Page:The Mythology of All Races Vol 6 (Indian and Iranian).djvu/47

Rh accident, is preserved only as degraded into a spell in the Atharvaveda (iv. 16), and thus rendered by Muir:

"The mighty Lord on high, our deeds, as if at hand, espies: The gods know all men do, though men would fain their deeds disguise. Whoever stands, whoever moves, or steals from place to place, Or hides him in his secret cell,—the gods his movements trace. Wherever two together plot, and deem they are alone, King Varuṇa is there, a third, and all their schemes are known. This earth is his, to him belong those vast and boundless skies; Both seas within him rest, and yet in that small pool he lies. Whoever far beyond the sky should think his way to wing, He could not there elude the grasp of Varuṇa the king. His spies descending from the skies glide all this world around, Their thousand eyes all-scanning sweep to earth's remotest bound. Whate'er exists in heaven and earth, whate'er beyond the skies, Before the eyes of Varuṇa, the king, unfolded lies. The ceaseless winkings all he counts of every mortal's eyes: He wields this universal frame, as gamester throws his dice. Those knotted nooses which thou fling'st, o god, the bad to snare,— All liars let them overtake, but all the truthful spare."

With Mitra Varuṇa is a barrier against falsehood, and in one passage he, together with Indra, is said to bind with bonds not made of rope. Mitra and Varuṇa hate, drive away, and punish falsehood, and they also afflict with disease those who neglect their worship. On the other hand, Varuṇa is gracious to the repentant sinner; like a rope he unties the sin committed and pardons the faults of the forefathers not less than those of the children. He is gracious to those who thoughtlessly break his ordinances. No hymn addressed to him fails to include a prayer for forgiveness. He can take away or prolong life by his thousand remedies; he is a guardian of immortality, and in the next world the righteous may hope to see Yama and Varuṇa. He is a friend to his worshipper and gazes on him with his mental eye.

Mention is often made of the ordinances of Varuṇa, which even the immortal gods cannot obstruct. Both he and Mitra are called "Lords of Ṛta," or "Holy Order," and "Upholders of Ṛta," an epithet which they share with the Ādityas or with