Note 81 — PART I (continued 2)

Wilson, Rig Veda, Maṇḍala ii., I, 6, Uncertainty prevails among scholars as to the exact meaning to be given to the name Ahura Mazda. The Rev. L. H. Mills, D.D., under the heading “Zend,” writes thus in Chambers’s Encyclopædia; “The Supreme Deity Ahura Mazdâh, the Living God or ‘Lord’ (ahu = ‘the living,’ ‘life,’ or ‘spirit’—root ah = ‘to be’), the Great Creator (maz + da = Sansk. mahâ + dhâ), or ‘the Wise One’ (cf. su-medhâs).” Again, the same writer in his book on the Gàthàs, published in 1894, gives on p. 3 in his “verbatim translation,” “O magni-donator (?) (vel) O Sapiens (?),” as alternative meanings for Mazda. Similar uncertainty seems to prevail as regards the meaning to be attached to the words of the passage in the Rig Veda to which reference has been made above, i.e., Maṇḍala ii., Súkta i., verse 6. In Wilson’s translation of the Rig Veda, vol. ii., p. 211, we read:—“Thou, Agni, art Rudra, the expeller (of foes) from the expanse of heaven”: and in his note to this passage he says: “Twam Rudro asuro maho divah: asura is explained śatrúnám nirasitá, the expeller of enemies, divas, from heaven; or it may mean, the giver of strength....” Macdonell (Vedic Mythology, p. 75) says that Rudra is called in this passage “the great asura of heaven.”