[22] The name of the
fire-priest, _brahman_ = fla(g)men(?), is an indication of the
primitive fire-cult in antithesis to the _soma_-cult, which latter
belongs to the narrower circle of the Hindus and Persians. Here,
however, in the identity of names for sacrifice (_yajna, yacna_) and
of _barhis_, the sacrificial straw, of _soma = haoma_, together with
many other liturgical similarities, as in the case of the metres, one
must recognize a fully developed _soma_-cult prior to the separation
of the Hindus and Iranians.

Of demigods of evil type the _Y[=a]tus_ are both Hindu and Iranian,
but the priest-names of the one religion are evil names in the other,
as the _devas_, gods, of one are the _daevas_, demons, of the
other.[23] There are no other identifications that seem at
all certain in the strict province of religion, although in myth the
form of Manus, who is the Hindu Noah, has been associated with
Teutonic Mannus, and Greek Minos, noted in Thucydides for his
sea-faring. He is to Yama (later regarded as his brother) as is Noah
to Adam.

We do not lay stress on lack of equation in proper names, but, as
Schrader shows (p. 596 ff.), very few comparisons on this line have a
solid phonetic foundation. Minos, Manu; Ouranos, Varuna; Wotan,
V[=a]ta, are dubious; and some equate flamen with blotan, sacrifice.

Other wider or narrower comparisons, such as Neptunus from _nap[=a]t
ap[=a]m,_ seem to us too daring to be believed. Apollo (_sapary_),
Aphrodite (Apsaras), Artamis (non-existent _[r.]tam[=a]l_), P[=a]n
(_pavana_), have been cleverly compared, but the identity of forms has
scarcely been proved. Nor is it important for the comparative
mythologist that Okeanus is 'lying around' (_[=a]cay[=a]na_). More
than that is necessary to connect Ocean mythologically with the demon
that surrounds (swallows) the waters of the sky. The Vedic parallel is
rather Ras[=a], the far-off great 'stream.' It is rarely that one
finds Aryan equivalents in the land of fairies and fays. Yet are the
Hindu clever artizan Ribhus[24] our 'elves,' who, even to this day,
are distinct from fairies in their dexterity and cleverness, as every
wise child knows.

But animism, as simple spiritism, fetishism, perhaps ancestor-worship,
and polytheism, with the polydaemonism that may be called
chrematheism, exists from the beginning of the religious history,
undisturbed by the proximity of theism, pantheism, or atheism; exactly
as to-day in the Occident, besi