ted up."[390]

It would appear that the wheel (or hoop, a variant rendering) was a
symbol of life, and that the Assyrian feather-robed figure which it
enclosed was a god, not of war only, but also of fertility. His
trident-headed arrow resembles, as has been suggested, a lightning
symbol. Ezekiel's references are suggestive in this connection. When
the cherubs "ran and returned" they had "the appearance of a flash of
lightning", and "the noise of their wings" resembled "the noise of
great waters". Their bodies were "like burning coals of fire".
Fertility gods were associated with fire, lightning, and water. Agni
of India, Sandan of Asia Minor, and Melkarth of Phoenicia were highly
developed fire gods of fertility. The fire cult was also represented
in Sumeria (pp. 49-51).

In the Indian epic, the _Mahabharata_, the revolving ring or wheel
protects the Soma[391] (ambrosia) of the gods, on which their
existence depends. The eagle giant Garuda sets forth to steal it. The
gods, fully armed, gather round to protect the life-giving drink.
Garuda approaches "darkening the worlds by the dust raised by the
hurricane of his wings". The celestials, "overwhelmed by that dust",
swoon away. Garuda afterwards assumes a fiery shape, then looks "like
masses of black clouds", and in the end its body becomes golden and
bright "as the rays of the sun". The Soma is protected by fire, which
the bird quenches after "drinking in many rivers" with the numerous
mouths it has assumed. Then Garuda finds that right above the Soma is
"a wheel of steel, keen edged, and sharp as a razor, revolving
incessantly. That fierce instrument, of the lustre of the blazing sun
and of terrible form, was devised by the gods for cutting to pieces
all robbers of the Soma." Garuda passes "through the spokes of the
wheel", and has then to contend against "two great snakes of the
lustre of blazing fire, of tongues bright as the lightning flash, of
great energy, of mouth emitting fire, of blazing eyes". He slays the
snakes.... The gods afterwards recover the stolen Soma.

Garuda becomes the vehicle of the god Vishnu, who carries the discus,
another fiery wheel which revolves and returns to the thrower like
lightning. "And he (Vishnu) made the bird sit on the flagstaff of his
car, saying: 'Even thus thou shalt stay above me'."[392]

The Persian god Ahura Mazda hovers above the king in sculptured
representations of that high dignitary, enclosed in a winged wheel, or