Valice Press
Valice Press

Free companion

Indian Myth and Legend: Volume One, The Vedic Gods

Free material for Mackenzie's Indian Myth and Legend: which of his comparisons still stand, the thirty-two figures with the chapters they appear in, four ways into the book, and how to read the Sanskrit names.

The Valice edition is built and validated but not yet on sale — the rights gate is signed by a person, not a script, and that signature is outstanding. Everything on this page is free and works today regardless.

Reading material

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  • Which comparisons still stand

    PDF · US Letter · 1 page

    Mackenzie compares Indra to Thor, Agni to Heimdal and half the pantheon to something Babylonian, in the same tone whether the parallel is a proven cognate or a theory nobody now defends. Four kinds, graded by how much weight each will bear.

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  • Who is who

    PDF · US Letter · 2 pages

    Thirty-two gods, demons and mortals — Indra, Agni, Varuna, Yama who was the first man, the dragon Vritra — each with the chapters they appear in and how often. Note that there are two Savitris: a solar deity and a princess, and they are not the same figure.

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  • Four ways in

    PDF · US Letter · 1 page

    Where to start depending on why you picked the book up, with Mackenzie's own chapter numbers so it works with any edition of the 1913 text, and how long each of the five chapters runs.

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  • The names

    PDF · US Letter · 1 page

    Sanskrit has three s-sounds, a set of long vowels Mackenzie usually does not mark, and a final -a that is pronounced. Four things worth knowing before several hundred proper names start arriving.

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About this material

Donald A. Mackenzie died in 1936, so his 1913 text is in the public domain in the United States and, since 1 January 2007, in the UK, the EU and Türkiye (source: Project Gutenberg #47228). The register, the who's-who, the reading paths and the note on the names are Valice Press's own writing. None of the 1913 illustrations is reproduced: two of those in these chapters are paintings by Nandalal Bose, who died in 1966 and whose work is still in copyright, and the rest name no creator at all.

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