Cerberus, The Dog of Hades | Page 7

two four-eyed dogs of Yama. And as the
latter are her litter the myth becomes retroactive; she herself is fancied
later on as a four-eyed bitch (Atharva-Veda, iv. 20. 7). Similarly the
epithet "broad-nosed" stands not in need of mythic interpretation, as
soon as it has become a question of life-hunting dogs. Elusive and
vague, I confess, is the persistent and important attribute "four-eyed."
This touch is both old and widespread. The Avesta, the bible of the
ancient Iranians, has reduced the Cerberus myth to stunted rudiments.
In Vendidad, xiii. 8. 9, the killing of dogs is forbidden, because the soul
of the slayer "when passing to the other world, shall fly amid louder
howling and fiercer pursuit than the sheep does when the wolf rushes
upon it in the lofty forest. No soul will come and meet his departing
soul and help it through the howls and pursuit in the other world; nor
will the dogs that keep the Cinvad bridge (the bridge to paradise) help
his departing soul through the howls and pursuit in the other world."
The Avesta also conceives this dog to be four-eyed. When a man dies,
as soon as the soul has parted from the body, the evil one, the
corpse-devil (Druj Nasu), from the regions of hell, falls upon the dead.
Whoever henceforth touches the corpse becomes unclean, and makes
unclean whomsoever he touches. The devil is expelled from the dead
by means of the "look of the dog": a "four-eyed dog" is brought near
the body and is made to look at the dead; as soon as he has done so the
devil flees back to hell (Vendidad, vii. 7; viii. 41). It is not easy to fetch
from a mythological hell mythological monsters for casual purposes,
especially as men are always engaged in dying upon the earth. Herakles

is the only one who, one single time, performed this notable "stunt." So
the Parsis, being at a loss to find four-eyed dogs, interpret the name as
meaning a dog with two spots over the eyes. Curiously enough the
Hindu scholiasts also regularly interpret the term "four-eyed" in exactly
the same way, "with spots over the eyes." And the Vedic ritual in its
turn has occasion to realize the mythological four-eyed dog in practice.
The horse, at the horse-sacrifice, must take a bath for consecration to
the holy end to which it is put. It must also be guarded against hostile
influences. A low-caste man brings a four-eyed dog--here obviously the
symbol of the hostile powers--kills him with a club, and afterwards
places him under the feet of the horse. It is scarcely necessary to state
that this is a dog with spots over his eyes, and that he is a symbol of
Cerberus.[16]
THE TERM "FOUR-EYED."
The epithet "four-eyed" may possibly contain a tentative coagulation of
the two dogs in one. The capacity of the two dogs to see both by day
(the sun) and by night (the moon) may have given the myth a slight
start into the direction of the two-headed Greek Cerberus. But there is
the alternate possibility that four-eyed is but a figure of speech for
"sharp-sighted," especially as I have shown elsewhere that the parallel
expression "to run with four feet" is a Vedic figure of speech for "swift
of foot."[17] Certainly the god Agni, "Fire," is once in the Rig-Veda (i.
31. 13) called "four-eyed," which can only mean "sharp-sighted."
THE DUAL ÇABAL[=A]U.
The two dogs of Yama derive their proper names from their color
epithets. The passages above make it clear that Çy[=a]ma (rarely
Çy[=a]va), "the black," is the moon dog, and that Çabala, "the spotted,
or brindled," is the sun dog. In one early passage (Rig-Veda, x. 14. 10)
both dogs are named in the dual as Çabal[=a]u. But for a certain Vedic
usage one might think that "the two spotted ones" was their earliest
designation. The usage referred to is the eliptic dual: a close or natural
pair, each member of which suggests the other, may be expressed
through the dual of one of them, as when either m[=a]tar[=a]u or
pitar[=a]u, literally, "the two mothers," and "the two fathers," each

mean "the two parents."[18] From this we may conclude that
Çabal[=a]u means really Çabala and Çy[=a]ma, and not the two
Çabalas, that is, "the two spotted ones."
IS ÇABALAS = [Greek: Kerberos]?
More than a hundred years ago the Anglo-Indian Wilford, in the
Asiatick Researches, iii., page 409, wrote: "Yama, the regent of hell,
has two dogs, according to the Pur[=a]nas; one of them named Cerbura,
or varied; the other Syama, or black." He then compares Cerbura with
Kerberos, of course. The form Cerbura he obtained from his consulting
Pandit, who explained the name Çabala by the Sanskrit word karbura
"variegated," a regular gloss of