_Earth and Heaven_,
or _Heaven and Earth_, conceived as a divine couple. Not only in
India, but among many other nations, both savage, half-savage, or
civilized, we meet with Heaven and Earth as one of the earliest
objects, pondered on, transfigured, and animated by the early poets,
and more or less clearly conceived by early philosophers. It is
surprising that it should be so, for the conception of the Earth as an
independent being, and of Heaven as an independent being, and then of
both together as a divine couple embracing the whole universe,
requires a considerable effort of abstraction, far more than the
concepts of other divine powers, such as the Fire, the Rain, the
Lightning, or the Sun.

Still so it is, and as it may help us to understand the ideas about
Heaven and Earth, as we find them in the Veda, and show us at the same
time the strong contrast between the mythology of the Aryans and that
of real savages (a contrast of great importance, though I admit very
difficult to explain), I shall read you first some extracts from a
book, published by a friend of mine, the Rev. William Wyatt Gill, for
many years an active and most successful missionary in Mangaia, one of
those Polynesian islands that form a girdle round one quarter of our
globe,[161] and all share in the same language, the same religion,
the same mythology, and the same customs. The book is called "Myths
and Songs from the South Pacific,"[162] and it is full of interest to
the student of mythology and religion.

The story, as told him by the natives of Mangaia, runs as
follows:[163]

"The sky is built of solid blue stone. At one time it almost
touched the earth; resting upon the stout broad leaves of the
t e v e (which attains the height of about six feet) and the
delicate indigenous arrow-root (whose slender stem rarely
exceeds three feet).... In this narrow space between earth
and sky the inhabitants of this world were pent up. Ru, whose
usual residence was in Avaiki, or the shades, had come up for
a time to this world of ours. Pitying the wretched confined
residence of the inhabitants, he employed himself in
endeavoring to raise the sky a little. For this purpose he
cut a number of strong stakes of different kinds of trees,
and firmly planted them in the ground at Rangimotia, the
centre of the island, and with him the centre of the world.
This was a considerable improvement, as mortals we