Apam Napat (‘Son of Waters’) is one of the most important and intriguing aspects of the Vedic trinity of creator gods mentioned in the hymns of the ancient Rigveda texts, sometimes described as ‘humanity’s oldest scripture’, deriving at least from the 1st millenium BCE. He represents the fiery creating force, emanating from the waters, and is also a divinity shared by the ancient Persian Mazdean (later Zoroastrian) faith. Since the 18thC and even more so during the 20th centuries scholars of religion, linguistics, archaeology and culture have increasingly recognised the connection between these faiths and those of Europe during the 2nd and 1st millenia BCE. In Apam Napat, we can see an etymological similarity to the name of the Italic sea-god Neptune and an ideological similarity to the Atlantic Gaelic god Manannan. The word ‘Napat’, means ‘son’ or ‘offspring’, and as Manannan is surnamed ‘Mac Lír’ – ‘Son of the Sea’ – his title is an almost exact equivalent to that of the Vedic god Apam Napat, who is in fact an aquatic manifestation of the Vedic ‘fire-deity’ Agni, so in reality (and like Manannan) a ‘solar god‘.

The Vedic hymn to the ‘Son of Waters’ (Apam Napat) demonstrates the conception of how fertility and growth manifests through the combined mystical actions of fire and water in their spiritual aspects. It stridently evokes themes clearly evident in the myths and symbolism of ancient European belief:

Rig Veda, Book 2, HYMN XXXV: Translation by Ralph T.H. Griffith, 1896.

‘Son of Waters’

1. EAGER for spoil my flow of speech I utter: may the Flood’s Child accept my songs with favour. Will not the rapid Son of Waters make them lovely, for he it is who shall enjoy them?

2 To him let us address the song well-fashioned, forth from the heart. Shall he not understand it, The friendly Son of Waters by the greatness of Godhead hath produced all things existing.

3 Some floods unite themselves and others join them: the sounding rivers fill one common storehouse. On every side the bright Floods have encompassed the bright resplendent Offspring of the Waters.

4 The never-sullen waters, youthful Maidens, carefully decking, wait on him the youthful. He with bright rays shines forth in splendid beauty, unfed with wood, in waters, oil-enveloped.

5 To him three Dames are offering food to feed him, Goddesses to the God whom none may injure. Within the waters hath he pressed, as hollows, and drinks their milk who now are first made mothers.

6 Here was the horse’s birth; his was the sunlight. Save thou our princes from the oppressor’s onslaught. Him, indestructible, dwelling at a distance in forts unwrought lies and ill spirits reach not.

7 He, in whose mansion is the teeming Milch-cow, swells the Gods’ nectar and cats noble viands. The Son of Waters, gathering strength in waters, shines for his worshipper to give him treasures.

8 He who in waters with his own pure Godhead shines widely, law-abiding, everlasting— The other worlds are verily his branches, and plants are born of him with all their offspring.

9 The Waters’ Son hath risen, and clothed in lightning ascended up unto the curled cloud’s bosom; And bearing with them his supremest glory the Youthful Ones, gold-coloured, move around him.

10 Golden in form is he, like gold to look on, his colour is like gold, the Son of Waters. When he is seated fresh from golden birthplace those who present their gold give food to feed him.

11 This the fair name and this the lovely aspect of him the Waters’ Son increase in secret. Whom here the youthful Maids together kindle, his food is sacred oil of golden colour.

12 Him, nearest Friend of many, will we worship with sacrifice. and reverence and oblation. I make his back to shine, with chips provide him; I offer food and with my songs exalt him.

13 The Bull hath laid his own life-germ within them. He sucks them as an infant, and they kiss him. He, Son of Waters, of unfading colour, hath entered here as in another’s body.

14 While here he dwelleth in sublimest station, resplendent with the rays that never perish, The Waters, bearing oil to feed their offspring, flow, Youthful Ones, in wanderings about him.

15 Agni, I gave good shelter to the people, and to the princes goodly preparation. Blessed is all that Gods regard with favour. Loud may we speak, with heroes, in assembly.

Romano-British stela of a triple-goddess identified with Coventina. ‘To him three Dames are offering food to feed him’…

The solar-energetic divinity Agni is depicted as manifesting through the waters, evoking fertility. The fertile seed of bulls (another core Vedic concept shared with Atlantic mythology) is said to originate within the waters inspired by Agni, as are all the trees and plants. The hymn depicts waters flowing to converge on Apam Napat who fertilises them, just as it invokes the ceremonial-ritual burning of oils (liquids which burn) in holy fires as a means of evoking his power and conveying prayers into the divine world of spiritual ethereal fire: Agni (as a kind of Vedic Hermes-Mercury) is said in the Rig Veda hymns to act as conduit to this realm. The descriptions of his youthful shining god-force also resonate strongly with ancient Greek ideations of Apollo, as manifesting divine logos. The idea of words as energetic seeds flow readily in the hymns of the Rig Veda, evoking the power also expressed in Atlantic Europe’s medieval remnants of Iron Age bardic poetry. As such, the Atlantic god ‘Manannan’ may owe his name to the bright light of the mind, represented in the Proto-Indo-European rootword ‘Mana-‘ (from which we get the Latin mens, and the word for human: ‘man‘.)