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The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v1.c16: Chapter 8. The Great Gods—Celestial

The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v1.c16

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Chapter 8. The Great Gods—Celestial

§ 1. Dyaus the Father

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DYAUS has the honour of being the only Indo-European god who is certainly to be recognized as having existed in the earliest period, and he has been claimed for that time as a real sovereign of the gods, much as Zeus among the Greeks.¹ For this view there is clearly no cogent evidence available, though equally there is no cogent evidence to the contrary, for the fact that Dyaus is not a great god in India may be due to decline in greatness, not to the absence of such greatness originally. In the Rigveda he has not a single hymn of his own, and his appearance is nearly always in one or other of two capacities: either he is the parent, who has as children Uṣas, the Açvins, Agni, Parjanya, Sūrya, the Ādityas, the Maruts, and the Aṅgirases, or he is coupled with the earth, Pṛthivī, or at least mentioned with other deities of whom Pṛthivī is normally one²; the legend of the union and separation of the two is often referred to, but without detail. Where he stands alone, he is mentioned as father of Indra, of Agni, as a father, as rich in seed, as a red bull which bellows downward, or, by another theriomorphic idea, as a black steed decked with pearls, an obvious allusion to the midnight sky. He smiles through the clouds, a trait which can only refer to the lightening sky, and an incipient anthropomorphism appears in the statement that he holds the bolt. With Pṛthivī he shares six hymns, but they have little force or significance; of more interest is the fact that sky and earth are called the two mothers, and that not rarely the word *dyaus* is feminine, a fact which shows that much weight cannot be laid on the contrast between male and female, stress upon which as a principle of Vedic religion has been laid by Bergaigne.³ With the higher life of the community Dyaus has little to do; he bears the usual title of the great gods, Asura, and with earth he is asked to avert sin committed against the gods or a friend or the head of the clan, but this is merely an application to the god of a commonplace prayer.⁴ The Vedic evidence is, it should be noted, clearly opposed to the view of Warde Fowler,¹ which does not recognize physical paternity as the primitive sense of *pater* in religion.²

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¹ von Bradke, *Dyaus Asura*; von Schroeder, *Arische Religion*, i. 299 ff. Moulton (*Early Zoroastrianism*, pp. 391–3) finds this god expressly recorded by his South Indo-European name in Herodotos, i. 131, but not very plausibly. Contrast Helm, *Altgerm. Rel.* i. 272; Rhys, *Celtic Heathendom*, pp. 109 f.

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² The two receive a good deal of attention in the ritual; Hillebrandt, *Ved. Myth.* iii. 397.

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³ Hopkins, *Rel. of India*, pp. 43, 59. The idea has been revived in K. J. Johansson, *Ueber die altind. Göttin Dhiṣaṇā* (1919), but see Oldenberg, GGA. 1919, pp. 357 ff.

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⁴ The theory of the ghost origin of Dyaus (Feist, *Kultur der Indogermanen*, pp. 339 ff.) is wholly improbable and quite contrary to the Veda.

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¹ *Religious Experience of the Roman People*, pp. 155 ff. Contrast von Schroeder, *Arische Religion*, i. 309 ff., 569 f.

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² In the case of Dyaus the regular use of the word as a common noun doubtless told against his personality; see Usener, *Götternamen*, pp. 315 ff.

§ 2. Varuṇa, Mitra, and the Ādityas

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The slight prominence of Dyaus in the Indian period is doubtless in part at least due to the prominence of Mitra and Varuṇa, of which pair the greatest by far is Varuṇa. Mitra, indeed, by his close association with Varuṇa has lost any real independence of character. Though Varuṇa is anthropomorphic and has arms, hands, feet, walks, drives, sits, eats, and drinks, the cosmic character of his eye is brought very clearly: the eye of Mitra and Varuṇa is repeatedly declared to be the sun, and it figures conspicuously in all the hymns regarding Varuṇa. Varuṇa is also far-sighted and thousand-eyed: he wears a golden mantle and a shining robe. He and Mitra drive with the rays of the sun as with arms, and like Savitṛ and Tvaṣṭṛ they are beautiful handed. In striking contrast with this picture of a fair god is that suggested by a passage in the Çatapatha Brāhmaṇa,³ where Varuṇa is described as a bald yellow-eyed old man; but this passage must be read in its context, from which it appears clearly that we have to deal not with a primitive, but with a mystical, view of the nature of Varuṇa.

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³ xiii. 3. 6. 5.

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Like other gods, Mitra and Varuṇa have a chariot which they mount in the highest heaven, and in heaven is their golden abode, which is lofty with a thousand columns and a thousand doors. To that palace resorts the all-seeing sun to report to Varuṇa the deeds of men: in it the Fathers behold him, and the Çatapatha Brāhmaṇa⁴ represents Varuṇa as seated in the midst of heaven, gazing upon the places of punishment around him.

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⁴ xi. 6. 1. 1.

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With Mitra, or alone, Varuṇa is often styled a king; he is king of both gods and men, of all that exists, of the whole world. He bears also the title of independent ruler (*svarāj*) which is more specially Indra’s, and, much oftener than Indra, he is called universal monarch (*samrāj*), a title found a few times also of Agni. With Mitra and twice also with Aryaman, he is accorded the attribute of sovereignty (*kṣatra*) which is elsewhere given but once each to Agni, Bṛhaspati, and the Açvins; similarly the term ruler is given to him in four of its five occurrences, and but once to the gods in general.⁵ He and Mitra are the noble lords of the gods, and the epithet Asura⁶ is given to him in proportion far oftener than to Indra and Agni.

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⁵ A relic of this is seen in the Brāhmaṇa legend that the gods made him their king, despite the fact that he was merely their brother, because he had the form (*rūpa*) of Prajāpati, their father, JB. iii. 152; cf. PB. xiii. 9. 22 ff.

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⁶ An effort to find in the epic Asura Maya a trace of Mazdāh in India may be rejected (Keith, JRAS. 1916, p. 138).

