Page:The Religion of the Veda.djvu/144

 128 The Religion of the Veda

U.

ﬁre, is “ scion of the rm,” or “ ﬁrst—born of the rm." He performs his work with ﬂat, carries oblations to the gods “ on the path of star.” Prayers, lowing like cattle,“ longing for the mama-drink,” take effect in accordance with ﬂat.“ A ﬁgure of Speech, bold to the point of grotesqueness, turns prayer into “Tm..- ﬁuid, distilled by the tongue.” Holy sacriﬁce, in distinction from foul magic, is performed with rm: “ I call upon the gods, undeﬁlod by Witchcraft. With yrs I perform any work, carry out my thought.” Thus exclaims a poetic mind conscious of its own reotitudefI

Finally in man’s activity the gym manifests itself as the moral law. Here it takes by the hand the closely kindred idea of truth, safycz. Untruth, on the other hand, is earns, more rarely amtycz, the same two words with preﬁx of negation. The two words mz‘ya and alarm form a close dual compound, “truth and lie,” “sincerity and falsehood,” both zealously watched over by God Varuna.‘ They remain the standard WOI‘dS for these twin opposites for all Hindu time... Varuna is the real trustee of the are. When God Agni struggles towards the rm he is said in a remarkable passage to become for the time being God Varuna.“

1 Rig-Veda 9. 94. 2. “Haiti, 9. 75. 2.. 3 ma, 7. 34. 8. 4 ma, 7. 49. 3. 5 1451's., It). 8. 5.

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