Page:The Mythology of All Races Vol 6 (Indian and Iranian).djvu/42

22 with Mitra ("Sun") he mounts his shining car; in the highest heaven they abide in a golden mansion, with a thousand pillars and a thousand doors; and the all-seeing Sun, rising from his abode, goes to the dwellings of Mitra and Varuṇa to tell of the deeds of men; the eye of Mitra and Varuṇa is the sun, and Varuṇa has a thousand eyes. Both gods have fair hands, and Varuṇa treads down wiles with shining foot. Yet no myths are told of him, and the deeds ascribed to him are all intended to show his power as a ruler. He is lord of all, both gods and men—not only an independent ruler, a term more often given to Indra, but a universal ruler, an epithet used also of Indra, though peculiarly Varuṇa's. Moreover, the terms Kṣatriya ("Ruler") and Asura ("Deity") are his, the first almost exclusively, and the second predominantly. As Asura he possesses, in company with Mitra, the māyā, or occult power, wherewith they send the dawns, make the sun to cross the sky, obscure it with cloud and rain, or cause the heavens to rain. The worlds are supported by Varuṇa and Mitra; Varuṇa made the golden swing (the sun) to shine in the heaven and placed fire in the waters; the wind is his breath. He establishes the morning and the evening; through him the moon moves and the stars shine at night; he regulates the months of the year. He is only rarely connected with the sea, for the Ṛgveda knows little of the ocean, but his occult power keeps the ever-flowing rivers from filling it up. Despite this, Varuṇa and Mitra are greatly concerned with the waters of the atmosphere and make the rain to fall; they have kine yielding refreshment and streams flowing with honey.

So great is Varuṇa that neither the flying birds nor the flowing rivers can reach the limit of his dominion, his might, and his wrath. The three heavens and the three earths alike are deposited in him; he knows the flight of the birds in the sky, the path of the ships, the track of the wind, and all secret things. The omniscience and omnipotence, no less than the omnipresence, of Varuṇa receive admirable expression in a hymn which, by