rident and home among the
mountains remind us of his physical origin. He is always the fairest
of the gods, and both early and late he is terrible, to be averted by
prayer, even where his magic 'medicines' are asked for. To him are
addressed the most suppliant cries: "O Rudra, spare us, strike not the
men, slay not the kine." In the Atharva Veda at every step one finds
characteristics which on the one hand are but exaggerations of the
type formulated in the Rig Veda, and on the other precursors of the
signs of the later god. In Civaism, in contradistinction to Vishnuism,
there is not a trace of the euhemerism which has been suspected in the
Krishna-Vishnu cult. The Rudra of the Rig Veda already begins to be
identified with the triune fire, for he bears the standing epithet of
fire, "he of three mothers."[73] And this name he keeps, whether as
Rudra, who is "brilliant as the sun" (RV. i. 43. 5), whose weapon is
"the shining one that is emitted from the sky and passes along the
earth" (_ib_. vii. 46. 3); or again, as the "red boar of the sky,"
the "holder of the bolt" (_ib._ ii. 33. 3), and, above all gods, "the
terrible" (x. 126. 5).

Coming to the Brahmanic period one finds him a dweller in the mountain
tops, of a red color, with a blue neck, the especial lord of the
mountains, and so of robbers; while he is also the 'incantation-god,'
the 'god of low people.' Some of these are Rudra's attributes; but
here his name is already Civa, so that one may trace the changes down
the centuries till he finds again in the epic that Civa is the lord of
mountains, the patron of thieves (Hara, robber?), and endowed with the
trident, the blue neck,[74] and the three mothers of old. In the
middle period he has so many titles that one probably has to accept in
the subsequent Civa not only the lineal descendant of the Vedic Rudra,
but also a combination of other local cults, where clan gods,
originally diverse, were worshipped as one in consequence of their
mutual likeness. One of the god's especial names is here Bhava, while
in the earlier period Bhava and Rudra are distinct, but they are
invoked as a pair (AV).[75] What gives Civa his later tremendous
popularity, however, is the feature to which we have alluded in the
chapter on the epic. In the epic, all the strength of Civa lies in the
Linga.[76] Both Bhava and Rudra, as Carva, the archer--his local
eastern name--are represented as hurling the lightning, and it is
simply from identit