Note on the Aśvins (twin deities of light)

Note: this text is extracted from Book VII, chapter 41.

The Aśvins are, perhaps, best described as twin deities of light. Both their origin and the reason for their various attributes are obscure. In Vedic mythology they are described as the sons of Dyaus, the Sky Father or Heaven (cf. the Greek Zeus), and also as the sons of Sūrya, the sun, or Savitṛ, the quickening activity of the sun. According to this latter version the sun married Sañjñā, who, after bearing her husband two children, fled from him owing to his overpowering splendour. After numerous vicissitudes he reduced his splendour, disguised himself as a horse, and sought out his lost wife. Sañjñā, not allowing him to approach her from behind, turned her head in his direction, and from the united breath of their nostrils were produced the two Aśvins, who were hence called Nāsatyā.

The meaning of this name is unknown, but in Yāska’s Nirukta, a kind of Vedic etymological commentary, the word is said (vi, 13) to mean “true, not false,” while Yāska himself suggests it may mean “nose-born” (nāsikāprabhavas). The antiquity of the epithet was shown by Professor Winckler’s discovery in 1907 of cuneiform tablets at Boghaz-Köi containing records of treaties between the Hittites and the kings of Mitāni (c. 1400 B.C.). Among the gods called upon as witnesses was Na-ša-at-ti-ia—i.e. Nāsatyā. For a list of the numerous papers on this important discovery see the Cambridge History of India, vol. i, p. 320n².

The question as to who the Aśvins were is asked in Nirukta (xii, 1), but no definite answer is given, only various opinions can be quoted. They are said to be “Heaven and Earth,” “Day and Night,” “Sun and Moon,” “two kings who perform holy acts,” etc. They have also been described as the personification of two luminous points or rays imagined to precede the break of day. Modern scholars, however, see in them either the morning and evening stars, or twilight (one half light and one half dark).

Although no less than fifty hymns are addressed to them in the Ṛg-Veda, there is little that is definite about them. They are described as riding in a golden chariot, which in most accounts is drawn by horses (the name Aśvinā means “the two horsemen”), but poets often say it was drawn by some kind of bird, a buffalo, or an ass. They are the precursors of the Dawn (Uṣās), who appears at the yoking of their car. She is sometimes described as the sister and sometimes as the wife of the Aśvins. More commonly, however, their joint wife is Sūryā, who rides with them in the car. In still other hymns (Ṛg-Veda, x, 85) Soma, the moon, is the husband of Sūryā, and the Aśvins are only the groomsmen, who help to get her for Soma from her father Savitṛ. They lost one of the wheels of their chariot at this wedding and consequently we find references to their threewheeled car.

In different hymns of the Ṛg-Veda they are referred to as “Sons of the Sun,” “Children of the Sky,” “Bright Lords of Lustre,” “Offspring of the Ocean,” “Honey-hued,” and so on. Thus it is obvious that they originally represented some twin phenomenon in cosmical mythology, but exactly what is hard to say.

But there is another aspect of the Aśvins to be considered. They are described as healers of disease, deliverers from distress (especially on the sea), lifters-up of the downtrodden, and friends of lovers. Such an office was considered rather infra dig. among the gods, and consequently they lost a certain amount of prestige.

In Brāhmanical mythology the cosmical element of the Aśvins has disappeared and they remain as physicians of great kindness and personal beauty. Their names are now Nāsatyā and Dasra. The best-known story, found differently in the Satapatha Brāhmaṇa and the Mahābhārata, is that of Chyavana, the old husband of the beautiful Sukanyā. The Aśvins fell in love with her and tried in vain to seduce her. They finally consented to rejuvenate her husband, and in return were given a share of the Soma. Again in Mahābhārata (i, 111), on being invoked, they restore the eyesight of Upamanyu, who, becoming blind through eating certain forest leaves, had fallen into a pit. There are many other stories of their good deeds. They rescued Bhujyu from drowning and Atri from a fiery pit. When Viśpalā lost her leg they furnished her with an iron one.

It will be seen from the above varying scraps of mythology connected with the Aśvins that it is very hard, if not quite impossible, to state their origin, or to say what is the connecting link which joins the cosmical and more human sides of their character. The one may have evolved from the other, the healing and vivifying power of the sun and light being the medium, or perhaps the healing attributes may have been added in the effort to preserve the memory of some real historical mortal physicians, or “kings who performed holy acts,” whose deeds would otherwise have been lost in the oblivion of the ages.

We cannot help seeing a certain likeness with the Διὸς κόρω of the Greeks, Castor and Pollux, who are also twin horsemen and act as saviour-gods to mankind. Dual gods or heroes are found in many mythologies and their association may possibly point to the syncretism of allied cults, or to the development of new cults out of a primitive cult epithet. (See further Crooke, “Some Notes on Homeric Folk-Lore,” Folk-Lore, vol. xix, 1908, p. 163. For notes and references on the Castor and Pollux myth see Frazer’s translation of Apollodorus, Loeb Classical Library, vol. ii, pp. 30, 31.)

It is interesting to compare the post-Homeric attributes of Apollo as a god of healing and as a marine deity. The former side of his character is shown in such titles as Iatromantis and Oulios, and the latter in such names as Delphinius, Epibaterius, Euryalus, etc.— n.m.p.