The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v1.c16.s2.41

v1.c16.s2.41

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.