Nice surroundings with recitation of the aruNa section of the AraNyaka of the taittirIya-s. It includes the yajuSh-es on which the famous subrahmaNya sAman inviting indra to the soma offering is based: indra who appeared as a ram to medhAtithi kANva; as a woman to vR^iShaNashva;
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who prances like a gaur bull; who became the lover of ahalyA; who became a brAhmaNa of the kaushika clan; who was called gautama.The anindra tradition that engulfed later H though misinterpret the original meanings of these special exploits of the supreme god by which the R^itvik
pleases indra with singing of the subrahmaNya sAman. The original vaidika tales go thus. indra enjoyed the pleasure of both the female (becoming menA to vR^iShaNashva) and male (as the lover of ahalyA maitreyI). The later exploit may be interpreted in 2 ways. As in the RV ahalyA
is the unploughed field which indra fertilizes as in the sUkta for farming by vAmadeva gautama. Or as the kauthuma tradition holds he became a brAhmaNa of the kaushika clan & became to lover of ahalyA maitreyI. The jaiminIya tradition holds that as indra fought a battle with the
asura-s the shruti was destroyed; hence, becoming a son of vishvAmitra he learned the shruti from the former to restore it: hence, kaushika brAhmaNa | Finally, the jaiminIya tradition says that once when the deva-s & asura-s were advancing for battle indra that gautama was
performing tapasya in the zone between where the armies of the two were stationed. Hence, indra asked gautama to become a spy for the deva-s & report about the asura movements. But gautama refused either because he did not want to be a combatant or break his tapasya. Hence, indra
told him that he could continue and indra himself would instead take the form of gautama and spy on the asura-s. Hence, it is gautama bruvANa | indra who is all this is then asked to come to soma offering with aruNAshva -- the solar chariot -- in the aruNaketuka-chayana.
^aruNAShva-s: the 8 vasu-s led by the god agni in the solar chariot.
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