asvins, ye came as wooers unto Suryā's bridal, Then all the Gods agreed to your proposal, Pusan as Son elected you as Fathers.
15 O ye Two Lords of lustre, then when ye to Suryā's wooing came [...]
18 By their own power these Twain in close succession move;
They go as playing children round the sacrifice.
One of the Pair beholdeth all existing things; the other ordereth seasons and is born again.
19 He, born afresh, is new and new for ever ensign of days he goes before the Mornings
Coming, he orders for the Gods their portion. The Moon prolongs the days of our existence.
20 Mount this, allshaped-, goldhued-, with strong wheels, fashioned of Kimsuka and Salmali, lightrolling-, Bound for the world of life immortal, Suryā: make for thy lord a happy bridal journey.
21 Rise up from hence: this maiden hath a husband, Seek in her father's home another fair one, and find the portion from of old assigned thee. Seek thou another willing maid and with her husband leave the bride.
We see that after the marriage, the Asvins go round the sacrifice like playing children, just as the Asvins gain access to the soma sacrifice at the end of the Chyavana myth. We also find that Soma, that is, the Moon God, is said to prolong the days of our existence and to lead his bride to the life immortal, as Chyavana seems in his myth to be in charge of admitting participants to the soma rite, which brings immortality. “One of the Pair” of Asvins is said to be born afresh, which is the power demonstrated by the Asvins in the tale which they use on Chyavana, but also parallels Welsh Pryderi being caught in the otherworld and then released again (a possible dying and rising motif), or Greek Castor dying and going to the underworld before being recuperated by his brother, and also may suggest the repeated theme of the Horse Twins at last achieving immortality. This Asvin is also said to order for the gods their portion, exactly as the Asvins in the Chyavana tale become priests and administers of the soma sacrifice in the end.
Can it in fact be believed that there is more than one tale of the Asvins as rival wooers, followed by a happy marriage in which they assist, afterward gaining access to the Soma sacrifice and becoming its priests and administers? It is possible, as mythology is full of repeating and similar patterns, but seems unlikely, that there could be two separate tales with this exact pattern and outcome, and thus we are forced to conclude that the most likely true identity of Chyavana of the tale is none other than the Moon god, Soma, and that his bride Sukanya is the daughter of the Sun, Suryā. In this context, things become clearer and clearer. Why, in fact, does Chyavana have the power to disarm the King of the Gods, Lord Indra, and to then give access to the soma sacrifice to the Asvins? With this power and privilege he cannot be some mere human or semidivine ascetic. Being Soma himself, however, his power over who may attend the soma sacrifice becomes clear as crystal, and on reflection seems the only logical thing. His power over Indra when in this domain can only be explained by his being some god on the highest level. His being the lord of the Moon itself and the lord over the central rite would be one of only a couple possible identifications that could explain such power.
Furthermore, once his lunar identity is understood, the entire theme of an old and withered Chyavana having his eye poked out and then being renewed in youth can be seen as a lunar allegory. The moon, as the hymn alludes, and as many other sources confirm, was seen as the source of immortality due to its eternal cycle of waxing again once it has waned, of being born again, made young again, each monthly cycle. Hence the poking out of the eye may be seen either as an eclipse or as the extinguishment of the old moon, the “Dark Moon” when its face has become fully invisible and it is about to begin a New Moon. Hence it is imaged here as an old man with his eye poked out. The Asvins then renew Chyavana's youth and make him young again. This is the Waxing Crescent as it comes into view and signifies the young, new life of another cycle. The daughter of the sun and the new moon being wed seemingly indicates the sun's rays striking the moon in this waxing phase, illuminating its surface and being united with it there, or it may have symbolized a synchronization of the sun and moon during this phase of the cycle in a more specific manner. It is a controversial subject, but there is textual evidence that at least as far back as the Iranic Avesta, the Indo-Europeans may have had a concept of the moon being lit by the sun. Hartmut Scharfe argues that because, in one verse, Mithra is described as having self-luminosity and being like the moon (see Mihr Yasht, 142), that this must mean that the moon was not seen as self-luminous. He argues that a fact such as the moon's self-luminosity would never need to be pointed out (as the sun is never called "self-luminous" either), and so the description of self-luminosity in this hymn must be a way of distinguishing the self-luminosity of Mithra from the light of the moon, while comparing the splendor of the two (“Rgveda, Avesta, and Beyond – ex occidente lux?”, Scharfe). According to Scharfe, Mithra's splendor is being described as like the moon and self-luminous.
James Francis Katherinus Hewitt as early as 1908 also made the connection between Chyavana and Soma. “There is a variant of Chyavana's story in the Rig Veda, X.85, 8-20,” he says. “There, the rejuvenated Chyavana is the Moon-god Soma, married to Surya, the Sun-maiden...The Aswins (Gemini) assisted at the marriage...By this hymn, the Ashwins were summoned to the assembly of the gods” (Hewitt, 310). Thus, while the identity of Chyavana remains contested, we build upon an established notion and add evidence to it.
While the power of Soma-Chyavana seems to be to give immortality itself, it seems to be the function of the Asvins within this network of gods to play the instrumental role of giving renewed youth, so that the gods do not merely live forever in an aged and decrepit state. This role relates astrologically to their identification as the morning and evening star – as the hymn says, going before the morning, apportioning the Soma, and mystically healing the gods of wounds and agedness. Chyavana itself means “the slipping one” or “the moving/falling one,” supposedly from the idea that he slipped from his mother's womb early. This may theoretically have a second meaning, the idea of the premature birth perhaps being a way of expressing the fact that the moon is commonly seen to rise in the sky before the sun has set and before night has yet arrived. It is indeed born prematurely each evening, if we take the dark night sky to be its proper domain.
If we suppose then, by our equation, that Irish Midir as well still carries this moon god identity and mythos, certain passages become more clear. In particular is Midir's primary physical description that “he was always fair, but on that night he was fairer” (The Wooing of Etain). Indeed, he is here being physically described at nighttime, and with a passage that would be more perfectly applied to no other thing than the moon. He is also said to carry “A silvern shield with rim of gold slung over his back, and a silver strap to it and boss of gold theron” -- a silver shield or other circular object of course making a classic lunar symbol. The fact that he is said to have in his hand “a five pronged spear” may connect him to the wealth of the sea, an association we know Njörðr and Soma both to have (as we will see further on). Additionally, Midir is called a powerful magician, just as Chyavana's magico-ascetic force is feared by both Sukanya's father and Lord Indra himself. And one of the main powers Midir demonstrates is the power to put others to sleep (Chyavana's demonstrated power is to paralyze), as he does to Ailil, again only during night time when his trysts with Etain are planned, the power of putting to sleep being an obvious nocturnal and thus lunar power. Midir is also said to have three wondrous cows at his stronghold in the Land of Promise, while, as we will see in a later chapter, the wondrous cow Glas Gabhnenn is a stand-in for the sacred “soma” liquid in another tale. Lastly, Midir is able to transform himself and Etain into swans in the conclusion of their tale, white birds which are exceedingly common lunar symbols, so that they may escape together. As such, this final self-transformation may be merely like a combining of the renewal-transformation of Chyavana and his subsequent marriage into a single concise tableau – the union of moon and ray of sun in the waxing crescent, pictured as two swans embracing in flight.
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