Aditya

“ The Adityas are a brotherhood or college of gods, but some of the members of the fraternity have more individual character than, for example, the Maruts, who are simply a company with a tendency to become confused with the Adityas. Considered as a triad, the Adityas are Varuna, Mitra, Aryaman. The name of Varuna is commonly derived from vri (or Var) ,* to cover, according to the commentator Sayana, because "he envelops the wicked in his snares," the nets which he carries to capture the guilty. As god of the midnight sky, Varuna is also "the covering" deity, with his universal pall of darkness. ”

“ Not only fire, but the forms of flame, are worshipped and all that belongs to it. Entire nature is called Aditi, whose children are named Adityas. M. Maury quotes these words from Gotama: "Aditi is heaven; Aditi is air; Aditi is mother, father, and son; Aditi is all the gods and the five races; Aditi is whatever is born and will be born; in short, the heavens and the earth, the heavens being the father and the earth the mother of all things." This reminds one of the Greek Zeus-pateer and Gee-mêteer. Varuna is the vault of heaven. Mitra is often associated with Varuna in the Vedic hymns. ”

“ He was a progenitor on a magnificent scale, as he is considered to have been the father of the gods, demons, man, fish, reptiles, and all animals, by the thirteen daughters of Daksha. The eldest of the thirteen, his favourite wife, was Adití, from whom were born Indra and all the inferior gods, and particularly the twelve Ádityas, or forms of the sun, which represent him in the several months of the year. From Diti, Danu, and others of the remaining twelve, came the Daityas, Dánavas, and other demons.
115. No sacred cord is twined. ”

“ He obtains the atmosphere, the sky, the earth, the Ādityas, the Maruts, the quarters, all worlds, who gives her of the hundred rice-dishes.
11. Sprinkling forth ghee, well-portioned, the divine one will go to the gods; hurt not him who cooks thee, O inviolable one; go on to heaven, O thou of the hundred rice-dishes. ”

“ Methinks thou deservest a boon." Hearing these words of his, Marichi's son, Kaçyapa, said,—"Aditi, the gods and I myself, crave of thee this,—and, O bestower of boons, it behoveth thee well pleased to confer on us this boon, O thou of excellent vows! Do thou, O sinless one, become born as my son in Aditi, O adorable deity! Do thou become the younger brother of Sakra, O destroyer of Asuras. It behoveth thee to help the celestials afflicted with grief. And this place through thy grace will attain the name of Siddhāçrama. The work, O lord of the celestials, hath been accomplished. ”

“ Again, the gods were represented in the children of Aditi, and this might be taken either in a high and refined sense, as if Aditi were the infinite region from which the solar deities rise, [10] or we may hold that Aditi is the eternal which sustains and is sustained by the gods, [11] or the Indian imagination could sink to the vulgar and half-magical conception of Aditi as a female who, being desirous of sons, cooked a Brahmaudana oblation for the gods, the Sadhyas. [12] Various other gods and supernatural beings are credited with having created or generated the gods. ”

“ But, for this very reason, they did not see how Addie could care to go to Uncle Gerrit’s and play with all those babies there. They thought him a queer boy, they did not really like him; but his intimacy with Frans and Henri van Naghel gave Addie a sort of manly, grown-up air which they secretly envied. And so, in order, in their turn, to appear manly and grown-up before Addie, they could never, walking or bicycling, pass a woman without exchanging a coarse word or phrase or disapproval, like young men-about-town who know all about everything. ”

“ Often, in company, suffering and inflicting boredom, enthroned in the brilliance of her white beauty, like a smiling idol, with the langour of her years in India gradually filling her blood until her movements had acquired that lazy indifference for anything that did not spell love and caresses, until her voice had assumed a drawling accent in any word that was not a word of passion: often the flame which Addie shed over her would transfigure into a younger woman, livelier in company, gayer, flattered by the persistent homage of this youth, on whom every girl was mad. ”