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Characteristic of the two gods is their mystic power, Māyā.¹ With it Varuṇa measures out the earth with the sun as with a measure; Varuṇa and Mitra make the sun to cross the sky, the rain to fall, and send the dawns. All physical order is subject to the control of Varuṇa with or without Mitra: the law of Varuṇa holds earth and sky apart; the three heavens and the three earths are deposited within him; heaven, earth, and air are supported by the two gods; the wind is the breath of Varuṇa. By his ordinances the moon moves at night and the stars shine. He embraces the nights and establishes the mornings. He regulates the seasons: the kings, Mitra, Varuṇa, and Aryaman, dispose the autumn, the month, day and night. From another point of view Mitra and Varuṇa are essentially connected with rain, and among the gods they are most frequently invoked to bestow the gift of rain. Occasionally even in the Rigveda Varuṇa appears connected with the waters of the ocean, to which flow the seven rivers, but the ocean² is little known in the Rigveda, and his real connexion with water is that with the waters of the air, whence comes it that in the Naighaṇṭuka he is ranked as an aerial no less than a celestial god.

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¹ Von Bradke, ZDMG. xlviii. 499-501; Hillebrandt, VOJ. xiii. 316 ff.

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² It is invoked, RV. vi. 50. 14; vii. 35. 13; viii. 12. 2; x. 66. 11; TS. iv. 6. 2; MS. iv. 9. 8; AGS. ii. 4. 14; MGS. i. 13. 15; Kauç. lxxiv. 6, &c.

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But more important than these physical attributes of the god are his moral qualities, his control of the order of the world in its ethical aspect no less than in its physical, his connexion with the worshipper as the saviour in time of peril and distress, the freer from sin, the merciful god, as well as the punisher of the sinner to whom he sends the disease, dropsy, which accords with his nature as lord of the waters. This characteristic of Varuṇa is one which will most conveniently be considered below (Chap. 16), but it is essential to note that this side of Varuṇa’s nature is one which steadily disappears in the later texts, though it does not absolutely vanish.³

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³ It is hardly fair to speak of his demoniac power (Hopkins, *Trans. Conn. Acad.*, xv. 44) on the strength of PB. xviii. 9. 7, 17 (offerings *nirvaruṇatvāya*, i.e. to deprecate punishment for error). But his curse is feeble (PB. xii. 18. 2), and his chief use is to dispose of errors in the offering, PB. xiii. 2. 4.; xv. 1. 3; 2. 4; 7. 7; he guards what is well offered, Viṣṇu repairs errors, AB. iii. 38.

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In the later literature there are other marked changes in the character of the god. In the first place Mitra and Varuṇa come to be placed into relation with the sun and the moon respectively: Mitra is said to have produced the day, Varuṇa the night: the night is Varuṇa’s, the day Mitra’s. In the Atharvaveda⁴ it is said ‘At evening he is Varuṇa, Agni; Mitra he becometh arising in the morning’ and ‘That which Varuṇa hath drawn together, shall Mitra asunder part in the morning.’ Even more significant is the fact that in the ritual to Mitra and Varuṇa respectively white and black victims are sometimes ascribed: there can be no doubt of the significance of this distinction in treatment of the two gods. In the second place there is a marked tendency to reduce Varuṇa to the control of the waters. In the Atharvaveda¹ he is connected with the waters as is Soma with the mountains; his golden house is in the waters; he sheds rain waters, and he and Mitra are the lords of waters. In the Yajurveda² similarly the waters are his wives, and he is the child of the waters, in which he establishes his abode, and Mitra and Varuṇa are the leaders of the waters. It is true that for these conceptions close parallels exist in the Rigveda, but the essential feature is that, in the new matter supplied by these Vedas, nothing which is not specifically connected with the waters is of much account. It is quite possible that the connexion with the moon aided the connexion with the waters, but this cannot be proved; in the Brāhmaṇas we find not merely the recognition of the connexion of the moon with rain, but equally the view that rain comes from the sun. Some force may be assigned to the view that with the growing knowledge of the ocean the tendency to restrict Varuṇa to that element increased parallel with the steady decline in the importance attached to the moral aspect of Varuṇa as a universal ruler.

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⁴ xiii. 3. 13; ix. 3. 18; cf. TS. ii. 1. 7. 4; vi. 4. 8. 3.

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¹ iii. 3. 3; iv. 15. 12; vii. 83. 1; v. 24. 1-5.

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² TS. v. 5. 4. 1; vi. 4. 3. 2; VS. x. 7.

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Apart from his connexion with Varuṇa we know little of Mitra: one hymn alone is given to him in the whole of the Rigveda,³ whence we learn that he brings men together by the utterance of his voice, and watches the tillers with unwinking eye. In one passage Savitṛ is identified with him, and Viṣṇu is said to take his three steps by the laws of Mitra, whence it may be assumed that he is supposed to regulate the course of the sun. The name is normally supposed to have been derived from the use of the word as friend, with which accords the fact that Mitra is essentially a kindly god, and in the Taittirīya Saṁhitā⁴ appears as promoting concord: Oldenberg⁵ has suggested that the use of the word arises rather from the name of the god whom he believes to have been invoked in compacts, perhaps with the use of a fetish of the god as part of the rite and the seven steps, which are mentioned in the Rigveda⁶ as a bond of friendship, and which in the marriage ritual are an essential part of the rite. The Iranian Mithra is obviously the same god, and, as his sun nature is almost absolutely certain, it is reasonable and natural to ascribe to the Vedic Mitra the same character. It is no objection to this view that the sun is described as the eye of Mitra: apart from the fact that the separation of the god from the natural substratum is perfectly natural, and can be seen in progress even in the Avesta where Mithra comes forth over the mountain of sunrise before the sun, it must be remembered that, in association with Varuṇa, Mitra can easily have obtained a description which strictly applied only to Varuṇa.

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³ iii. 59.

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⁴ ii. 1. 8. 4.

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⁵ *Rel. des Veda*², p. 188, n. 3.

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⁶ iv. 8. 1.

