This Vāta let us now with offerings worship.
Another deity of air is Parjanya, god of rain, who is invoked in but three hymns, and is only mentioned some thirty times in the Rigveda. The name in several passages still means simply “rain-cloud.” The personification is therefore always closely connected with the phenomenon of the rain-storm, in which the rain-cloud itself becomes an udder, a pail, or a water-skin. Often likened to a bull, Parjanya is characteristically a shedder of rain. His activity is described in very vivid strains (v. 83):—
The trees he strikes to earth and smites the demon crew:
The whole world fears the wielder of the mighty bolt.
The guiltless man himself flees from the potent god,
What time Parjanya thund’ring smites the miscreant.
Like a car-driver urging on his steeds with whips,
He causes to bound forth the messengers of rain.
From far away the lion’s roar reverberates,
What time Parjanya fills the atmosphere with rain.