“ Still following the legend, we see Addai, one of the "Seventy," despatched by Thomas to Edessa after the resurrection of Christ, with the result that the king is immediately healed; whereupon he and a great number of his people are converted to Christianity. Addai is said to have laboured at Edessa to the end of his life, and to have died a natural death. He is succeeded by Aggai, who suffers martyrdom under Ma'nu, a heathen son of Abgar, his legs being broken while he is sitting at church. ”

“ No one has ever said anything truer.”
From the depths of the eastern sky Aditi arises each morning. To the eyes of the ancient seers the dawn seemed to open the gates of another world into which they begged to enter—into the abode of the gods. We can understand that as the sun and all the solar deities rise from the east, Aditi was said to be the mother of Mitra, Vishnu, Savitar, and Varuna. ”

“ I must tell it you, Addie.... It was during those last days, those terrible days in Paris. Eduard, my husband, was in Paris and ... and he had been threatening me.... You remember, you must remember: I told you as much as that, didn't I?... He had come to look for me in Paris. He hated me ... and he hated, oh, how he hated Henri!... Henri, my poor brother, my brother!... Addie, Addie, let me tell you everything!... Whatever people may have thought, whatever people may have said, none of it's true, it's all false! ”

“ Later on in the day Addie sits on the rocks where she stood on the night before muffled in her woolly wrap, her life almost as free from restraint and vexatious watchfulness as if she still bore her maiden name. Yes, her days are her own again in all that minor detail of [60] movement that makes the sum of existence; she can cast aside every cumbersome article of her trousseau, take off her hat, her cloak, even her shoes and stockings, and paddle in the cool waves, unheeded, unadmonished. ”

“ Addie, left to herself, heaves a great sigh of relief, then glances languidly round the room, and tries to realize her situation, to understand that she can be mistress of the old place again, that she need never yawn the dreary hours away in the Moggeridge school-room, need never darn alien socks, help to tub peevish babies, never bow her haughty young head to the yoke of uncongenial servitude, but spend her days by the familiar fireside, rambling through the leafy grove and mellow orchards, her own, her very own forever. ”

“ Addie proclaims herself invalided with a racking headache, and unable to take part in the celebration of her sister's birthday. So the family, among whom sympathy with the sick and afflicted is not a distinguishing trait, after vaguely suggesting tea, soda-water, eau-de-Cologne, and the rest, depart grove-ward with a goodly hamper, leaving her alone on a couch in the drawing-room window, limp and feverish with pain.
It is dark before they return in boisterous spirits, full of their adventures, and with countenances smeared with blackberry-juice. ”

“ Thereupon having bowed unto her along with the king of celestials he conferred the pair of ear-rings upon her and related unto her the destruction of the demon Naraka. Well-pleased, Aditi, the mother of Gods with her thoughts wholly devoted unto Hari, the protector of the universe, began to chant his glories:—"Salutation unto thee, O thou having lotus eyes, who removest all fear of the devotees, who art eternal, the soul of all creatures, the creator of all and identical with all. Thou art at one with the three qualities and the creator of mind, intellect and senses. ”

“ Addie somewhat sulkily imparts the good news to her family, and then goes up to her room, locks the door, and lifts from the bottom of her trunk her cracked old papier-mâché desk, from which she takes a photograph wrapped in tissue paper, with the remains of a gloire de Dijon rose that was nipped from the parent-stem one soft June night three years before and fastened near her throat by warm boyish fingers—cousinly, not brotherly fingers. ”

“ Now the daughter of Omartes, the king of the Marathi, a tribe dwelling on the other side of the Tanais, was named Odatis. And concerning her it is written in the Histories, that she in her sleep beheld Zariadres, and fell in love with him; and that the very same thing happened to him with respect to her. And so for a long time they were in love with one another, simply on account of the visions which they had seen in their dreams. And Odatis was the most beautiful of all the women in Asia; and Zariadres also was very handsome. ”

“ Addie watches them disappear, hatching a little moonlit scamper on her own account to a solitary part of the shore, where she can plunge her free hands and hot face into the rippling water. Alas, woman proposes, but man disposes! She has just cleared the last step of the terrace, when she meets her husband face to face. ”

