The Ashvins (), also known as the Ashvini Kumaras and Asvinau, are Hindu twin gods associated with medicine, health, dawn, and the sciences. In the Rigveda, they are described as youthful divine twin horsemen, travelling in a chariot drawn by horses that are never weary, and portrayed as guardian deities that safeguard and rescue people by aiding them in various situations.
There are varying accounts, but Ashvins are generally mentioned as the sons of the sun god Surya and his wife Sanjna. In the epic Mahabharata, the Pandava twins Nakula and Sahadeva were the children of the Ashvins.
Etymology and epithets
The Sanskrit name (अश्विन्) derives from the Indo-Iranian stem *Haćwa- (cf. Avestan aspā), itself from the Indo-European word for the horse, *H1éḱwos, from which also descends the Lithuanian name Ašvieniai.
In the Rigveda, the Ashvins are always referred to in the dual, without individual names, although Vedic texts differentiate between the two Ashvins: "one of you is respected as the victorious lord of Sumakha, and the other as the fortunate son of heaven" (RV 1.181.4). They are called several times divó nápātā, that is 'grandsons of Dyaús (the sky-god)'. This formula is comparable with the Lithuanian Dievo sūneliai, 'sons of Dievas (the sky-god'), attached to the Ašvieniai; the Latvian Dieva Dēli, the 'sons of Dievs (the sky-god)'; and the Greek Diós-kouroi, the 'boys of Zeus', designating Castor and Pollux.
The twin gods are also referred to as Nā́satyā (possibly 'saviours'; a derivative of nasatí, 'safe return home'), a name that appears 99 times in the Rigveda. The epithet probably derives from the Proto-Indo-European root *nes- ('to return home [safely]'), with cognates in the Avestan Nā̊ŋhaiθya, the name of a demon – as a result of a Zoroastrian religious reformation that changed the status of prior deities –, and also in the Greek hero Nestor and in the Gothic verb nasjan ('save, heal').
In the later Mahabharata, the Ashvins are often called the Nasatyas or Dasras. Sometimes one of them is referred to as Nasatya and one as Dasra.
Origin and equivalents
The Ashvins are an instance of the Indo-European divine horse twins. Reflexes in other Indo-European religions include the Lithuanian Ašvieniai, the Latvian Dieva Dēli, the Greek Castor and Pollux; and possibly the English Hengist and Horsa, and the Welsh Bran and Manawydan. The first mention of the Nasatya twins is from a Mitanni treaty (c.1350 BCE), between Suppiluliuma and Shattiwaza, respectively kings of the Hittites and the Mitanni.
Literature and legends
Vedic texts
The Ashvins are mentioned 398 times in the Rigveda, with more than 50 hymns specifically dedicated to them: 1.3, 1.22, 1.34, 1.46–47, 1.112, 1.116–120, 1.157–158, 1.180–184, 2.20, 3.58, 4.43–45, 5.73–78, 6.62–63, 7.67–74, 8.5, 8.8–10, 8.22, 8.26, 8.35, 8.57, 8.73, 8.85–87, 10.24, 10.39–41, 10.143.
According to the text, the Ashvins were born after the sun god Vivasvat and his wife Saranyu (Sanjna) engaged in love making in the form of a stallion and a mare respectively. The Ashvins are also called "divó nápātā", which is variously translated as either "sons" or "grandsons" of Dyaush. At one mention, the Indus (Sindhu) River is stated to be their mother. Ashvins were the close companions of the Vedic mother goddess Ushas (dawn) and sometimes they are even mentioned as her sons. The marriage of the Ashvin brothers is narrated in the Sukta 117 of Rigveda. According to the legend, the sun god, Surya-Savitra, had a daughter named Sūryā (with a long ā) and arranged a horse-race to choose her bridegroom. The Ashvins won the race and thus, both of them married Suryā. Pushan is also stated to have chosen the Ashvins to be his fathers.
The Ashvins are depicted as the helpers of mortals in various suktas of Rigveda. The sukta 112 describes that when the sage Dirghashravas prayed to Ashvins for rain, the twins poured sweet water from the sky. According to sukta 16, they also helped the sage Gotama, who was lost in a desert and begged for water. It is described that the gods dug a water well and helped the sage. According to another account, Rebha was bound, stabbed, and cast into the waters for nine days and ten nights before being saved by the twins. He was explicitly described as "dead" when the twins "raised (him) up" to save him (RV 10.39.9). Similarly, Bhujyu was saved after his father or evil companions abandoned him at sea when the twins brought him home from the dead ancestors (RV, 1.119.4).