Only one of the great atmospheric deities, the gods that preeminently govern the middle sphere between sky and earth, can claim an Aryan lineage.  One of the minor gods of the same sphere, the ancient rain-god, also has this antique dignity, but in his case the dignity already is impaired by the strength of a new and greater rival.  In the case of the wind-god, on the other hand, there is preserved a deity who was one of the primitive pantheon, belonging, perhaps, not only to the Iranians, but to the Teutons, for V[=a]ta, Wind, may be the Scandinavian Woden.  The later mythologists on Indian soil make a distinction between V[=a]ta, wind, and V[=a]yu (from the same root; as in German wehen) and in this distinction one discovers that the old V[=a]ta, who must have been once the wind-god, is now reduced to physical (though sentient) wind, while the newer name represents the higher side of wind as a power lying back of phenomena; and it is this latter conception alone that is utilized in the formation of the Vedic triad of wind, fire, and sun.  In short, in the use and application of the two names, there is an exact parallel to the double terminology employed to designate the sun as S[=u]rya and Savitar.  Just as S[=u]rya is the older [Greek:  helios] and sol (acknowledged as a god, yet palpably the physical red body in the sky) contrasted with the interpretation which, by a newer name (Savitar), seeks to differentiate the (sentient) physical from the spiritual, so is V[=a]ta, Woden, replaced and lowered by the loftier conception of V[=a]yu.  But, again, just as, when the conception of Savitar is formed, the spiritualizing tendency reverts to S[=u]rya, and makes of him, too, a figure reclothed in the more modern garb of speech, which is invented for Savitar alone; so the retroactive theosophic fancy, after creating V[=a]yu as a divine power underlying phenomenal V[=a]ta, reinvests V[=a]ta also with the garments of V[=a]yu.  Thus, finally, the two, who are the result of intellectual differentiation, are again united from a new point of view, and S[=u]rya or Savitar, V[=a]yu or V[=a]ta, are indifferently used to express respectively the whole completed interpretation of the divinity, which is now visible and invisible, sun and sun-god, wind and wind-god.  In these pairs there is, as it were, a perspective of Hindu theosophy, and one can trace the god, as a spiritual entity including the physical, back to the physical prototype that once was worshipped as such alone.

In the Rig Veda there are three complete hymns to Wind, none of these being in the family books.  In x. 186, the poet calls on Wind to bring health to the worshipper, and to prolong his life.  He addresses Wind as ‘father and brother and friend,’ asking the power that blows to bring him ambrosia, of which Wind has a store.  These are rather pretty verses without special theological intent, addressed more to Wind as such than to a spiritual power.  The other hymn from the same book is directed to V[=a]ta also, not to V[=a]yu, and though it is loftier in tone and even speaks of V[=a]ta as the soul of the gods, yet is it evident that no consistent mythology has worked upon the purely poetic phraseology, which is occupied merely with describing the rushing of a mighty wind (x. 168).  Nevertheless, V[=a]ta is worshipped, as is V[=a]yu, with oblations.