Source: here.
Yet within this framework
we also have Indra dispatching a group called the Yatins
by quite literally ‘throwing them to the Wolves’
[I choose to render ‘Salavrka’ in the obvious fashion
in light of broader IE evidence for such a clade:
as ‘Temple Wolves’ (strictly speaking, ‘Shalavrkas’ –
in singular and with proper textual accenting, Śālāvṛka / शालावृक ) or ‘Wolves of the [Ritual] Enclosure’ (Sālāvṛka /सालावृक );+++(5)+++
later era texts and academic analysis have made rather curious shifts to ‘Hyenas’ or ‘Jackals’, however].
Who are these Yatins ?
Well, that is a bit of a question.
Ordinarily, the term would refer to
somebody of spiritual / metaphysical accomplishment –
perhaps an ascetic, a renunciate, as in later usage.
This has been seized upon by some modern commentators
to try and make out that Indra’s hurling of the Yatis to the Wolves
was some sort of woefully egregious misdeed.
Certainly, that is the temptation
when one encounters the incident cited in Aitareya Brahmana VII 28
as part of the ‘rap sheet’ (“a formal indictment, as it were […] drawn up against Indra”, per Oertel)
of divinely noted misdeeds of Indra
that have lead to His being excluded from the Soma sacrifice.+++(4)+++
Yet such an interpretation makes little sense.
At least for this specific context.
Pious and morally blameless ascetics being killed
do not merit a rather broad array of citations in amidst a God’s victory-lists in the Shruti –
wherein they are pointedly situated+++(5)+++
alongside other rather more+++(4)+++
well-remarked upon threats
such as that demon-dragons of the waters, Vritra and Vala (c.f. AV-S II 5 3; Samaveda II 3 1 12 3), and with Bhrigu carrying out a ‘resonant’+++(5)+++ deed,
likewise (A Priest, a Rsi co-enacting the mythic fight of the God against Demon – ) rather on-point, you would have to say for the circumstance of TS VI 2 7 / SBr III 5 1 & 2 all up) .
We would also be rather surprised
if something which was so wrong
was therefore to be directly invoked in the relevant Taittiriya Samhita ritual operation
as just exactly what the properly pious Brahminical operator himself ought to thusly engage in.+++(4)+++
That said, the Aitareya Brahmana’spresentation
does make logical sense in another fashion.
By situating the Yatins alongside Vishvarupa (Trisiras) and Vritra –
we are obviously invited to remember the unifying characteristic of these other two,
that had indeed sent Indra into sin-stained exile for a time.+++(4)+++
They were Brahmins –
and hence Indra’s (necessary, at least quite unambiguously as applies Vritra) slaying of these
had incurred the sin-sanction of the Brahmahatya :
the dread sin of Brahmanicide.
This would certainly seem the sort of thing
which, due to the ritual impurity
thusly accrued from all of these deeds together
plus another exterminating another clade (the Arurmaghas) –
occasionally seemingly identified with or coterminous to the Yatis
(as in Indra’s bold declaration at Kaushitaki Upanishad III, occasionally not),
and perhaps most importantly, actively disrespecting His Own Guru, Brihaspati … well, we see how it goes.
And it is important to note that ‘ritual impurity’
is not quite the same thing as moral turpitude.+++(5)+++
Hence our lack of surprise when the sins are expiated [c.f. Jaminiya Brahmana II 134]
and Indra is able to return once more to the Divine Fold proper in earnest.
My suspicions appear confirmed in the Tandya Mahabrahmana (XIV 11 28),
where Indra’s slaying of the Yatis is indeed said to have accrued Him
an (expiatable) ritual impurity –
with, more interestingly, the commentator directly having the sin in question declared to be Brahmanicide.