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The Ādityas form a somewhat indefinite group of gods: in the Rigveda they are accorded six whole hymns and portions of two others. The original number is slightly uncertain; once⁷ only in the Rigveda is it given as seven, and once¹ also as eight, but in that passage the priority of seven is clearly shown by the fact that it is stated that Aditi, their mother, at first presented only seven to the gods, and the eighth, Mārtāṇḍa, 'sprung of a dead egg,' came afterwards. The number seven is also found observed in the ritual of the Yajurveda² at a time when unquestionably the number twelve was normally accepted for the Ādityas. But the Rigveda at no time enumerates more than six and that once only, when the list is Mitra, Aryaman, Bhaga, Varuṇa, Dakṣa, and Aṁça. Sūrya, however, is an Āditya in the Rigveda, and he may be taken to make up the seven, with Mārtāṇḍa as the setting sun as the eighth. The Atharvaveda³ gives Aditi eight sons and the Taittirīya Brāhmaṇa⁴ gives their names as Mitra, Varuṇa, Aryaman, Aṁça, Bhaga, Dhātṛ, Indra and Vivasvant. The term Āditya is, however, applied to Indra, once in connexion with Varuṇa and once as the fourth Āditya. The Āditya *par excellence*, however, is Varuṇa, next comes Mitra, and next Aryaman. In the Brāhmaṇas the number of the Ādityas is normally fixed at twelve, and they are identified with the twelve months. This explanation of their number is much more natural and plausible than the view of Oldenberg⁵ that the number is borrowed from the Jagatī metre which is associated with the Ādityas. In the Maitrāyaṇī Saṁhitā⁶ we find Indra distinguished expressly from the group of twelve. More generally, however, all the gods seem not rarely to be styled Ādityas, as is natural enough since the only real characteristic the group can be said to possess is that they are the gods of the light of the heaven.

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⁷ ix. 114. 3.

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¹ x. 72. 8.

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² TS. ii. 3. 1. 5. This fact is of consequence and Hillebrandt (*Ved. Myth.* iii. 103, 104) does not answer it. Cf. von Schroeder, *Arische Religion*, i. 427 ff., who thinks Parjanya was the seventh Āditya.

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³ viii. 9. 21.

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⁴ i. 1. 9. 1.

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⁵ *Rel. des Veda*¹, p. 186, n. 2.

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⁶ ii. 1. 12.

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The Ādityas, sons of Aditi, as their name denotes, are bright, golden, unwinking, sinless, pure, and holy. They hate falsehood and punish sin; they fetter their enemies, but protect as with armour their votaries, and forgive their wickedness; sickness and distress they repel, and grant the usual boons of long life and offspring.

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Of the individual deities Aryaman, who is Indo-Iranian in character, and may even be akin to the Irish ancestor Airem, has practically no distinctive feature save his friendly nature which makes him a parallel with Mitra: the word also denotes groomsman, and this idea is, it seems, associated with the god, who is thus brought into connexion with human life and marriage. His path is alluded to, whence Indian tradition regards him as the sun, but Weber as the milky way.⁷ Bhaga, as his name denotes, is the bountiful, or perhaps rather the god of good fortune, the disposition which produces in a woman luck in marriage, for a man success in the assembly, in the hunt, in dicing, or in winning pupils, and plays on the name of the god are not unnatural in a religion so full of the spirit of greed for the bounty of the patrons of the priests; Dawn is his sister, and Yāska describes him as presiding over the forenoon. His name is the equivalent of the Avestan *bagha*, ‘god,’ which is an epithet of Ahura himself, of Bagaios in Phrygia, and of the Old Church Slavonic *bogŭ*, ‘god’.¹ Aṁça is mentioned but three times in all: his name denotes the apportioner and nothing but his bounty is recorded. Dakṣa occurs about twice as often, and is a more interesting figure: in one hymn of the late tenth book² he is said to be the father of Aditi and also the son of Aditi, and the gods are made later in origin: in another passage the existent and non-existent are said to have been in the womb of Aditi, the birthplace of Dakṣa. The word means no more than ‘clever’, and there can be no doubt that he is the product of priestly ingenuity. The Ādityas and also Mitra and Varuṇa are called sons of skill, just as they are called sons of strength: from this epithet the element skill has been elevated into the name of a god, and in the Çatapatha Brāhmaṇa³ Dakṣa is exalted to the rank of Prajāpati: at no time can he have been anything but a mere abstraction of a type especially dear to the later priestly intelligence, which delighted in the conception of the god, who was at one and the same time the father and the son of his mother.

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⁷ Sāyaṇa on ÇB. v. 3. 1. 2; Weber, *Festgruss an Roth*, p. 138; *Rājasūya*, p. 84, n. 2.

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¹ This may be a loan word. There is no decisive evidence; cf. Oldenberg, *Rel. des Veda*², p. 190, n. 2; von Schroeder, *Arische Religion*, i. 288 ff., 562–7, who distinguishes the Greeks, Romans, Germans, and Celts as of *centum* speech, and adorers of a warlike god, and one who patronizes political activity, from the *satem* speakers with their milder deity, but unconvincingly (Oldenberg, GN. 1915, pp. 361–72).

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² x. 72. 4, 5; 5. 7.

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³ ii. 4. 4. 2.

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The natural conception which lies at the root of Varuṇa and the Ādityas, is, it is clear, far from obvious. Both Varuṇa and the group of Ādityas have lost or never had immediate connexion with nature, and have developed their individuality in such a way as to make their original identity uncertain. Contrast with Indra shows that Varuṇa’s original nature must have been something which afforded little chance of the growth of mythology: practically no myth is connected with Varuṇa at all, while the strong god Indra is the subject of by far the greater number of Vedic myths. The name of Varuṇa gives little assistance: it has been connected with the Greek Ouranos, but the phonetic correspondence⁴ is not yet clearly made out, and the identity must remain doubtful: it seems naturally to be derived from the root *vṛ*, cover, so that the first meaning would be the coverer or encompasser, and native tradition explains it in this sense as the god who envelops like darkness or covers with his bonds. If so, the parallel and contrast with Vṛtra are interesting. It is possible that it originally was an epithet of sky, as the all-encompassing, but it would be too dangerous to lay any stress on the apparent etymological sense as denoting the character of the god.

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⁴ Macdonell, *Ved. Myth.*, p. 177; Meillet, *JA.* 1907, ii. 156 f.

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In the view of Oldenberg,⁵ Varuṇa was originally the moon, as Mitra was the sun, and he with the Ādityas, of whom he is one, were not originally Indo-European gods, but were borrowed by the united Indo-Iranian people from some Semitic race, which had a more advanced knowledge of astronomy than the Vedic Indians, and which knew the five planets, which with the sun and moon made up the seven Ādityas. But he does not consider that, when the gods were taken over, they were really fully understood in their original nature by the Indo-Iranians, and in particular he believes that the strongly ethical aspect of Varuṇa had already been developed, since this fact alone can explain how a moon god took precedence of the sun god Mitra. He rejects of course connexion with Ouranos, and he lays stress on the fact that these two gods seem a distinct innovation as compared with the ordinary Indo-European gods. The conception of Varuṇa as moon god is also shared by Hillebrandt¹ and by Hardy.

