Goddesses from the Samhitas to the Sutras
by Rajeshri Goswami | 1989 | 68,131 words
This essay studies the Goddesses from the Samhitas to the Sutras. In short, this thesis examines Vedic goddesses by analyzing their images, functions, and social positions. It further details how natural and abstract elements were personified as goddesses, whose characteristics evolved with societal changes....
Description of Goddess Vishucika
Very few references to Vishucika as a goddess are found in It is seen that she is referred to as a the Vedic literature. goddess in only one hymn of the Vajasaneyi Samhita. She is prayed to guard the sacrificer from distress. 21 20 Taittiriya-brahmana I : 1 # 4 1 2. 21 Vajasaney-samhita XIX : 10.
297 The Vedic Aryans personified a particular disease, possibly cholera, as the word came to mean later as a goddess in Visucika. She was invoked by them to protect the sacrificers from suffering, she is a very minor Vedic goddess. In Visucika we have the earliest myth of a disease-goddess. In later Puranic and post-Puranic mythologies disease-goddesses multiplied. Hence Vishucika is significant as starting a mythological process.