The Race the Donkeys Won

Prajapati gave his daughter in marriage to King Soma. Her name was Surya Savitri, and every one of the gods came to the wedding as a groomsman.

For the ceremony Prajapati made a gift, a thousand verses of praise. It was one single prize, and there were many gods.

"Let this be mine," said one.

"Let this be mine," said another.

They could not agree. At last they settled it the way chariot owners do.

"Let us run a race for it. Whoever wins shall have it."

They marked out the course. It began at the household fire on earth and it ended at the sun.

Four chariots came to the line. Agni, the Fire, drove a team of mules. Ushas, the Dawn, drove red cows. Indra had horses, as a king should. And the two Ashvins rolled up last, in a chariot drawn by asses.

They started.

Agni took the lead first, since the course began at his own door. The Ashvins came up behind him.

"Give way," they called. "We two are going to win this."

"Very well," said Agni. "But let me have a share in it."

"You shall," said the twins, and they went past.

Ahead of them now was Ushas with her red cows. They drew level.

"Give way. We two are going to win this."

"Very well," said Dawn. "But let me have a share in it."

"You shall."

That left Indra, out in front with his horses neighing. The Ashvins caught up with him too. But they did not dare tell the king of the gods to give way. They put it differently.

"We are going to win this, generous one."

Indra understood. "Very well," he said. "Let me have a share in it."

"You shall."

So the Ashvins reached the sun first. The asses had won.

The twins kept every promise they had made on the road. The thousand verses are named after them, the Ashvina, because they won it. But inside it there is a set of verses to Agni, a set to Ushas and a set to Indra, one for each driver who let them through.

The Brahmana also says what the race did to the animals.

Agni's mules were scorched by their own driver as he drove, and that is why mules bear no young. Dawn ran with red cows, and that is why the sky turns red when she comes. Indra's horses ran neighing, and so a loud horse is the sign of a king.

And the ass gave the race everything it had. Its speed was used up on that course, and that is why it is the slowest of all the animals that pull. But the twins did not take everything. They left it its vigour, and the text says the ass has a double seed.

To this day, the text says, the priest who recites the thousand verses first eats butter, the way a cart is greased before a journey, and sits like an eagle about to fly.

The Rigveda knows a race too. It never tells it from the starting line. It gives glimpses, and the prize is not the same.

The poet Kakshivat praises the twins for many rescues, and in the middle of them he remembers a contest. Their ass, he says, a stallion, won a thousand in the race. A few verses later he remembers what happened at the finish.

The Daughter of the Sun stepped up into their chariot. They had come in first, as if their horses had reached the post before all the others. And every god, the poet says, agreed to it in his heart.

Other verses add to the picture. The chariot had been yoked for a great show, and the twins drove it to the goal with their own two voices. The young woman had come looking for friendship. She was nobly born, and she chose them. In these verses she is not given away. She looks at the three-seated chariot, delights in the two who drive it, and climbs in.

So in these hymns the Ashvins are not groomsmen at Surya's wedding. They are the ones she picks.

The great wedding hymn in the last book tells it another way. There Soma is the one who woos the bride, and the two Ashvins are his groomsmen, with Agni leading the procession. Yet the same hymn turns to the twins and remembers the older version. When you came on your three-wheeled chariot as suitors, it says, all the gods agreed to what you asked.

Then the poet asks them a question that nobody has answered.

"When you came to woo Surya, where was one of your chariot wheels?"

The hymn gives no reply. It says only that the wise know two wheels, and that one more is kept hidden, known to those who have learned the deepest things.