Page:The Mythology of All Races Vol 6 (Indian and Iranian).djvu/48

24 the gods in general. They are also termed "Guardians of Holy Order," a term used likewise of Agni and Soma, and "Followers of Holy Order," an epithet given predominantly to Agni. This "Order" must, therefore, be regarded as something higher even than Varuṇa, and it is clearly the Asha of the Avesta. Its first aspect is cosmic order: the dawns shine in accordance with Ṛta and rise from Ṛta's abode; the sun, with the twelve spokes of his wheel (the months), moves in accord with Ṛta; it is Ṛta that gives the white cooked milk to the red raw cow. The sacrifice is under the guardianship of Ṛta; Agni is the observer of it and is its first-born. Prayers take effect in accordance with Ṛta, and the pious sacrificer claims that, discarding witchcraft, he offers with Ṛta. In the sphere of man Ṛta is a moral order and, as truth, it stands in perpetual opposition to untruth. When Agni strives toward Ṛta, he is said to become Varuṇa himself; when Yama and Yamī contend on the question whether incest may be allowed to the first pair of mankind, it is to Ṛta that Yama appeals against his sister's persuasions. The same features mark Ṛta in the Avesta, and the antiquity of the concept may be very great. Unlike the Greek Moira, or Fate, we never find Ṛta coming into definite conflict with the will or wish of the gods, and the constant opposition of Anṛta ("Disorder") shows that the idea is rather one of norm or ideal than of controlling and overriding fate. This may be due to the transfer of Ṛta to the moral from the physical world, or to the fact that, even as applied to the physical world, full necessity of cause and effect was not accepted.

It is perfectly clear that Varuṇa corresponds in character and in the epithet Asura too closely with Ahura Mazda, the great deity of the Iranians, to be other than in the nearest relation to him, nor can there be much real doubt that the physical basis of the god is the broad sky. Mitra is, indeed, so faint a figure apart from him that it would be difficult to be certain that he is the sun, were it not for the undoubted solar nature of the Persian Mithra. Yet if Mitra is the sun, the sky is nat-