He is physically great, and physically he is father, as is Earth mother, but he is religiously great only in the Hellenic-Italic circle, where exists no Uranos-cult[26].  Rather is it apparent that the Greek raised Zeus, as did the Slav Bhaga, to his first head of the pantheon.  Now when one sees that in the Vedic period Varuna is the type of [=A]dityas, to which belong Bhaga and Mitra as distinctly less important personages, it is plain that this can mean only that Varuna has gradually been exalted to his position at the expense of the other gods.  Nor is there perfect uniformity between Persian and Hindu conceptions.  Asura in the Veda is not applied to Varuna alone.  But in the Avesta, Ahura is the one great spirit, and his six spirits are plainly a protestant copy and modification of Varuna and his six underlings.  This, then, can mean—­which stands in concordance with the other parallels between the two religions—­only that Zarathustra borrows the Ahura idea from the Vedic Aryans at a time when Varuna was become superior to the other gods, and when the Vedic cult is established in its second phase[27].  To this fact points also the evidence that shows how near together geographically were once the Hindus and Persians.  Whether one puts the place of separation at the Kabul or further to the north-west is a matter of indifference.  The Persians borrow the idea of Varuna Asura, whose eye is the sun.  They spiritualize this, and create an Asura unknown to other nations.

Of von Bradke’s attempt to prove an original Dyaus Asura we have said nothing, because the attempt has failed signally.  He imagines that the epithet Asura was given to Dyaus in the Indo-Iranian period, and that from a Dyaus Pitar Asura the Iranians made an abstract Asura, while the Hindus raised the other gods and depressed Dyaus Pitar Asura; whereas it is quite certain that Varuna (Asura) grew up, out, and over the other Asuras, his former equals.

And yet it is almost a pity to spend time to demonstrate that Varuna-worship was not monotheistic originally.  We gladly admit that, even if not a primitive monotheistic deity, Varuna yet is a god that belongs to a very old period of Hindu literature.  And, for a worship so antique, how noble is the idea, how exalted is the completed conception of him!  Truly, the Hindus and Persians alone of Aryans mount nearest to the high level of Hebraic thought.  For Varuna beside the loftiest figure in the Hellenic pantheon stands like a god beside a man.  The Greeks had, indeed, a surpassing aesthetic taste, but in grandeur of religious ideas even the daring of Aeschylus becomes but hesitating bravado when compared with the serene boldness of the Vedic seers, who, first of their race, out of many gods imagined God.