The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v1.c24.36

v1.c24.36

It must be admitted that the figure of Varuṇa does not increase in moral value in the course of the development of Vedic religion: in the fact of the failure of morality to develop itself as an important factor in the nature of the gods lies a deep distinction between Indian and other religions. Varuṇa is remembered as the god who has fetters and becomes in the Brāhmaṇas a dread god, whose ritual in some measure is assimilated to that of the demons and the dead. After the performance of the bath, which ends the Agniṣṭoma sacrifice, the performer turns away and does not look back to escape from Varuṇa's notice,¹ and in the ceremony of that bath, when performed after the horse sacrifice, a man of a peculiar appearance is driven into the water and an offering made on his head, as being a representative of Varuṇa :² this form of the expulsion of evils, which is a common idea throughout the world, shows Varuṇa reduced to a somewhat humble level, and degraded from his Rigvedic eminence. In the Varuṇapraghāsas, the second of the four-month feasts, which is one concerning him in the main, the wife of the sacrificer is made to declare her lovers if any, and if she does so she is made formally free from guilt in respect of them, but here there is no trace of an exalted moral conception.³