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⁵ *Rel. des Veda*², pp. 187 ff.; ZDMG. 1. 43–68; cf. F. W. Thomas, JRAS. 1916, pp. 363 f.; T. Segerstedt (RHR. lvii. 195 ff.) finds in Varuṇa an aboriginal deity. Carnoy (JAOS. xxxvi. 307 f.) inclines to suggest comparison with Sin for Varuṇa, and Šamaš for Mitra,

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¹ *Ved. Myth.* iii. 1–51. He denies the identity of Asura and Ahura Mazdāh, but this is a hopeless idea; above, Part I, Chap. 4, § 1. For the seven whence Mitra’s nature as this sun (*Les Indo-Européens*, pp. 172 ff.). He sees a triad in India, Varuṇa, Mitra, Aryaman, parallel to Ahura Mazdāh, Mithra, Anāhita, and thinks the number seven connected with the seven spirits of good and evil, Igigi and Anunnaki. gods of Babylon and the seven planets see also Jeremias in Roscher’s *Lexicon*, iii. 67. The Ameša Spenta are discussed by Moulton, *Early Zoroastrianism*, pp. 73 ff., 96 ff., 296 ff.; L. Gray, *Archiv f. Relig.* vii. 345–72; B. Geiger, *Die Ameša Spentas* (1916); L. von Schroeder, *Arische Religion*, i. 430 ff.

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The arguments of Oldenberg are of importance and weight: it is perfectly true that the moral quality of Varuṇa and of the Ādityas is of a different species from that of Indra and most of the other members of the Vedic pantheon, to whom morality is rather an outward accretion than an internal principle. It is true also that the history of Indian religion is one of the decadence of Varuṇa before the claims on the one hand of the warrior god Indra, the god *par excellence* of the Indian warrior, and on the other hand of Agni, the god of the sacrifice and of the sacrificial priest, and of Prajāpati, in whom the cosmological and pantheistic views of the more reflective section of the priesthood found their expression. Prajāpati is from the philosophic point of view a much greater personage than Varuṇa, but he has no real connexion with morality, just as the philosophy of India has no place in which to ascribe to morality any real value. But to hold that this ethical quality must have been introduced from without not only into Indian, but also into Iranian religion, seems to go far beyond what can be made even probable. What ground have we, it must be asked, for denying to the people of Iran the capacity of developing such deities for themselves? The reform of Zoroaster is a proof that Iran was capable of moral fervour and energy, and that Iran was subjected to effective Semitic influence has been rendered most improbable.² The decline of Varuṇa in India is not a proof that the Vedic Indians were incapable of having such a deity as Varuṇa brought with them from earlier Iranian homes, but that the effect of the admixture of race in India itself was fatal to the conception of Varuṇa. Moreover, borrowing of deities can only be made plausible when the precise deity borrowed can be specified and identity of character indicated if not proved, and when the name in addition can be traced. In the case of Varuṇa and the Ādityas the effort to show the group of deities which has been borrowed cannot even be made, and the suggestion of borrowing is therefore methodologically unsound.

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² Moulton, *Early Zoroastrianism*, pp. 67, 98, 237–43; von Schroeder, *Arische Religion*, i. 439 f.

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Nor is there really any insuperable difficulty in finding another naturalistic basis for Varuṇa and an explanation of his moral authority. The old view that Varuṇa is the all encompassing sky is not open to any serious objection. It explains perfectly well all that he does in the physical world: his place, in the highest heaven, his sending of rain, the fact that the sun is his eye, his epithet of far-seeing, his thousand eyes which doubtless point to the stars of night—possibly his spies, though that conception may be otherwise explained as belonging to the conception of him as king¹ it is no objection that Varuṇa is represented as mounting a car in the highest heaven with Mitra: the god is clearly to some degree detached from his material substratum, and therefore is treated in this point as any other deity. The conception of an almighty ruler is most easily developed from the vast expanse of the sky, on which the sun moves in its regular course, and which seems to gaze upon the deeds of men. It is of course impossible to prove that Zeus has attained his position in the Hellenic pantheon entirely in this way, but the parallel is certainly striking enough to render the view that Varuṇa thus became a great moral ruler reasonable enough.

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¹ Foy, *Die königliche Gewalt*, pp. 80–6; Moulton (*op. cit.*, p. 61) inclines to deny any celestial character in the god; von Schroeder (*Arische Religion*, i. 343) finds two roots of Varuṇa's character, the observation of the glories of the sky and the consciousness of the moral law, in harmony with his belief in the latter consideration as one of the three essential roots of religion, beside nature worship and belief in souls.

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On the other hand the comparison of the Ādityas and the Ameša Spenta seems certainly right and the objections which have been raised to it are not of a serious kind.² It is true that neither in India nor in Iran is the number seven absolutely fixed, but as early as the Rigveda the number seven is evidently becoming the normal one, and similarly in the Avesta the number seven is springing up, in the close connexion between Zoroaster and six other spirits. The fact that these six spirits do not correspond in name or function precisely with the Indian deities is of no consequence, if we adopt the view that the deities were not in the Indo-Iranian period very closely connected with any sphere of nature.³ This is certainly supported by the obvious fact that in India the figures of Bhaga, Aṁça, Dakṣa, and Aryaman are abstract, while the whole six in Iran are of this type. To presume an independent development of the ideas in both countries is really to assume something much more improbable than a common origin. Oldenberg’s theory that the five other than Mitra and Varuṇa represented the planets is wholly without support either in Iran or India, where the knowledge of the planets cannot be attributed at all to the age of the Rigveda or even much later.

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² See Macdonell, *Ved. Myth.*, p. 44; Hillebrandt's objections are in *Ved. Myth.* iii. 122 ff.; Moulton's *Early Zoroastrianism*, p. 98; cf. Oldenberg, ZDMG. l. 43 ff.

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³ L. H. Gray (*Archiv für Religionswissenschaft*, vii. 345–72) sees in them pre-Iranian nature powers, but without cogent grounds; cf. von Schroeder, *Arische Religion*, i. 282, n. 1; Güntert, *Der arische Weltkönig*, pp. 170 ff.

