janānām | madhuśchutaḥ śuchayaḥ—-| 4. Yāsu rājā Varuno yāsu Somo viśve devāḥ yāsu ūrjam madanti | Vaiśvānaro yāsu Agniḥ pravishtas tāḥ āpaḥ-139 "May the waters which are celestial, and those which flow, those for which channels are dug, and those which are self-produced, those which are proceeding to the ocean and are bright and purifying, preserve me! 3. May those (waters) in the midst of which king Varuna goes, beholding the truth and falsehood of men, which drop sweetness and are bright and purifying, preserve me! 4. May those waters in which Varuna, Soma, and all the gods are exhilarated by food, into which Agni Vaiśvānara has entered," etc. etc. vii. 64, 2. Ā rājānā mahaḥ ṛitasya gopā sindhupati kshatriyā yātam arvāk | iļām no Mitrāvarunā uta vṛishțim ava divaḥ invatam jīradānū |140 "Mitra and Varuna, ye two kings, protectors of the great ceremonial, strong lords of the sea (or of rivers) come hither; send us food and rain from the sky," etc. In the second of these texts, vii. 49, 3, the waters, in the midst of which Varuna is said to move, "beholding the truth and falsehood of men," seem to be rather aerial than oceanic, as the former, from their position above the earth, would appear to afford to the god (when anthropomorphically regarded) a more convenient post of observation than the latter. And in vii. 64, 2, the epithet sindhupati, "lords of the sea," (or "of rivers," nadyāḥ pālayitārau, Sāyaṇa), is applied not only to Varuna but to Mitra also, who is not, that I am aware of, ever connected with the sea, even in later mythology. If we add to this, that these two gods are here solicited to send food and rain from the sky, it may result that they are called sindhupati, as supplying the aerial waters by which terrestrial streams are filled. On the other hand the 2nd verse of the hymn just quoted, vii. 49, 2, with which however Varuna is not directly connected, must be understood (as Professor Müller remarks, Transl. of R. V. i. p. 46) of terrestrial waters. Though, as we have seen above, Sayana does not generally style Varuna the god of the sea, but, in conformity with older conceptions, the deity who presides over the night, he does, in his explanation of 139 See Prof. Müller's remarks on the word samudra, Trans. of R.V. i. 44 ff. where this verse is quoted and translated. 140 Taitt. S. vi. 4, 3, 3, says: Mitrāvaruṇau vai apām netārau | "Mitra and Varuna are the leaders of the waters." R.V. i. 161, 14, and viii. 58, 12, call him the jalābhimānī devaḥ, "the deity presiding over the waters." In viii. 41, 8, Varuna appears to be called a hidden ocean (samudro apichyaḥ). viii. 58, 12. Sudevo asi Varuna yasya te sapta sindhavaḥ | anuksharanti kākudam sūrmyam sushirām iva | "Thou art a glorious god, Varuna, into whose jaws the seven rivers flow, as into a surging abyss." 141 Varuna is also connected with the sea or with the rivers, which he is said to inhabit, as soma (the plant) does the woods, in ix. 90, 2 (vanā vasāno Varuno na sindhun); and in Vaj. Sanh. x. 7, it is said that "Varuna, the child of the waters, made his abode within the most motherly waters as in his home" (Pastyāsu chakre Varunaḥ sadhastham apām śiśur matṛitamāsu antaḥ). See also the third verse of the sixteenth hymn of the A.V. quoted above. In the following texts of the Atharva-veda, Varuna is connected with the waters : A.V. iii. 3, 3. Adbhyas tvā rājā Varuno hvayatu somas tvā hvayatu parvatebhyah "May king Varuna call thee from the waters, and Soma from the mountains." iv. 15, 12. Apo nishinchann asuraḥ pitā naḥ śvasantu gargarāḥ apām̃ Varuna "Our divine father shedding the waters-may the streams of water breathe, o Varuna." v. 24, 4. Varuno 'pām adhipatiḥ | 5. Mitrāvarunau vṛishtyāḥ adhipati | "Varuna the lord of the waters." 5. "Mitra and Varuna the lords of rain." vii. 83. 1. Apsu te rājan Varuna griho hiranyayo mitaḥ | "Thy golden house, o Varuna, is in the waters." 142 141 See Roth's Illustrations of Nirukta, pp. 70 f. 142 The Taitt. S. v. 5, 4, 1, says: apo Varunasya patnayaḥ asan | tā Agnir abhyadhyāyat | tāḥ samabhavat | tasya retaḥ parāpatat | tad iyam abhavat | yad dvitīyam parāpatat tad asāv abhavat | iyam vai virāḍ asau svarāṭ | “The waters are the wives of Varuna. Agni regarded them with desire. He consorted with them. His seed fell. It became this (earth). That which fell the second time became that (sky). This (earth) is viraj, that (sky) is svarāj." The Varaha Purana, sect. 121 (Aufrecht, Catal. p. 596) speaks of Varuna being universally known as the guardian of the ocean (sarve lokāḥ hi jānanti Varuṇaḥ pāti sāgaram). The Skanda Purana, sect. 12 (Aufrecht, Cat. p. 69a), relates that Varuna was formerly the son of Kardama, and bore the name of S'uchishmat; and that he is said to have obtained the sovereignty of the sea by worshipping S'iva. (10) Explanations by Professors Roth and Westergaard of the process by which Varuna came to be regarded as the regent of the sea. Professor Roth gives (in a