common, every-day fire, so, too, in the epic this god is the material flame, and as such even performs his greatest deeds for his worshippers.  He takes on every form, even becoming a priest, and a dove.  He remains the priest of the gods, but his day of action in war is over.  He no longer wins battles.  But he burns down a forest to aid his party.  For the Vedic gods are now but weak partizans of the combatants.  In the sectarian parts of the epic Agni is only a puppet.  His new representative, Skanda, is the chief battle-god, a name almost unknown before.  He himself is either the son of Vishnu or a form of Civa.  He is the All-god, the [=a]tm[=a].  It is he who burns the world when the time shall have come for the general destruction.

The high and mighty Varuna of the Rig Veda is no longer great.  He is no longer serene.  He descends and fights on earth.  Indra, too, battles with Vritra as of old, but he is quite anthropomorphic, and of no marked value in the contest of heroes.  Not only this, but all the gods together are represented as weaker than a good hero, not to speak of a priestly ascetic.  In a word, the gods are believed in, but with what a belief!  They no longer, as natural powers, inspire special respect.  Their nature-origin is for the most part lost.  They are thoroughly anthropomorphic.  Even S[=u]rya, the sun, in action if not in laudation, is often more man than god.  This gives a strange effect to the epic battle-scenes as compared with those of Homer.  Unless Vishnu is active on the field the action is essentially human.  No great god or goddess stands ready to save the fainting warrior.  He fights and falls alone.  Save for the caresses and plaudits of the half-gods, the most that the Vedic gods can do is to wipe away the sweat from the hero’s brow.[12] The All-god does not take the place of the band of watchful and helpful gods pictured by Homer.  Vishnu fights on the field; he saves only his proteges, and much as a mortal warrior would do it.  But the Vedic gods hang like a mist upon the edge of battle, and are all but idle spectators of the scene.  Abstractions, as well as the All-god, have routed them, and Dharma or Duty is a greater god than Indra.  But there is an older side to this, as we shall presently show.  On the moral side the heroes of the epic profess great belief in the power and awfulness of this god Duty.  And so far as go rules of chivalry, they are theoretically moral.  Practically they are savage, and their religion does not interfere with their brutal barbarity.  The tendency to cite divine instances of sin as excuse for committing it is, however, rebuked:  “One should neither practice nor blame the (wrong) acts of gods and seers,” xii. 292. 17-18.