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Apart from the question of Semitic origin the identification of Varuṇa with the moon is absolutely without support. It can only be justified by the later Saṁhitās, which, however, are far more readily explained by the obvious fact that Varuṇa was being superseded in his position of greatness by Indra, Agni, and Prajāpati, and that accordingly it was natural for the priest to seek to find some position for him, which would naturally explain his connexion with Mitra, whose nature as a sun god was never forgotten in Iran or India. With the hypothesis of Varuṇa as a moon god might, of course, be brought into connexion the fact that the Ādityas are seven, which has also been cited for their Semitic origin. But there is no real proof of the existence of any knowledge in Vedic India of a seven-day week,¹ and it may be added that, save for the Jewish seven-day week, no such period is proved² for any Semitic civilization at an early date.

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¹ Hopkins (*Oriental Studies*, p. 159) assumes it for the AV. but without proof.

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² Above, Part I, Chap. 4, § 2.

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Yet another view of the position of Varuṇa and Mitra is that presented by E. Meyer.³ He sees in them later productions of the religious conception: while Indra, if not in name, at least in essence, is an Indo-European god, being really one aspect of the sky god, Varuṇa and Mitra are essentially products of the Indo-Iranian period of religious thought, and the Asuras never are on the same level with the Devas: in India for a time, that is in the period of the Rigveda, they seem to have been to some extent recognized as at least equal with the Devas, and Varuṇa actually in some circles ranked above Indra, but this condition did not last, and, while in the case of Iran the Zoroastrian reform developed the essential character of the Asuras and made the Daēvas demons, in India the Asuras sank to demons, and Varuṇa was relegated to the position of lord of the sea, while Mitra was little but a name. The origin of the deities he traces in moral, not natural concepts, the nature connexion of the gods being due to the inability of primitive thought to remain at the high pitch of moral conception. Mitra is primarily⁴ the lord of the contract, that between individual men no less than that between clans and states, while Varuṇa is the god of the oath.⁵ Hence perhaps Varuṇa is to be deemed to have been connected with the ocean surrounding the world, by which, as in the case of the Styx in Greek religion, oaths might be taken, and from this connexion with water developed his connexion with the waters of the heaven, the earth, and the ocean alike. But from their moral position the two gods are both essentially celestial, Mitra being especially connected in thought with the sun, while Varuṇa was less definitely restricted in his physical range. The possibility of connexion between Varuṇa and Ouranos Meyer naturally denies.¹

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³ *Gesch. des Alt.*³ I. ii. pp. 922–4.

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⁴ Meillet, JA. 1907, ii. 143; Carnoy, *Les Indo-Européens*, pp. 172 ff. Moulton (*Early Zoroastrianism*, pp. 62–7) tries to make out that Mitra is a combination of a god of contract and a Semitic Rain god (Assyrian Meṭru), but this is clearly wrong. Cf. Hillebrandt, *Ved. Myth.*, p. 123.

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⁵ Lüders, SBA. 1910, p. 931. The occurence of both in the Mitanni treaty is assumed to support this view by Cuny, *Rev. ét. anc.* 1909, pp. 279 f. Speculations as to Mitra in Egypt and his influence on the Aten worship are interesting but of no importance for Indian religion. Cf. Max Müller, OLZ. 1912, pp. 252 ff.

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¹ Feist (*Kultur der Indogermanen*, p. 343, n. 1) admits the similarity of the two ideas and names, and therefore ascribes them to a non-Indo-Germanic common source; he treats Saraṇyū-Erinys, Gandharva-Kentauros, similarly.

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The evidence adduced to the views of Meyer is inadequate; it is quite clear that Varuṇa and Mitra came into special connexion with the agreement and the oath respectively, but neither fact is enough to show that the deity was developed from either conception alone, and we cannot prove that it is more plausible to assume such a derivation than to accept the view that to these great gods of the sky the conception of the control of moral order and contract was naturally assigned. The importance of the sun as a deity is sufficiently shown for Iranian religion by the fact that he became the chief god of the Massagetae,² and the importance of Mithra as a sun-god in later Iran is notorious. It is on the other hand more easy to understand how concrete gods attained moral aspects³ than to believe that moral gods became so remarkably concrete in nature.

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² Herodotos, i. 216. There is no reason to deny the Iranian character of this people, even if it were in part of mixed blood; the similarity of Mongolian and Aryan religion is doubtless due to similar conditions of development on the steppes (cf. Minns, *Scythians and Greeks*, pp. 85 ff.; Meyer, *Gesch. des Alt.*³ I. ii. pp. 887–95).

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³ For Mithra’s guardianship of truth see Yašt, x. 2. Güntert (pp. 146 ff.) holds him and Varuṇa (*ver*, bind) abstract.

§ 3. Sūrya, Savitṛ, and Pūṣan

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In Sūrya we have the sun-god⁴ in his simplest and most direct form, and ten hymns of the Rigveda are devoted to him. His natural character is very obvious in all that is told of him: he is the eye of the sky or of Varuṇa and Mitra: he is far-seeing, the spy of the whole world who looks on the deeds of men and rouses them to action. He is an Āditya, but is also distinguished from the Ādityas. Like other gods he is a son of Dyaus. In the Puruṣasūkta he is made to be born from the eye of Puruṣa, and by an inversion of this idea the eye of the dead man is said to go to the sun. A late and absurd legend of the Atharvaveda makes the sun as Divākara born from the demon Vṛtra.

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⁴ For the Indo-European sun-god see L. von Schroeder, *Arische Religion*, ii. 3 ff.

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Many gods stand in close connexion with Sūrya: from the lap of the dawns he shines forth, and he is also the husband of Dawn: Pūṣan is his messenger, Varuṇa, Mitra, Aryaman make his path; Indra, Viṣṇu, Soma, Dhātṛ, and the Aṅgirases all are said to create him or produce him.

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The chief feat of Sūrya is his shining for the world, for gods, and men:

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he smites away the darkness and triumphs over the powers of darkness and witches; he prolongs the lives of men and drives away sickness, disease, and evil dreams. He is also the divine priest of the gods, and is entreated on his rising to declare men sinless before Mitra and Varuṇa. When invoked with Indra he becomes a slayer of Vṛtra. But another myth tells that Indra defeated him and stole his wheel, a fairly obvious allusion to the obscuration of the sun by the thunderstorm.

