Vedic Mythology c5.s1.1.2

c5.s1.1.2

in the remaining three he is a bull (5, 36⁵) or a red bull that bellows downwards (5, 58⁶), and is said to have approved when Vṛtra was slain (6, 72³). In the dative the name is found eight times. In these passages in the RV. where they are spoken of as great and small, young and old (1, 27¹³). It is probable that this statement represents the settled view of the Vedic poets as to gradation of rank among the gods (cp. pp. 14. 17). It is only a seeming contradiction when in one passage (8, 30¹) it is said with reference to the gods, 'none of you is small or young; you are all great'; for a poet addressing the gods directly on this point could hardly have expressed himself differently. [It is certain that two gods tower above the rest as leading deities about equal in power, Indra as the mighty warrior and Varuṇa as the supreme moral ruler.] The older form of Varuṇa became, owing to the predominance of his ethical qualities, the supreme god of Zoroastrianism as Ahura Mazda, while in India Indra developed into the warrior god of the conquering Aryans. Varuṇa appears as preëminent only when the supreme laws of the physical and moral world are contemplated, and cannot be called a popular god. It has been held by various scholars that Varuṇa and the Ādityas were the highest gods of an older period, but were later displaced by Indra (p. 28). There is at any rate no evidence to show that Indra even in the oldest Rigvedic period occupied a subordinate position.