time forth, Agni is considered to be within the interiors of s ́amı ̄ trees, and
men use it as a means of producing fire.’^122
The verb for ‘drill’ in the Vedic verse and elsewhere is manth. In a later
Sutra the fire-drill is called a pramantha-. Kuhn proposed to find here the
origin of Proma ̄theus, Prometheus, the god who in Greek myth stole fire from
heaven and gave it to mankind.^123 According to a later construction he actu-
ally invented fire-sticks (Diod. 5. 67. 2). The Greeks understood his name
to mean ‘foresighted’, in line with the verb προμηθομαι and noun
προμηθεα. Kuhn supposed that it had originally meant ‘the Fire-driller’,
and was reinterpreted when the related words fell out of use.
When Kuhn wrote, manth (with zero grade math) had not been dis-
tinguished from the similar-looking verb math‘seize’, which is used, inter
alia, of the eagle seizing the Soma (RV 1. 93. 6; 9. 77. 2) and of Ma ̄taris ́van’s
capture of fire from heaven (1. 71. 4 = 148. 1; 141. 3; 3. 9. 5; cf. 1. 93. 6). Unlike
manth, this verb is found compounded with pra, meaning then ‘forcibly snatch
to oneself ’. Johanna Narten, who clarified all this, suggested that while Pro-
metheus could not be explained from pra-manth- (Kuhn’s idea had long since
been abandoned), he might perhaps be related to pra-math-, as the Seizer of
fire; the long vowel in his second syllable is somewhat problematic, but not an
insuperable obstacle. This has been accepted by Durante and Watkins.^124
Snatch-thief seems indeed an apter sobriquet for Prometheus than Fore-
sighted, and the lexical link with the Vedic firebringer myth is striking.
It remains to explain how προμηθομαι/προμηθεα fit in. Volkmar
Schmidt has shown how these can be related to μα ̆θ, the root of
μανθα ́ νω.^125 As words meaning ‘grasp, apprehend’ are readily transferred
to the mental sphere, why should this μαθ not be the same in origin as the
Vedic math? As its meaning changed, the mythical Snatcher might well be
reinterpreted as Sharpwit, and his name might influence the formation of
προμα-θομαι etc., even though they bear a rather different sense.
The Ma ̄taris ́van who brings fire from heaven in the Indian myth is identi-
fied as the emissary of Vivasvat.^126 Vivasvat was the first sacrificer and, as
father of Manu, the ancestor of the human race. It was for Manu as sacrificer
(^122) MBh. 13. 84. 42 f., trs. W. D. O’Flaherty, Hindu Myths (Harmondsworth 1975), 103.
Sometimes the wood from a tree struck by lightning was sought out for generating the ritual
fire, cf. Oldenberg (1917), 111 n. 5.
(^123) A. Kuhn, ZVS 4 (1855), 124; id. (1859), 12–18.
(^124) J. Narten, IIJ 4 (1960), 121–35; on Prometheus, 135 n. 40; Durante (1976), 57 f., who notes
that in later Sanskrit there is a noun prama ̄tha-‘seizing, violent abduction’, with the long vowel;
Watkins (1995), 256 n. 0.
(^125) ZPE 19 (1975), 183–90.
(^126) RV 6. 8. 4. On Ma ̄taris ́van cf. Macdonell (1898), 71 f.; Oldenberg (1917), 121–3; Watkins
(as n. 124).
- Storm and Stream 273