Essay name: Goddesses from the Samhitas to the Sutras
Author:
Rajeshri Goswami
Affiliation: Jadavpur University / Department of Sanskrit
This essay studies the Goddesses from the Samhitas to the Sutras. In short, this thesis examines Vedic goddesses by analyzing their images, functions, and social positions. It further details how natural and abstract elements were personified as goddesses, whose characteristics evolved with societal changes.
Chapter 3
4 (of 17)
External source: Shodhganga (Repository of Indian theses)
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277
Indrani
it
In the RV (V 82) we read,
Among all females Indrani is the most fortunate,
for her husband shall not at any future time die of old
age'.
This may be explained by the fact that Indrani is a wife
to all who successively attain to the throne of Indra.
There is always someone ruling in heaven, the office
is perpetual, and as she is the wife of the reigning
king, whoever he may be her husband can never die of
996 old age.
She is beseeched to give happiness to her worshippers?
and is also invoked for granting protection to the people.
people. She
stands by Indra with firmness and strength, and she fearless by
holds him in the van of the army. She is attached to the army
of the gods and she receives the wealth of their enemies with
an abundance of strengths she is said to go in front of the gods 11
gods!!
She is the deity of the arrow, and she sharpens the arrow of the
person whose dart is not sharp.
12 She is the beloved wife of Indra, and she is also said
to be the wife of a brave man or here?" She has a good husband! 15
and she never becomes a widow16.
*
6 W.J. Wilkins, op. cit., p. 63.
7 TB I : 2:418.
8 RV II # 32:8.
:
9 TB I : 2:47, III : 3:11:20.
12 TS II # 2:8.
13 SB HID :14:2:8, TB 1:4:7.
14 RV X # 8618.
10 TB I: 2:417, MS IV : 12:25.
15 TB I : 214:7.
16 11 MS IV: 1:15.
TB II : 3:7:10.
