Note 3 — I DRAMATIC ELEMENTS IN VEDIC LITERATURE

The silence of Indian tradition is all the more remarkable because there do exist in the Ṛgveda itself a number of hymns which are obviously dialogues, and which are expressly recognized as such by early Indian tradition.3 The number of such hymns is uncertain, for it is possible to add to those which clearly bear that character others whose interpretation might be improved by assuming a division of persons. There are, however, at least fifteen whose character as dialogues is quite undeniable, and most of these hymns are of marked interest. Thus in x. 10 Yama and Yamī, the primeval twins, whence in the legend are derived the races of men, engage in debate; the poet, with a more refined sentiment than the legend, is uneasy regarding this primitive incest, and represents Yamī as intent on an effort, fruitless so far as the hymn goes, to induce Yama to accept and make fruitful her proffered love. A tantalizing, but certainly interesting, hymn in the same book (x. 95) gives a dialogue between Purūravas, and the nymph Urvaçī; he rebukes her inconstancy, but does not succeed in making her refrain from withdrawing from his gaze. In viii. 100 Nema Bhārgava utters an appeal to Indra, to which the god is pleased to give a reply. Sometimes there are three interlocutors; thus Agastya, the sage, has a conversation (i. 179) of an enigmatic type with his wife, Lopāmudrā, and their son; not less obscure is the dialogue between Indra and Vasukra, in which the wife of the latter plays a small part, in x. 28; and in iv. 18 we have a most confused dialogue between Indra, Aditi, and Vāmadeva. Even less intelligible is the famous debate between Indra, his wife, Indrāṇī, and Vṛṣākapi (x. 86), each interpreter of which is able to show the absurdity of the versions of his predecessors but seems incapable of recognizing the defects of his own. Or one of the interlocutors may be a troop, not an individual. Thus Saramā, the messenger of Indra, seeking the kine which have been taken away, goes to the demons, the Paṇis, and holds with them lively debate (x. 108). The gods also have a hard business (x. 51–3) to persuade Agni, the living fire, to persevere in the tedious occupation of bearing to them the oblations of mortals, and the dialogue in which they engage is vivid in the extreme, extending even to the breaking of a stanza into portions for two interlocutors. Two dialogues are of interest for their historical allusions, the converse of Viçvāmitra and the rivers (iii. 33) which he seeks to cross, and that of Vasiṣṭha with his sons (vii. 33), if indeed that is the correct interpretation of the speakers of the hymn. Indra again disputes with the Maruts (i. 165 and 170), who had disgraced themselves in his eyes by deserting him in the thick of his contest with the demon Vṛtra, but who succeed at last in placating his anger; in the former hymn Agastya seems also to intervene, by summing up the result at the close, and invoking the favour of the gods for himself. Similarly the account of Viçvāmitra’s dialogue ends with the assertion that the Bharatas successfully crossed the rivers in search of booty, having won a passage by the intercession of their priest. The interesting, but obscure, hymn (iv. 42), in which Indra and Varuṇa seem to engage in a dispute as to their relative pre-eminence, is clearly commented on by the poet himself, and his intervention may be suspected even where it is not essential.