Page 741 - Lokmanya Tilak Samagra (khand 2)

CHALDEAN AND INDIAN VEDAS 93
their gods to signify their might, power or strength; and Griffith
has translated it by the English word 'Lord' in several places.
Besides, in the Vedic Sanskrit we have several other words derived
from the root yah and so cognate to yahva, viz., yahu, yahvat,
yahv£ and yahvatf. It is not therefore, unreasonable to conclude
that yahva was originally a Vedic word, and though Moses may
have borrowed it from the Chaldeans, yet the Chaldean tongue,
in which the various other cognate forms of the word are wanting,
cannot claim it to be originally its own. Like the word sindhu the
Chaldeans appear to have themselves borrowed it from the
Indians in their mutual intercourse at some remote period of
antiquity.
We might say the same about the Chaldean word Apsu or
Abzu. It is written as Zu ab and read as Abzu. It denotes the prime-
val chaos or watery abyss, and is represented as the husband of
Tiamat. Marduk had therefore to fight with them both to rescue
the powers of light from their clutches. Dr. Jensen • has critically
examined the various meanings of this word in the Chaldean
literature. But it is unnecessary to go into these details; for the
word and its denotations are well established in usage. It is the pri-
meval abyss from which the gods of light have to be rescued by
Marduk for the benefit of mankind. This conquest of Marduk
over Apsu and Tidmat is celebrated in a Chaldean Epic which is
now available in translation. t
I have shown above that the word Taimat occurs in the
Atharva Veda, and that it must have been borrowed from the
Chaldean. Such is not however the case with Apsu, the husband
of Tidmat. In the ~igveda we have not only the word apsu in
severat places but the main features of the TiAm.at-Marduk
struggle are also to be found in the Vritra-Indra fight so fully
described in the Vedas. I have shown elsewheret that Indra's
fight with the Vritra was for the release of captive waters, and
that after the fight these waters, till then enveloped and hemmed
in by V~'itra, the Vedic Tiamat, were set free, by Indra, to flow

• In his li..o;mJlo e der B<Jbylunier, pp. 243-253.
t See Sayee's Hibbert Lectures, pp. 3 79-384; Jensen's Kosomolo,:ie rk1
Bahy/onier, pp. 273-288; also Chaldea, S. N. Series, Chap. VI. .
t See Ardic Home in the Vtdas, Chap. IX, pp. 233-zg6.