Page:The Mythology of the Aryan Nations.djvu/184

152 BOOK II. Moral aspects of Varuua, Dyaus wlio in the Vedic hymns is mentioned as having Prithivi for the mother of his children. The difference is, perhaps, only in appearance. Gaia is really wedded to Zeus not less than to Ouranos, if Demeter be but Gaia viewed as the mother of all living things. Varuna, then, as the solid heaven, which is spread over the earth, is strictly a creation of mythical speech and is embodied in a visible form. He sits on his throne, clothed in golden armour, and along with Mitra dwells in a palace which, like that of Helios, is supported by a thousand columns, while his messengers stand around to do his bidding. But his mythical characteristics are in the Rig Veda per- petually suggesting the idea of an unseen and almighty Being who has made all things and upholds them by his will. In many of the Vedic hymns we are carried altogether out of the region of mythology, and we see only the man communing directly with his Maker. In these hymns Varuna " dwells in all worlds as sovereign ; indeed, the three worlds are embraced within him. The wind which resounds through the firmament is his breath. He has placed the sun in the heaven, and opened up a boundless path for it to traverse. He has hollowed out the channels of the rivers. It is by his wise contrivance that, though all the rivers pour out their waters into the sea, the sea is never filled. By his ordinance the moon shines in the sky, and the stars which are visible by night disappear on the approach of day- light. Neither the birds flying in the air, nor the rivers in their sleepless flow, can attain a knowledge of his power or his wrath. His spies (or angels) behold both worlds. He himself has a thousand eyes. He knows the flight of birds in the sky, the path of ships on the sea, the course of the far-sweeping wind, and perceives all the hidden things that have been or shall be done." ^ All these are phrases which may be suggested directly by the phenomena of the heaven ; but the chariot in which Varuna is borne over the earth,^ is, Uke the eye of Zeus, lost in the purely spiritual thought of One who has no body and no passions, who, as seeing all things, sees also that which is evil, and who, as having nothing that is evil in himself, must punish and finally destroy it in the sinner. In ^ Muir, Frincipal Deities of R. K, 558. In a passage from the Atharva Veda, quoted by Dr. Muir, il/id., and Professor Max Midler, C/ii/>s, i. 42, the same thought is worked out in language wiiich is ])iucisely reproduced in the 139th Psahn, and which also carries us to expressions and sentences in the Sermon on the Mount, and in otlier parts of the New Testament. Tiie parallelism between the expressions of Aryan and Semitic monotheism is further traced out by M. Maury, Croyauees et Li'gendis de VAntiquite : — ' ' La Religion des Aryas." radiance at the break of day, and at sunset assumes the colour of iron." — Muir, ibid. 557.
 * This chariot "shines with a golden