“ But when Addie appeared she thought better of it. In the deepest secrecy of her heart this woman worshipped her sensuality, as in the temple of her egoism: here the milk-white creole offered up all the most intimate dreams of her rosy imagination and unquenchable longing; and in this cult she had achieved as it were an art, a knowledge, a science, that of deciding, for herself, at a glance, what it was that attracted her in the man who approached her, in the man who passed her by. ”

“ In the first part of this act he is lying asleep hidden among the shrubs and trees in the background.
Nausikaa, the King's daughter has come at the bidding of Athene with her companions to wash the linen and garments of her family. While the clothes are drying in the sun the maidens dance and play at ball. Their voices and laughter awake Odysseus who rises and shows himself through the foliage. Seeing a nearly naked man the girls run away screaming; only Nausikaa stands still and asks the stranger fearlessly who he is. Odysseus tells her his piteous story and his cruel fate. ”

“ CHAPTER XXX Addie returned to the Hague that evening; and seldom had he felt so heavy and listless, as if he knew nothing for himself. No, he knew nothing, nothing more for his poor self, as if he, as he grew older, daily lost more and more of the knowledge that is sacredly imparted for a man's own soul, like a far-lighting lamp casts its rays over the paths of his own destiny that lie dimly in the future. ”

“ And in that conflict Atikāya beheld that shaft fair-feathered and having its feathered part dight with splendid diamonds, acquiring enhanced vehemence arising from its having been discharged by Lakshmana,—and hissing and rushing on with tremendous impetuosity. And seeing it, Atikāya swiftly resisted it with countless sharpened shafts. But endowed with the energy of Suparna himself, that shaft vehemently went to him. ”

“ After a time Adiaha gave birth to a daughter, and her the jealous wife also persuaded the king to throw away. It took a longer time to persuade him, but at last he agreed, and threw his daughter into the water too, and forgot Adiaha again. But the Water Ju Ju was ready again, and when he had saved the little girl, he thought the time had arrived to punish the action of the jealous wife; so he went about amongst the head young men and persuaded them to hold a wrestling match in the market-place every week. ”

“ They exchanged further confidences, about women, about girls. Theo asked if Addie was going to marry Doddie. But Addie said that he wasn’t thinking of marrying and that the resident wouldn’t be willing either, because he didn’t care for Addie’s family and thought them too Indian. Then, in a single word, he let slip his pride in his Solo descent and his pride in the halo which shone dimly behind the heads of all the De Luces. And Addie asked if Theo knew that he had a young brother running wild in the compound. Theo knew nothing about it. ”

“ Addie's eyes close, and presently her spirit wanders back to a certain day of sunny girlhood, when they all drank her health in bumpers of raspberry vinegar, and Teddy—bright Teddy Lefroy—knotted a silk handkerchief round her young throat, and, with his lips to her blushing ear, murmured fondly—
"Many happy returns, sweet Cousin Addie!"
She feels the clasp of his warm fingers on her neck, feels his lips brushing her cheek, and slowly opens her eyes to see her husband's swarthy face bending over hers. ”

“ When the palaver was over, Adiaha was dressed in fine clothes and beads, and carried back in state to the palace by the king's servants.
That night the king gave a big feast to all his subjects, and told them how glad he was to get back his beautiful wife whom he had never known properly before, also his son who was stronger than all men, and his fine daughter. The feast continued for a hundred and sixty-six days; and the king made a law that if any woman was found out getting medicine against her husband, she should be killed at once. ”

“ The king threatens to shoot an arrow into the river, whereupon the waters divide, and the serpent appears with the gem. He is accompanied by a beautiful maiden, whom he introduces as his sister Kumudvati, and whom he offers in marriage to Kusha. The offer is accepted, and the wedding celebrated with great pomp.
Seventeenth canto. King Atithi.—To the king and queen is born a son, who is named Atithi. When he has grown into manhood, his father Kusha engages in a struggle with a demon, in which the king is killed in the act of killing his adversary. ”