Four Cups from One

Three brothers were at their work when a visitor came. They were Ribhu, Vaja and Vibhvan, the sons of Sudhanvan, mortal men with clever hands. The visitor was Agni, the fire, messenger of the gods.

The brothers were uneasy. The gods do not send their messenger for nothing.

"Why has the best of them come to us, the youngest of them?" they asked one another. "What errand brings him? What have we said?"

They thought they could guess. There was a cup in heaven, the one cup from which the gods drank their Soma. Tvashtri had made it, the craftsman of the gods, and it was new from his hand. Somebody must have reported that the three brothers had found fault with it.

"We said nothing against the cup, brother Agni," they told him. "It is a noble thing. We only praised the wood it is made of."

Agni had not come to accuse them.

"The cup is one," he said. "Make it four. That is the gods' order, and that is why I am here. Sons of Sudhanvan, if you can do this, you will share in the sacrifice with the gods."

Mortal men had never been offered this before. The brothers did not hurry to accept it.

"There is a horse to be made first," they said. "A chariot has to be built. A cow has to be made, and two who are old have to be made young. When we have done those things, brother, we will come to yours."

They did them all, the hymns say. Then they turned to the cup.

It was wide-mouthed, and they measured it with a rod, the way a man measures a field. Then they sat and talked.

"Let us make two," said the eldest.

"Let us make three," said the second.

"Let us make four," said the youngest.

Another verse lets us overhear a different sort of talk while they worked, each brother naming what he thought the best thing in the world. "Water is best," said one. "Fire is best," said another. The third praised the rain cloud. And so, the poet says, speaking true words, they shaped the cups.

There were four of them when they finished, each as bright as day.

"Where has he gone," the brothers asked, looking round, "the one who came to us as a messenger?"

Tvashtri came to look.

On what he felt, the hymns are divided. One says that he had approved the plan when he heard it, and that when he saw the four shining cups he was stirred. Griffith's translation says with envy; other scholars read the word as agreement.

The other hymn leaves no doubt. When Tvashtri saw the four cups, it says, he went and hid himself among the wives of the gods. And from there he spoke.

"Let us kill these men. They have insulted the cup the gods drink from."

Nothing came of it. The hymn says the brothers took new names when the Soma was pressed, and under those names they were made welcome. Indra yoked his bay horses, the Ashvins harnessed their car, and the three went up to the gods and received what Agni had promised.

They were offered a drink on the way in, a hymn recalls.

"Drink this water," they were told. "Or drink this, the rinsing of the reed grass. Or if neither pleases you, take your pleasure at the third pressing."

They took the third pressing. It has been theirs ever since, the Soma poured in the evening, the share of three men who were not born gods and who, as one poet puts it, became immortal within a year.

The later texts fill in what the hymns leave out, and they are less sure that the gods were pleased.

The Brihaddevata begins with the brothers' schooling. Ribhu, Vibhvan and Vaja, it says, were the sons of Sudhanvan, who was a son of the sage Angiras, and they became pupils of Tvashtri. He taught them every art he was master of. Then the All-gods, who were proud of their own skill, challenged the three to show what they had learned. So the brothers made vehicles and weapons for all the gods: the cow of plenty for Brihaspati, a car with three seats for the Ashvins, two bay horses for Indra. Last of all, when Agni brought the order, they made their own teacher's cup into four. Tvashtri, Savitr and Prajapati then called the gods together and gave them immortality.

The Aitareya Brahmana tells of the day they came to collect their share. They had won the right to drink Soma, it says, by the heat of their austerity. But the gods did not want them at the table.

A place was sought for them at the morning pressing. Agni and the Vasus drove them off. A place was sought at midday. Indra and the Rudras drove them off. A place was sought in the evening, and the All-gods stood in the way.

"They shall not drink here," they said. "Not here."

Prajapati, the father of the gods, turned to Savitr, the Sun.

"These are your pupils," he said. "You drink with them."

"So be it," said Savitr. "But you must drink on both sides of them."

So Prajapati drank on either side of the three, like a great man who seats a guest beside himself so that nobody dares object. Even then the gods drew back from them. The Brahmana gives the reason plainly: it was the human smell. And so in the ritual two extra verses are recited, one before the hymn to the Ribhus and one after it, to stand between the gods and the men who became their equals.