The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v1.c16.s2.38

v1.c16.s2.38

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.