Vedic Mythology c5.s1.t2.18

c5.s1.t2.18

What conclusions as to the natural basis of Varuṇa can be drawn from the Vedic evidence which has been adduced? It is clear from this evidence, in combination with what is said below about Mitra (§ 13), that Varuṇa and Mitra are closely connected with the sun, but that the former is the much more important deity. Mitra has in fact been so closely assimilated to the greater god that he has hardly an independent trait left. Mitra must have lost his individuality through the predominant characteristics of the god with whom he is almost invariably associated. Now, chiefly on the evidence of the Avesta, Mitra has been almost unanimously acknowledged to be a solar deity (§ 13). Varuṇa must therefore have originally represented a different phenomenon. This according to the generally received opinion, is the encompassing sky. The vault of heaven presents a phenomenon far more vast to the eye of the observer than the sun, which occupies but an extremely small portion of that expanse during its daily course. The sky would therefore appear to the imagination as the greater deity. The sun might very naturally become associated with the sky as the space which it traverses every day and apart from which it is never seen. The conception of the sun as the eye of heaven is sufficiently obvious. It could not very appropriately be termed the eye of Mitra till the original character of the latter had become obscured and absorbed in that of Varuṇa. Yet even the eye of Sūrya is several times spoken of in the RV. (p. 30). The attribute of ‘far-seeing’, appropriate to the sun, is also appropriate to the sky, which might naturally be conceived as seeing not only by day but even at night by means of the moon and stars. No real difficulty is presented by the notion of Varuṇa, who has become quite separate from his physical basis¹⁷, mounting a car in the height of heaven with Mitra. For such a conception is easily explicable from his association with a solar deity; besides every leading deity in the RV. drives in a car. On the other hand, the palace of Varuṇa in the highest heavens and his connexion with rain are particularly appropriate to a deity originally representing the vault of heaven. Finally, no natural phenomenon would be so likely to develope into a sovereign ruler, as the sky. For the personification of its vast expanse, which encompasses and rises far above the earth and on which the most striking phenomena of regular recurrence, the movements of the luminaries, are enacted, would naturally be conceived as watching by night and day all the deeds of men and as being the guardian of unswerving law. This development has indeed actually taken place in the case of the Zeus (= Dyaus) of Hellenic mythology. What was at first only an appellative of the sky has here become the supreme ruler of the gods dwelling in the serene heights of heaven, who gathers the clouds, who wields the thunderbolt, and whose will is law.