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The chariot of the sun is drawn by a single horse, Etaça, or by seven horses, or seven mares, or by an indefinite number of either. But the more primitive view that the sun himself is a steed is found in one passage,¹ where he is said to be the white and brilliant steed brought by Uṣas. But he is also a flying bird,² or an eagle, and a mottled bull.³ He is also, however, a gem of the sky,⁴ the variegated stone set in the midst of heaven, a brilliant weapon obscured by Mitra and Varuṇa with cloud and rain, the felly of Mitra and Varuṇa, a brilliant car, or a wheel. In the ritual the horse and the wheel appear as sun fetishes.

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¹ RV. vii. 77. 3.

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² RV. i. 191. 9.

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³ RV. v. 47. 3.

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⁴ RV. vii. 63. 4.

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While Sūrya represents the concrete aspect of the sun, Savitṛ, the stimulator or instigator, seems to denote the sun as the motive power which drives men to action. In some passages the two gods are apparently used as identical, but in others the two gods appear in connexion with each other and as different: Savitṛ is said to impel Sūrya, to declare men sinless to the sun, to combine with the rays of the sun, or to shine with the rays of the sun. Savitṛ is also implored to strengthen the worshipper when the sun is risen.

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Savitṛ is pre-eminently a golden god: his eyes, hands, tongue, and arms are of gold: his hair is yellow: he wears a tawny garment and fares in a golden car. But, unlike Sūrya, he has two, not seven, steeds. The type of his action is the raising of his arms to rouse men: the action of Agni, Bṛhaspati, and the dawns is compared to it. He travels through the air on dustless paths, and is implored to convey the departed souls to the place where the righteous dwell. He grants the gods and men immortality, and makes the Ṛbhus immortal. Like Sūrya, he drives away the evil spirits and the wizards. His power is sometimes extolled in striking terms, as when Indra, Varuṇa, Mitra, Aryaman, and Rudra are said not to be able to resist him, and like other gods he supports the sky and extends the earth.

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From Agni he borrows the epithet of son of the waters, and probably also that of domestic: from this connexion also perhaps comes his assignment by the Naighaṇṭuka to the aerial as well as to the celestial world. His power of stimulation leads to his identification with Prajāpati in the Brāhmaṇas. With Pūṣan he is equated or closely connected: the Sāvitrī verse,⁵ which is used in the daily ritual of the orthodox Hindu, occurs immediately after an invocation of the god Pūṣan. Bhaga again is identified with Savitṛ, or Savitṛ with Bhaga, in the single conception of Savitṛ Bhaga;¹ it is natural that elsewhere he should be distinguished.

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⁵ RV. iii. 62. 10.

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¹ Bergaigne, *Rel. Véd.* iii. 39.

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The later tradition of Yāska² suggests that the distinction was drawn between Sūrya and Savitṛ in that the latter was the sun before his rising and after the dawn; but this conception is artificial, and is not supported by the Rigveda, where rather Savitṛ seems especially invoked at the beginning of the day and at its close, and his sound (*çloka*) may be compared to the Germanic belief in the noise emitted by the sun in his rising.³

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² Nir. xii. 12.

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³ RV. v. 82. 9; Tacitus, *Germania*, 45; Grimm, *Deutsche Myth.*⁴, pp. 606, 621.

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In nearly half its occurrences the name Savitṛ is coupled with Deva, a fact which strongly suggest that the word still was felt in large measure as an epithet: indeed in two passages the name seems to be given as an epithet to Tvaṣṭṛ. It is, of course, possible that, as Oldenberg⁴ holds, the god is an abstract deity pure and simple, and that he is merely assimilated to the sun, but the simpler and more natural view is to assume that Savitṛ is one aspect of Sūrya, the most important aspect of the power which wakens man to his work and the priest to his sacrifice.

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⁴ *Rel. des Veda*², pp. 63, 64; ZDMG. li. 473 ff.; lix. 253 f.; GN. 1915, p. 193. But the detachment of epithets is not uncommon; cf. Farnell, *Greek Hero Cults*, pp. 80 ff.; Güntert, pp. 157 ff.

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Pūṣan is a curious and enigmatic figure: he is the subject of eight hymns only, five of them in book vi. He has, like Rudra, braided hair, and a beard. He carries not only a spear, but an awl, and a goad. He differs from other deities in that his chariot is drawn by goats, and that he eats mush, either because he is toothless as the Çatapatha Brāhmaṇa⁵ declares him to be, or, as is much more likely, for some cause unknown to us, in which case the ascription of lack of teeth to the god is due no doubt to transfer from the habits of men.

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⁵ i. 7. 4. 7.

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Pūṣan shares with the gods in general the usual attributes of strength, glory, wisdom, generosity, and like the Açvins he is termed wonder worker, while with Agni alone he bears the epithet of Narāçaṁsa, probably felt as ‘extolled by men’. He is most frequently invoked with Bhaga and Viṣṇu of the other gods: in joint laudations he is found with Soma and Indra, while his food is expressly distinguished from the Soma of Indra, nevertheless in one passage it is attributed to Indra, and in two passages the libation to Indra is said to be mixed with it. The characteristic epithets of Pūṣan’s activity are those which denote him as the bringer of prosperity, who loses neither goods nor cattle. Pūṣan is essentially concerned with safefaring on paths: he is born himself on the far path of paths, the far path of heaven and earth, and between the two beloved abodes he goes and returns. Hence it follows that he is a guardian of roads, he makes the paths safe by removing the wolf and the waylayer: his epithet *vimuco napāt* may be rendered either ‘son of unyoking’ after safe arrival, or ‘son of deliverance’, and in the Atharvaveda⁶ he is definitely called upon to deliver from sin. As he is lord of the roads and a guide, he is invoked by the man who proposes to make a journey and by the man who on his way is lost.¹ In the morning and evening of the Gṛhya ritual, the offering made to Pūṣan is performed on the threshold of the house.² It is Pūṣan who preserves cattle, who keeps them from falling into pits and finds them when lost and brings them again home.³ He guides straight also the furrow, guards horses, and weaves the coats of sheep. Cattle are sacred to him and he is called the producer of cattle.

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⁶ vi. 112. 3.

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¹ AGS. iii. 7. 9; ÇGS. iii. 4. 9.