paper read in October, 1851, and published in the Journal of the German Oriental Society, vi. 73) the following statement of the process by which he conceives that Varuna came in later times to be regarded as the god of the sea. "The hymns of the Veda give already indications of this development, since Varuna is in one place brought into the same connection with the waves of the sea, as Storm and Wind are with the atmosphere and the heaven, and as Agni is with the earth (i. 161, 14, translated above), and it is elsewhere said of him that he sinks into the sea (vii. 87, 6), while in another passage the rivers are described as streaming towards him (viii. 58, 12). When, on the one hand, the conception of Varuna as the all-embracing heaven had been established, and, on the other hand, the observation of the rivers flowing towards the ends of the earth and to the sea had led to the conjecture that there existed an ocean enclosing the earth in its bosom, then the way was thoroughly prepared for connecting Varuna with the ocean. Another side of the affinity between the celestial and oceanic Varuna may be expressed in the words of Alexander von Humboldt, which perfectly coincide with the ancient Indian view: 'The two envelopments of the solid surface of our planet, viz., the aqueous and the atmospheric, offer many analogies to each other, in their mobility, in the phenomena of their temperature, and in the fact that their parts admit of being displaced: the depth both of the ocean and of the atmosphere is unknown to us."" On the same subject Professor Westergaard remarks (in a paper originally published in 1852, and translated by Professor Spiegel from the Danish, and published in Weber's Indische Studien, vol. iii.): "The Zend word Varena corresponds also etymologically, on the one hand, to the Greek oúpavós, and, on the other, to the Indian Varuna, a name which in the Vedas is assigned to the god who reigns in the furthest regions of the heaven, where air and sea are, as it were, blended; on which account he has, in the later Indian mythology, become god of the sea, whilst in the Vedas he appears first as the mystic lord of the evening and the night." And he adds: "Possibly the Iranian Varena, in opposition to Yima's home on the remotest mountains of the east, denotes, originally, the distant western region of the heaven and the air, where, every evening, the sun and light conceal themselves, and so much the rather as the epithet Varenya, derived from Varena, is in the Zenda-vesta applied only to the evil spirits of darkness" (p. 415 f.). (11) Correspondence of Varuna with the Greek Oupavós. We have already seen that Varuna corresponds in name to the Οὐρανός of the Greeks. "Uranos," as Professor Müller observes, 143 "in the language of Hesiod, is used as a name for the sky; he is made or born that he should be a firm place for the blessed gods.' 14 It is said twice that Uranos covers everything (v. 127), and that when he brings the night, he is stretched out everywhere, embracing the earth.145 This sounds almost as if the Greek mythe had still preserved a recollection of the etymological power of Uranos. For Uranos is in the Sanskrit Varuna, and is derived from a root, Var, to cover; Varuna being in the Veda also a name of the firmament, but especially connected with the night, and opposed to Mitra, the day." The parallel between the Greek Uranos and the Indian Varuna does not, as we have already seen, hold in all points. There is not in the Vedic mythology any special relation between Varuna and Prithivī, the Earth, as husband and wife, as there is between Uranos and Gaia in the theogony of Hesiod; nor is Varuna represented in the Veda, as Uranos is by the Greek poet, as the progenitor of Dyaus (Zeus), except in the general way in which he is said to have formed and to preserve heaven and earth. 143 Oxford Essays for 1856, p. 41; Chips, ii. 65. 144 Hesiod Theog. 126: Γαλα δέ τοι πρῶτον μὲν ἐγείνατο ἴσον ἑαυτῇ 145 Ibid, v. 176 :— Compare Ait. Br. iv. 27, quoted above. Ἦλθε δὲ Νύκτ ̓ ἐπάγων μέγας Οὐρανός, ἀμφὶ δὲ Γαίῃ (12) Varuna, as represented in the hymns, a metrical sketch. Lo, reared of old by hands divine, High towers in heaven a palace fair; A thousand portals round it shine. Within, enthroned in godlike state, To work his will, with reverent mien, When I beheld this vision bright, I deemed the god was clad in flame,- Each morn, when Ushas starts from sleep, He mounts his car, which gleams with gold: All worlds before him lie unrolled, As o'er the sky his coursers sweep. He, righteous lord, the sceptre wields, His law both men and gods obey; He spread the earth and watery waste; In him the worlds are all embraced. By his decree the radiant moon Moves through the nightly sky serene, And planets sparkle round their queen;-* But whither have they fled at noon? * In Indian mythology the moon is a god, not a goddess; but I have in this line adhered to customary English poetical phraseology. |