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Scientific Review. Historical sciences

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SOME ANCIENT INDIAN ANALOGY TO THE “MELUSINE MOTIF” IN THE LEGENDS OF THE BIRTH OF NART BATRAZ

Дарчиев А.В.
The article is devoted to the so-called Melusine Motif in the stories of the birth of Batraz, one of the protagonists of the Ossetian Nart saga. This motif is about the inadmissibility of mocking and insulting the mother of a hero. However, the prohibition is failed to comply with, and outraged mother of the unborn Batraz goes to her parents’ home. The family where Batraz’ mother comes from is related to ants by a number of features, which reveals some similarities to this motif in ancient Indian mythology. In the Rigveda there is an episode about Indra insulting a she-ant, which he deprived of housing (shelter , clothing). Another modification of this episode is present in the Mahabharata, where Indra offends the wise Valakhilya dwarves, who also represent a variation of the ants. Comparison of the Nartian motif with the examples of the ancient Indian mythology reveals some similarities between them. In both cases, the great hero / deity insults a humble creature, which must have originally had the form of an ant. Thus, like in many other archaic myths, there is the binary opposition ‘small - big’. The presence of this motif both in the Batraz cycle and in the perception of the Vedic Indra complements and enhances the proximity of these characters, which was noticed long ago.