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² ÇGS. ii. 14. 9.

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³ RV. vi. 54. 7, 10. In verse 1 there is referred to the prototype of the Khojis of the Punjab, skilled trackers of stolen cattle (Hillebrandt, *Ved. Myth.* iii. 365). Cf. the Homeric Hymn.

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Pūṣan has also other than agricultural connexions. He is exclusively called the glowing (*āghṛṇi*), and once bears the epithet, 'not to be concealed,' which is almost peculiar to Savitṛ. With golden ships he moves in the aerial ocean, acting as Sūrya's messenger under the influence of love. As best of charioteers, he is said to have driven downwards the wheel of the sun. Like Sūrya too he is the wooer of his mother and lover of his sister:⁴ the gods gave him⁵ to Sūryā, the sun-maiden, for a husband. In the marriage hymn he is bidden to take the hand of the bride, to lead her away, and to bless her in her marriage.

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⁴ RV. vi. 55. 5.

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⁵ RV. vi. 58. 4.

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Pūṣan again plays a part of the ritual of death: he is entreated to conduct the dead to the fathers, as Agni and Savitṛ lead them to the place of the righteous, and he conveys them in safety to their destined place. The goat of Pūṣan leads the horse when sacrificed to its place.

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The similarity of Pūṣan to Hermes is undoubted:⁶ both have in common the duty of conducting men or the souls of the dead on the roads: they are closely connected with the herds, confer wealth, act as convoys, are connected with the goat, and even the braided hair of Pūṣan has been compared with the Krobalos of Hermes.⁷ But it is impossible to lay much stress on the parallelism in view of the lack of similarity of name, and the difficulty of determining the original character of Hermes is much greater than that of determining that of Pūṣan. His name denotes the prosperor, and Yāska⁸ distinctly declares him to be the sun. This traditional interpretation is not inconsistent with any of his characteristics: it certainly accounts for his character as glowing, for his connexion with the sun-maiden, and his wealth: again it accounts for his power to show paths, from which it is not difficult to deduce his duty of conducting the souls or his going on errands. As the increase-giving sun, his close connexion with cattle is natural: Mithra in Iran, an almost undoubted sun-god, has the power to increase cattle, and bring lost animals home. The goat would be a natural animal to be associated with the god whose duty it was to go on difficult pathways. As against this natural explanation it is difficult to take very seriously the theory that he is not the representative of any natural phenomenon, but a god of the ways.¹ Much of his nature can thus be explained, but not the close connexion with the prospering of cattle and of men which is clearly his, but which cannot without difficulty be deduced from his nature as a god of ways, though attempts to do so may have been known in the oldest times. The only explanation which is possible as an alternative is to regard Pūṣan as in origin an animal god, embodied in the goat, or a vegetation spirit which might be conceived in goat shape.² But in that case much of the mythology would remain wholly unexplained.³

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⁶ Von Schroeder's objection (*Arische Religion*, ii. 11) is without substance. Etymological connexion with Pan (W. Schulze, *KZ.* xlii. 81, 374) is unproved.

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⁷ Siecke (*Hermes der Mondgott und Pūṣan*) sees in both moon gods, but this is unattractive. Güntert (pp. 41 ff.) treats him as the patron god of herdsmen.

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⁸ Nir. vii. 9.

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¹ *Rel. des Veda*², pp. 234-7.

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² e.g. the goat in the Dionysiac ritual: Farnell, *Cults of the Greek States*, v. 161-72; *Greece and Babylon*, p. 240.

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³ Hillebrandt (*Ved. Myth.* iii. 362 ff.) also agrees that Pūṣan was a sun-god, the special deity of a pastoral clan, the Bhāradvājas; Perry, *Drisler Memorial*, pp. 241 ff. For various views of the nature of Hermes, see Murray, *Four Stages of Greek Religion*, pp. 74 ff. (primitive phallic stone); Farnell, *Cults of the Greek States*, v. 1 ff. (pre-Hellenic in character); Carnoy, *Les Indo-Européens*, p. 212 (in part a wind-god); Fox, *Greek and Roman Myth.*, pp. 191 ff.

§ 4. Viṣṇu

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In the Rigveda Viṣṇu can claim but five whole hymns, and his name occurs not more than a hundred times in all. He is said to be young, but vast in body, not a child, and his one action is the taking of three strides: hence he is called the wide strider. Of these strides two are visible, the third is beyond the ken even of the birds, or, as it is also put, his third name is in the bright region of the heaven. But again it is said that the liberal see the highest place of Viṣṇu like an eye in the sky. The highest place is Viṣṇu's favourite dwelling, there also are the gods and pious men, there is Indra and the many-horned swiftly moving cows, doubtless the clouds. There can be little doubt as to what the three steps are: the later Saṁhitās, the Brāhmaṇas, and Çākapūṇi,⁴ a predecessor of Yāska, agree in equating them with the three divisions of the universe, and the alternative view of Aurṇavābha that they correspond with the rising sun, the zenith, and the setting is in flat contradiction with the references of the Vedas to the nature of the highest place. The motive for the strides is variously given as for men in distress, to bestow the earth upon man as a dwelling, to obtain wide-stepping existence or the existence of men. Again Viṣṇu is essentially the swift of motion and an ordainer: he measures out the earthly spaces. He sets in motion his ninety steeds with the four names, an allusion clearly to the 360 days of the year, divided into four seasons. He is a dweller on the mountains, and in the Yajurveda¹ he is called the lord of mountains.

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⁴ Nir. xii. 19. Rarely they are on earth, RV. i. 155. 4; vii. 100. 3; hence Hopkins (JAOS. xvi. p. cxlviii) makes them from horizon to horizon. Veneration of the footstep appears in i. 22 and 154; there is use in cult of the hoof of the horse in the piling of the fire, and of the footprint of the Soma cow; Hillebrandt, *Ved. Myth.* ii. 80; i. 73; iii. 353. Localization of Viṣṇu's step in Nir. xii. 19 (IA. xlvii. 84) is speculative. BDS. ii. 5. 9. 10, where an extended list of Viṣṇu's names is given, is an obvious late interpolation as are the planets preceding. Cf. A. C. Das, *Rig-Vedic India*, i. 544 ff., against Tilak, *Arctic Home in the Vedas*, p. 328, who both drag Çipiviṣṭa into the connexion.