Although curiously, the same source then goes on to emphatically declare the Yatis
as having “practised observances contrary to the Veda”[Tandya Br. viii 1 4, Muir translation],
to be “hostile to sacrifices”[ibid., xiii 4 27] and also against “rites”[ibid., xiv 11 28],
yet also being “Brahmans who did not celebrate the jyotishtoma and other sacrifices, but lived in another way.” [ibid., xviii 1 9]+++(5)+++
Sayana, meanwhile, declares the Yatis to be “Asuras in the disguise of [Yatis]”+++(5)+++
and the aforementioned Arurmaghas (elsewhere – ‘Arunmukhas’, apparently) to be “Asuras in the form [‘disguise’, per Haug] of Brahmans”,
per his commentary upon Ait. Br. VII 28;
Haug also notes Sankara Acharya’s Kaushitaki Upanishad commentary
as parsing “Arunmukhas” as “in whose mouth is not the study of the Vedas”,
with Haug’s inference being that these Arurmaghas “were no doubt a kind of degraded Aryas,
very likely a tribe of the ancient Iranians, in whose language (the Zend)
the words aurvo and magha are frequently to be met with”. +++(4)+++
Perhaps surprisingly to some corners of our audience given my recurrent sentiments in relation to Zoroastrianism …
I do not share his view.
At least, not axiomatically.
It would be tempting to speculate that the ‘Ashemaoghas’ mentioned in the Avestan texts (ref. Vendidad Fargard 18 I 11), for example,
may bear some coterminity in this direction –
but that is not our purpose to get into herein.
The semi-conflation of the Arurmaghas / Arunmukhas with the Yatis instead suggests that
these are, at least in ritual invocation of the sort and style that we have above discussed,
intended as an ‘enemy’ clade.
And the characteristics that we are able to piece together for these
should seem to have them as something along the lines of an ‘enemy caster’, or a ‘dark (even ‘inverse’) equivalent’ to the Brahmins doing the proper-and-pious invoking.+++(4)+++
In just the same manner as Agni fights via prayerful operation, a Priest of the Demons, at various points in the SBr ritual manuals (ref. SBr III 5 1 21 , etc.).
Hence, as Sayana had it – ‘Asuras in Brahmin form’.
Or, perhaps more interestingly, perhaps,
something more akin to our understanding for Yatudhana – ‘Sorcerer’,
albeit with potency gained via making offerings to enlisted Demons.
As that is the reasonably direct meaning for ‘Yatudhana’ –
One who feeds / gives offering (‘dhaana’ / dhāna /धान) to the Yatus (Yātu /यातु – in this context ‘Those Who Go [through the air?]’,
and intended to refer to the Demons bound by the spells of the miscreant
metaphysically empowered villain encountered herein).
As it happens, Yati / Yatin appears to actually share an etymological root with ‘Yatu’;
although it is a little unclear as to just how ‘close’ the relationship might truly have been intended to be.
Given later texts upon the subject,
I do not think that the Yatis/ Yatins were intended in this context
to be the demons themselves (insofar as it matters) –
but rather, humans making active use of them in the course of their own ritual ensorcellments.
To quote myself upon the subject as to their essential nature:
“Later scripture should seem to present these ‘Yatins’ in a rather interesting manner –
effectively suggesting these to be almost ‘priestly’ sorts …
certainly capable of carrying out rites,
however hopelessly in league with Demons
and in arrogant opposition to the Gods.
Indeed, in at least one telling they (or the forces they are aligned with)
even have had the temerity to attempt to steal the Wife of the Sacrificer (Man – or, more directly, Manu)
via a mentally afflicting “influence”.
Thus necessitating the enlisted aid of Indra in order to smash both the scurrilous mind-ensnaring enchantment and its would-be beneficiaries. By feeding them to the Wolves!”
Salavrkas and Pitrs
This is also where we had earlier met the Salavrkas [‘Temple Wolves’, ‘Wolves of the Enclosure’], and alongside Them, the Pitrs [‘Forefathers’ – Shades of the Ancestors].
The former mentioned explicitly there alongside “That Which Is Cruel (‘Krura’)” in the Taittiriya Samhita
and engaged in the victorious devouring of the Yatis (‘Sorcerers’, ‘Demon-Worshippers’)
that are the enemy of both Gods and Priest (and His Wife, whether She knows it at that point or otherwise) –
whilst it is Vak in the form of an enraged Lioness
Who comes surging forth to annihilate the adversary in the Shatapatha Brahmana’s perspective upon the same ritual conceptry.”