Interesting, also, is the tale of Vishnu having been a dwarf, and the tortoise avatar, not of Vishnu, but of Praj[=a]pati; also the attempt of the evil spirits to climb to heaven, and the trick with which Indra outwitted them.[36] For it is noticeable that the evil spirits are as strong by nature as are the gods, and it is only by craft that the latter prevail.[37]

Seldom are the tales of the gods indecent.  The story of Praj[=a]pati’s incest with his daughter is a remnant of nature worship which survives, in more or less anthropomorphic form, from the time of the Rig Veda (x. 61.) to that of mediaeval literature,[38] and is found in full in the epic, as in the Brahmanic period; but the story always ends with the horror of the gods at the act.[39]

Old legends are varied.  The victory over Vritra is now expounded thus:  Indra, who slays Vritra, is the sun.  Vritra is the moon, who swims into the sun’s mouth on the night of the new moon.  The sun rises after swallowing him, and the moon is invisible because he is swallowed ("he who knows this swallows his foes").  The sun vomits out the moon, and the latter is then seen in the west, and increases again, to serve the sun as food.  In another passage it is said that when the moon is invisible he is hiding in plants and waters (Cat.  Br. i. 6. 3. 17; 4. 18-20).

BRAHMANIC RELIGION.

When the sacrifice is completed the priest returns, as it were, to earth, and becomes human.  He formally puts off his sacrificial vow, and rehabilitates himself with humanity, saying, “I am even he that I am."[40] As such a man, through service to the gods become a divine offering, and no longer human, was doubtless considered the creature that first served as the sacrificial animal.  Despite protestant legends such as that just recorded, despite formal disclaimers, human sacrifice existed long after the period of the Rig Veda, where it is alluded to; a period when even old men are exposed to die.[41] The anaddh[=a]purusha is not a fiction; for that, on certain occasions, instead of this ‘man of straw’ a real victim was offered, is shown by the ritual manuals and by Brahmanic texts.[42] Thus, in Cat.  Br. vi. 2. 1. 18:  “He kills a man first....  The cord that holds the man is the longest.”  It is noteworthy that also among the American Indians the death of a human victim by fire was regarded as a religious ceremony, and that, just as in India the man to be sacrificed was allowed almost all his desires for a year, so the victim of the Indian was first greeted as brother and presented with gifts, even with a wife.[43]