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Bloomfield, Maurice, 1855-1928

"Cerberus, The Dog of Hades The History of an Idea"

" In this
article he seems to try to establish a certain similarity between his
conception of the Kerberos myth and my own. This similarity seems to me
to be entirely illusory. Professor Mueller's own last words on the
subject in the Preface of his _Contributions to the Science of
Mythology_ (p. xvi.), will make clear the difference between our views.
He identifies, as he always has identified, Kerberos with the Vedic stem
_carvara_, from which is derived _carvar[=i]_, "night." To quote his own
words: "The germ of the idea ... must be discovered in that nocturnal
darkness, that _c[=a]rvaram tamas_, which native mythologists in India
had not yet quite forgotten in post-Vedic times." With such a view my
own has not the least point of contact. Cabala, the name of one of the
dogs, means "spotted, bright"; it is the name of the sun-dog; it is
quite the opposite of the _c[=a]rvaram tamas_. The name of the moon-dog,
and, by transfer, the dog of the night, is Cy[=a]ma or Cy[=a]va "black,"
not Cabala, nor Carvara. The association of the two dogs with day and
night is the association of sun and moon with their respective diurnal
divisions, and nothing more.


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