R the aurora counts among her other talents that of magic; when the Ribhavas created the aurora cow of morning,…
- Date of account
- English edition published 1872
- Source
- Zoological Mythology; or, The Legends of Animals, Volume 1 (of 2)
- Reference
- Zoological Mythology; or, The Legends of Animals, Volume 1 (of 2) · selected passage 9
- Rights
- public_domain
- Language
- English
- Record updated
- 2026-08-25
Record summary
r the aurora counts among her other talents that of magic; when the Ribhavas created the aurora cow of morning, investing her with the skin of the aurora cow of evening, they endowed her with Protean qualities (Viçvarûpâm), and on this account the aurora herself is also called witch or enchantress (Mâjinî).[101] This a…
Published source text
Read the available text below. Archive transcriptions may contain OCR errors; later context is labelled separately. A recorded claim is not a finding that it happened.
Source passage
Source text · mention onlyr the aurora counts among her other talents that of magic; when the Ribhavas created the aurora cow of morning, investing her with the skin of the aurora cow of evening, they endowed her with Protean qualities (_Viçvarûpâm_), and on this account the aurora herself is also called witch or enchantress (_Mâjinî_).[101] This aurora, this virago, this Amazon, this Vedic Medea, who, treacherously plunging her husband, or brother, the solar hero, into a fiery furnace, blinds and lames him, is punished in the morning for her crime of the evening. The hero vanquishes her, overcomes her incantations, and annihilates her. The Vedic hymn sings--"A manly and heroic undertaking thou hast accomplished, O Indras, for an evil-doing woman, the daughter of the heavens, thou hast smitten; the growing daughter of the heaven, the aurora, O Indras, thou hast destroyed; from the chariot, broken in pieces, fell the aurora, trembling, because the bull had struck her."[102] Here the mythical animal reappears on the same stage with the heroes, and for the image of the hero and the heroine there is substituted that of the cow and the bull.[103]
Historical context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyThis material belongs to a folklore tradition. Story type, collector, community, transmission and literary editing matter when comparing it with other sources.
Modern context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyLattice compares motifs and reported features without assuming that a traditional being is a biological species or that similar stories document one external cause.
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