TO VARUNA.

“I will sing forth unto the universal king a high deep prayer, dear to renowned Varuna, who, as a butcher a hide, has struck earth apart (from the sky) for the sun.  Varuna has extended air in trees, strength in horses, milk in cows, and has laid wisdom in hearts; fire in water; the sun in the sky; soma in the stone.  Varuna has inverted his water-barrel and let the two worlds with the space between flow (with rain).  With this (heavenly water-barrel) he, the king of every created thing, wets the whole world, as a rain does a meadow.  He wets the world, both earth and heaven, when he, Varuna, chooses to milk out (rain)—­and then do the mountains clothe themselves with cloud, and even the strongest men grow weak.  Yet another great and marvellous power of the renowned spirit (Asura) will I proclaim, this, that standing in mid-air he has measured earth with the sun, as if with a measuring rod. (It is due to) the marvellous power of the wisest god, which none ever resisted, that into the one confluence run the rivers, and pour into it, and fill it not.  O Varuna, loosen whatever sin we have committed to bosom-friend, comrade, or brother; to our own house, or to the stranger; what (we) have sinned like gamblers at play, real (sin), or what we have not known.  Make loose, as it were, all these things, O god Varuna, and may we be dear to thee hereafter.”

In this hymn Varuna is a water-god, who stands in mid-air and directs the rain; who, after the rain, reinstates the sun; who releases from sin (as water does from dirt?).  According to this conception it would seem that Varuna were the ‘coverer’ rather than the ‘encompasser.’  It might seem probable even that Varuna first stood to Dyaus as cloud and rain and night to shining day, and that his counterpart, (Greek:  Hohyranhos), stood in the same relation to (Greek:  Zehys); that were connecte(Greek:  Hohyranhos)d with (Greek:  hyrheo) and Varuna with vari, river, v[=a]ri, water.[76]

It is possible, but it is not provable.  But no interpretation of Varuna that ignores his rainy side can be correct.  And this is fully recognized by Hillebrandt.  On account of his “thousand spies,” i.e., eyes, he has been looked upon by some as exclusively a night-god.  But this is too one-sided an interpretation, and passes over the all-important, fact that it is only in conjunction with the sun (Mitra), where there is a strong antithesis, that the night-side of the god is exclusively displayed.  Wholly a day-god he cannot be, because he rules night and rain.  He is par excellence the Asura, and, like Ahura Mazdao, has the sun for an eye, i.e., he is heaven.  But there is no Varuna in Iranian worship and Ahura is a sectarian specialization.  Without this name may one ascribe to India what is found in Iran?[77] It has been suggested by Bergaigne that Varuna and Vritra, the rain-holding demon, were developments from the same idea, one revered as a god, the other, a demon; and that the word means ‘restrainer,’ rather than ‘encompasser.’