The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v1.c14.60

v1.c14.60

As a deity, however, the Ṛta does not obtain an established rank. The occurrence of such phrases as the idea of the Dawns coming forth from the place of the Ṛta, or of the place of sacrifice as the seat of the Ṛta, or of the charioteer or the wheel or the steeds or the vehicle or the ship of the Ṛta,² shows nothing more than the natural concreteness of expression of the Vedic age: there is no prayer to it, and in all the mass of deities invoked in the cult the Ṛta is not included. The deities, with whom the working of law in nature and in moral life was connected, were above all Varuṇa and Mitra, less often Agni and Savitṛ; the Dawns obey not only the Ṛta, but also the law of Varuṇa: the stars in the sky disappear by day by the rule of Varuṇa. In the moral sphere the gods naturally are more prominent than the paler figure of the Ṛta; but in the famous hymn³ in which Yamī, the sister of the first man, urges him to commit incest with her in order to produce the race of men, Yama, in rejecting her plea, appeals not merely to the principle of the Ṛta, but to the ordinances of Mitra and Varuṇa. Hence we have not merely cases in which the Ṛta appears as an independent authority,⁴ but also instances where it is treated as the possession of some god. The streams go on their way according to the Ṛta of Varuṇa; heaven and earth further the Ṛta of Mitra, and the two gods appear as the lords of the Ṛta, the right. Yet on the other hand they are reduced to a lesser grade in that they appear also as the charioteers of the Ṛta, the furtherers of the Ṛta, the guardians of the Ṛta, something which therefore exists apart from them. But the connexion of the gods and of Varuṇa with the Ṛta is always close and marked: so it is said of Agni who has some connexions also, as the god of the sacrificial order *par excellence*,⁵ ‘Thou dost become Varuṇa, when thou strivest for the Ṛta.’ No other god has any really constant connexion with it save the pair, Mitra and Varuṇa, and in the case of some gods like Indra, whose greatness makes them necessarily come into some degree of contact with the Ṛta, the superficiality of the connexion is obvious.¹