The Aśvins, the two “Horsemen,” are old Indo-Iranian or even Indo-European dei ties who have been brought into the soma rite.
Nāsatyas
They are also called Nāsatyas, a name of obscure meaning and etymology, found already in an ancient Near Eastern Hatti-Mitanni treaty dating from the fourteenth century bce (in the form Na-ša-at ti-i̯a) and in the Avestan cognate, Nā̊ŋhaiθya.+++(4)+++ It is probably the older name of this pair, with the lexically transparent aśvín originally an epithet.
Sacrificial role
The Aśvins are connected with honey, mádhu, and while soma comes to be called “honeyed” and “honey,” mádhu was likely in origin a different offering to the Aśvins.
They are also connected with the Pravargya rite and the offering of gharma, hot milk.
Because they are two, the Aśvins find a place particularly in the morning soma offerings, which are primarily dedicated to the dual divinities Indra and Vāyu and Mitra and Varuṇa. Reflecting their association with the Morning Pressing, the Aśvins appear in the early dawn: they come at the break of dawn (I.157.1, VII.72.4), follow the chariot of Dawn (VIII.5.2), or accompany the dawn (X.61.4).
However, they also receive the last soma offerings in an Atirātra, or Overnight Soma Ritual. Therefore, even if they were secondarily grafted onto the soma rite, that graft was a strong one. They are the fourth most frequently invoked deities in the R̥gveda after Indra, Agni, and Soma.+++(5)+++
Chariot
As “horsemen,” the Aśvins are chariot riders and drivers, rather than horse riders. Their chariot is an object of special attention for the poets. It is often threefold, with three chariot-boxes, three wheels, three turnings (I.118.1–2), and three wheel-rims (I.34.2). The sacrifice with its three soma-pressings is compared to a chariot, so the Aśvins’ threefold chariot may represent the sacrifice. Their chariot is also swift—“swifter than a mortal’s thought” (I.118.1) or than the wink of an eye (VIII.73.2). Their chariot is drawn by various animals including bulls, buffaloes, and horses, but also by birds (I.119.4), geese (IV.45.4), or falcons (I.118.4).
Their chariot flies to many places and makes the Aśvins present in many spheres: in heaven, earth, and the sea, in the flood of heaven (VIII.26.17), among plants, and at the peak of a mountain (VII.70.3).
Rescue and medicine
The Aśvins’ speed and mobility are essential for them, for they are gods who rescue people from various dangers and difficulties in various places and circumstances.+++(5)+++
- The story of the Aśvins that the poets mention most often is their rescue of Bhujyu, the son of Tugra, whom his father had abandoned in the sea (e.g., I.116.3).
- They also rescued Rebha from the waters, when he was bound, confined, and left for dead (I.112.5, 116.24, 119.6).
- They raised up Vandana (I.118.6), although exactly from what is not clear. They rescued Atri from an earth cleft (V.78.4) and from threatening heat (I.112.7).
- They found Viṣṇāpū, who was lost, and restored him to his father, Viśvaka (I.116.23, 117.7).
- They restored the youth and vigor of Cyavāna, who had grown old (I.117.13, 118.6; VII.71.5), and of the aging Kali (X.39.8).
- They brought Kamadyū, the daughter of Purumitra, to be a wife for Vimada (I.116.1, 117.20; X.39.7, 65.12) and gave a son to Vadhrimatī, a woman “whose husband is a steer” (I.116.13, 117.24; X.39.7, 65.12).
- They restored the sight of R̥jrāśva, who had been blinded by his father (I.116.16, 117.17, 18).
- They replaced the lost foot of the mare Viśpalā with a metal shank (I.116.15) and made the cow of Śayu give milk (I.116.22, 117.20, 118.8).
- They gave a swift, white horse to Pedu (I.116.6, X.39.10), and they set a horse’s head on Dadhyañc, the son of Atharvan, in order for him to reveal the honey to them (I.116.12).
Not only do they arrange marriage or bring a child to a marriage, they themselves wed or woo Sūryā, the daughter of the Sun. While sometimes the husband of Sūryā is Soma (X.85) or Pūṣan (VI.58.4), else where she chooses the Aśvins as her husbands (I.119.5, IV.43.2, 6, VII.69.3–4) and rides with them on their chariot (I.116.17, VIII.8.10).
Identity
What the Aśvins do has been relatively uncontroversial. Why they do it and what is their character have been more difficult questions. Early scholars tried to place them in the natural world: Yāska cites interpreters who understood them to be heaven and earth, day and night, and the sun and the moon. Such interpretations have been largely and rightly abandoned.
Early on, Western scholars observed their similarity and therefore possible genetic relationship to the Greek Dioskouroi. Both pairs ride or drive horses; both are young men (kou͂roi in Greek, yúvānā in Sanskrit); both are sons or, in the case of the Aśvins, perhaps grandsons of Heaven (divó nápātā); both rescue people in trouble; and both are called twins.
Focusing on the last characteristic, Zeller (1990) sought to show that the Aśvins’ acts reflect above all the fact they are twins. So, for example, she explains their concern with sexuality and rescue as partly due to their birth. Because they have one mother but two fathers, they themselves are endowed with a greater sexual potency, and because one of their fathers is mortal, they are closer to humans and inclined to help them.
The circumstances of their birth are not very clear in the R̥gveda, however, and it is not certain that they were often considered twins or that their twinship was their central feature.
Along somewhat similar lines, Oberlies (1993) suggests that the Aśvins as dual divinities can extend between opposites. They are essentially gods of the intermediate sphere, who facilitate movement between spheres: between childlessness and birth, death and life, old age and youth, non-marriage and marriage, and so forth. This is a reasonable explanation of the Aśvins, which might be extrapolated from the R̥gvedic evidence, but it is not expressed in it.