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.
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