Description of Goddess Aranyani

139 1 Aranyani " One hymn alone refers to a goddess of the forests, Aranyani. From this, we get a rather clear picture of the goddess. She is an elusive figure who vanishes from sight and avoids connection with villages. She is more often heard than seen. She speaks through the sounds of the forest; one may even hear her tinkling bells. She seems to make her presence known especially at evening, and those who spend the night in the forest sometimes think they hear her scream. She never kills unless provoked by some murderous sweetly-scented mother of all forest things and provides enemy plenty of food without coiling." The goddess is interesting for two reasons. First she hints at an archaic type of goddess known as the mistress of animals, although there is no specific reference to her guarding animals or providing them for human hunters. Second, Second, she sounds very much like the Yaksis of the later Indian tradition, those female beings who dwell in the forest, are worshipped in places away from the village and who have, despite their generally benign qualities, certain uncanny characteristics. This late hymn of the Rgveda later i may well be an early literary source of the figure of the Yaksi, she seems to have been modelled on those indigenous creatures of the Indian forests. When one remembers that the early habitation of the Aryans were surrounded by deep impenetrable forests all around, one can 1 Rigveda X.1.46.

1 140 see how the poetic imagination was overawed by the dark, inscrutable mystery of those dense forests, especially at dusk when the forest remained enveloped in its own mysterious aura, away from human This sense of awe ind to the apothesis of the habitation. forest. Some mention is found of the Osadhis or herbs as feminine in the various Vedic texts. But as no clear picture of them as picture of them as not goddesses emerges from these texts they are being dealt with seperately.