l and l: the
Asvins, white and red, destroy fever, e: Virabhadra, yellow, grants all aims.
One relates the story of how the mare Vispata lost a foot in battle, and the
Asvins (the name of the divine twins in the Rig Veda) appeared and replaced the stricken limb with an iron foot.
From Daksa, the two divine physicians, the
Asvins, got the teachings in their entirety, and finally the
Asvins transmitted the full teachings as taught by Brahma to Indra.
Among his allies are the Rudras (or Maruts), who ride the clouds and direct storms; the
Asvins, twin horsemen; and Vishnu, who later evolved into one of the three principal gods of Hinduism.
(109) In the Brhaddevata VII 6cd (similar Mahabharata XII 201,17ab) we find a tradition that Nasatya and Dasra (110) are known as the two
Asvins. (111) The dual nasatya (RV I 173,4) refers to Nasatya and his twin.
For Vedicists and historical linguists this publication contains demonstrations of how interesting dozens of RV hymns are which have not found their way into anthologies or which have been neglected because they have been judged too obscure in content or difficult to construe syntactically (e.g., the hymns to Indra, II.11, II.13, II.15, which have been eclipsed by the popularity of II.12 with the refrain "he, o peoples, is Indra," or the difficult but linguistically interesting I.46 to the
Asvins, or the puzzling VI.48 in several lyric meters which includes three mysterious stanzas whispered to the god Pusan).
RV 4.43 is a hymn to the
Asvins. In it we learn first that Surya had chosen the chariot of the divine twins (2cd: ratham ...