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¹ TS. iii. 4. 5. 1.

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Viṣṇu is closely associated with Indra: one hymn is devoted to the pair of gods, and, when Viṣṇu is celebrated by himself, Indra is the only other god who is given a place; when about to perform his supreme feat of slaying Vṛtra, Indra implores Viṣṇu to step out more widely. Through his association with Indra, Viṣṇu becomes a drinker of Soma, and he cooks for Indra 100 buffaloes and a brew of milk. Through his connexion with Indra Viṣṇu also is associated with the Maruts, with whom he shares honour in one hymn.

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Another side of Viṣṇu appears in the statement that he is a protector of embryos, and in his invocation with other deities to promote conception.² Moreover, in one obscure allusion, reference is made to the fact that in battle he assumed a strange form.³

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² RV. vii. 36. 9; x. 184.

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³ RV. vii. 100. 6. The epithet Çipiviṣṭa, there found and then in TS. ii. 4. 5; iv. 4. 9; vii. 3. 15; MS. ii. 2. 13, is very uncertain in sense; Hillebrandt, *Ved. Myth.* iii. 356, n. 2; Keith, *Taittirīya Saṁhitā*, ii. 622; Hopkins, *Epic Myth.* pp. 211, 274. On the etymology, cf. Bloomfield, AJP. xvii. 427; Oldenberg, GN. 1915, p. 374. Bloch (*Wörter und Sachen*, i. 80) sees *vi* with suffix *snu*, the name designating the sun-bird directly.

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There can really be little doubt as to the nature of the god. The name can be diversely explained as ‘the active one’ from the root *viṣ*, or as ‘crossing the back of the world or the earthly regions’ from *vi* and *snu* (akin to *sānu*), but the solar nature of the deity is reasonably plain. In the Atharvaveda⁴ he is asked to bestow heat: in the Brāhmaṇas⁵ his head cut off becomes the sun; in post-Vedic literature his weapon is a rolling-wheel, his vehicle Garuḍa, the sun-bird, and the breast jewel which he wears is clearly the sun. His dwelling in the mountains may be either derived from the conception of the sun on the cloud mountains, or, more simply, from the idea that he who dwells in the farthest distance must be on a mountain peak. The only alternative theory which requires mention is that of Oldenberg⁶ that he is merely the wide-stepping god, and this has no such probability as to displace the obvious meaning put upon his nature by Vedic India.

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⁴ v. 26. 7.

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⁵ ÇB. xiv. 1. 1. 1 ff.

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⁶ *Rel. des Veda*², pp. 229–34. He is clearly right in negativing the idea of Viṣṇu as connected with the souls of the dead (K. F. Johansson, *Solfågeln i Indien* (1916), pp. 8 ff.). Güntert (pp. 305 ff.) makes him an ithyphallic (*çipi-viṣṭa*) sun-god.

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It would be impossible to deny to Viṣṇu the position of a great god in the period of the Rigveda, for that would be to forget that the comparative prominence of the gods is not necessarily brought out fully in that collection, which is mainly concerned with the Soma sacrifice, and which does not, therefore, take great account of those deities who are not of much consequence in that sacrifice. Of course, that the god is not a great god of that sacrifice is to a certain extent a proof that he is not a god regarded with the highest importance by many of the priests.¹ But his interest in human life as a protector of embryos is a sign of his importance in ordinary life, which should not be overlooked. It is quite impossible to make such a detail the ground of the attribution to the god of any other than a solar character, for, as we have seen in the case of Pūṣan, the connexion of the sun with the increase of the animal world is too obvious an idea not to be found in religion.

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¹ RV. i. 22. 16 ff.; 154–6; vii. 100 show that to some he ranked higher.

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In the later Saṁhitās and the Brāhmaṇas we find that Viṣṇu is assuming an importance and prominence in the minds of the priests which give him, along with Rudra, undoubtedly the leading place in the living faith of the Brāhmaṇas. His three strides are now definitely located in the earth, air, and heaven, and in imitation of them the sacrificer strides in the ritual the steps of Viṣṇu,² which result in placing him in the world of heaven: by this simple act he thus puts himself in the closest connexion with the deity, for in the imitation he doubtless in some measure and degree assimilated himself to the deity. It is of interest that in the Avesta the three steps of the Ameša Spenta from the earth to the sun are similarly imitated, but there is no reason to assume that the two acts are historically derived from an earlier Indo-Iranian usage: such parallels may as easily rise independently. Moreover the three strides become a matter of great importance in the preservation of the world from the Asuras, who, in the imagination of the Brāhmaṇas, are no longer individual enemies of the gods, but a strong band before whose onslaught the gods are often compelled to yield. The Indian imagination, however, never contemplates the idea of any final victory of the Asuras, but the gods are bound to repel them often by guile and still more often by knowledge of some special rite. Thus in the Aitareya Brāhmaṇa³ it is agreed by the Asuras with Indra and Viṣṇu that so much of the earth should be assigned to the latter as Viṣṇu could step over with three strides: Viṣṇu then proceeds to appropriate by his strides the worlds, the Vedas, and speech. The Çatapatha Brāhmaṇa⁴ declares that Viṣṇu by his strides acquired for the gods the all-prevading power which they possess, and the Taittirīya Saṁhitā⁵ states that by taking the form of a dwarf, whom he had seen, Viṣṇu conquered the three worlds. The dwarf form, which is the germ of the post-Vedic story of the dwarf incarnation of Viṣṇu, is found, though not with express mention of the three steps, in the Çatapatha.⁶ It is there recorded that the Asuras overcame the gods and began to divide the earth: the gods with Viṣṇu, the sacrifice, at their head demanded a share, and the Asuras seeing that Viṣṇu was but a dwarf consented to grant them so much as Viṣṇu could lie on. The gods then sacrificed with Viṣṇu, and won the whole earth to themselves. In this account is to be seen the most important factor in the elevation of Viṣṇu to his rank of a most high god, his constant identification with the sacrifice. The precise train of thought by which this identification was reached cannot be reconstructed with certainty: it is not to be supposed that Viṣṇu's importance is accidental, or due merely to this identification: he must have been a great god both for the people and the priests before he was given the similitude to the sacrifice, the greatest of all things in the estimation of the priesthood, but his identification undoubtedly aided in the increase of that greatness, and made it permanent and abiding.

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