Page:The religions of India.djvu/56

16 Bralimanaspati personifies, and it is not without reason that he is sometimes confounded with Agni, and especially with Indra. In reality each separate god and the priest him- - selfi become Brahmanaspati at the moment when they pronounce the mantras which give them power over the things of heaven and of earth. The same idea, in a more abstract form, comes out in Yac, the sacred speech, which is represented as an infinite power, as superior to the gods, and as generative of all that exists.^ If we combine into one all the attributes of sovereign power and majesty which we find in the other gods, we will have the god Varttna} As is implied in the name, which is the same as the Greek Ovpavo^, Yaruna is the god of the vast luminous heavens, viewed as embracing all things, and as the primary source of all life and every blessing.* Indra, too, is a god of the heavens, and these two personalities do, in fact, coincide in many respects. There is, however, this difference between them, that Indra has, above all, appropriated the active, and, so to speak, militant life of heaven, while Yaruna represents rather its serene, immutable majesty. Nothing equals the magni- ficent terms in which the Hymns describe him. The sun is his eye, the sky is his garment, and the storm is his breath.^ It is he who keeps the heavens and the earth apart, and has established them on foundations that cannot be shaken; who has placed the stars in the firmament, who has given feet to the sun, and who has traced for the

X. II, 4; go, 9. Prayer is the weapon in the work of J. Darmesteter, of Brihaspati, ii. 24, 3, &c. ; it is also Ormazd et Ahriman, leurs Origines that of the Angiras. The brahman, et leur Histoire, 1877. See also the effective word, is devakrita, the the interesting monograph by A. work of the gods, vii. 97, 3 ; compare Hillebrandt, Yaruna und Mitra, ein the bellowing of Agni, of Varuna, of Beitrag zur Exegese des Veda, 1877, the celestial bull, the song of' Par- and R. Roth, Die hochsten Gotter des jauya and that of the Maruts. arischen Volke.s, ap. Zeitschr. der 1 Rig- Veda, iv. 50, 7. Deutsch. Morgenland. Gesellsch., t. 2 Rig- Veda, x. 125. vi. 70, 3 The myth of Varuna and the ^ Rig- Veda, vii. 87, 5 ; viii. 41, 3. whole of the conceptions which are ^ Rig- Veda, i. 115, i; 25, 13; Ath.- connected with it are the subject of Veda, xiii. 3, I ; Rig-Veda, vii. 87, 2. a study, as profound as brilliant,