His messengers descend
Countless from his abode—for ever traversing
This world and scanning with a thousand eyes its inmates.
Whate'er exists within this earth, and all within the sky,
Yea, all that is beyond, King Varuna perceives....
May thy destroying snares, cast sevenfold round the wicked,
Entangle liars, but the truthful spare, O King!
Rigveda, iv, 16.[81]
In contrast to the devotional spirit pervading the Varuna hymns is the attitude adopted by Indra's worshippers; the following prayer to the god of battle is characteristic:—
O Indra, grant the highest, best of treasures,
A judging mind, prosperity abiding,
Riches abundant, lasting health of body,
The grace of eloquence and days propitious.
Rigveda, ii, 21. 6.
The sinner's fear of Varuna prompted him to seek the aid of other gods. Rudra and the Moon are addressed:
O remove ye the sins we have sinned,
What evil may cling to us sever
With bolts and sharp weapons, kind friends,
And gracious be ever.
From the snare of Varuna deliver us, ward us,
Ye warm-hearted gods, O help us and guard us.
Associated with Varuna was the God Mitra (the Persian Mithra). These deities are invariably coupled and belong to the early Iranian period. Much controversy has been waged over their pre-Vedic significance. Some have regarded Mithra as the firmament by day with its blazing and fertilizing sun, and Varuna as the many-eyed firmament of night, in short, the twin forms of Dyaus. Prof. E. V. Arnold has shown, however, that in the Vedas, Mithra has no solar significance except in his association with Agni. The fire god, as we have seen, symbolized the principle of fertility in Nature: he was the “vital spark” which caused the growth of “all herbs”, as well as the illuminating and warmth-giving flames of sun and household hearth.
Mitra as Mithra with Varuna, and a third vague god, Aryaman, belong to an early group of equal deities called the Adityas, or “Celestial deities”. “It would seem that the worship of these deities”, says Prof. Arnold, “was already decaying in the earliest Vedic period, and that many of them were then falling into oblivion.... In a late Vedic hymn we find that Indra boasts that he has dethroned Varuna, and invites Agni to enter his own service instead. We may justly infer from all these circumstances that the worship of the ‘celestials’ occupied at one time in the history of the race a position of greater importance than its place in the Rigveda directly suggests.”[82]
The following extracts from a Mitra-Varuna hymn indicate the attitude of the early priests towards the “Celestial deities”:—