head, which is interposed between the earth and the rain the god is
pouring out of a bowl. A Rain-goddess stands upon the Serpent's tail.]

I reproduce here a remarkable drawing (Fig. 11) from the Codex Troano,
in which this god, whom the Maya people called _Chac_, is shown pouring
the rain out of a water-jar (just as the deities of Babylonia and India
are often represented), and putting his foot upon the head of a serpent,
who is preventing the rain from reaching the earth. Here we find
depicted with childlike simplicity and directness the Vedic conception
of Indra overcoming the demon Vritra. Stempell describes this scene as
"the elephant-headed god B standing upon the head of a serpent";[141]
while Seler, who claims that god B is a tortoise, explains it as the
serpent forming a footstool for the rain-god.[142] In the
Codex Cortes the same theme is depicted in another way, which is truer
to the Indian conception of Vritra, as "the restrainer"[143] (Fig. 12).

[Illustration: Fig. 12.--Another representation of the Elephant-headed
Rain god. He is holding thunderbolts, conventionalised in a hand-like
form. The Serpent is converted into a sac, holding up the rain-waters.]

The serpent (the American rattlesnake) restrains the water by coiling
itself into a sac to hold up the rain and so prevent it from reaching
the earth. In the various American codices this episode is depicted in
as great a variety of forms as the Vedic poets of India described when
they sang of the exploits of Indra. The Maya Chac is, in fact, Indra
transferred to the other side of the Pacific and there only thinly
disguised by a veneer of American stylistic design.

But the Aztec god Tlaloc is merely the Chac of the Maya people
transferred to Mexico. Schellhas declares that the "god B," the "most
common figure in the codices," is a "universal deity to whom the most
varied elements, natural phenomena, and activities are subject". "Many
authorities consider God B to represent Kukulkan, the Feathered Serpent,
whose Aztec equivalent is Quetzalcoatl. Others identify him with
Itzamna, the Serpent God of the East, or with Chac, the Rain God of the
four quarters and the equivalent of Tlaloc of the Mexicans."[144]

From the point of view of its Indian analogies these confusions are
peculiarly significant, for the same phenomena are found in India. The
snake and the dragon can be either the rain-god of the East or the enemy
of the rain-god; either the dragon