Indian Myth and Legend

by Donald A. Mackenzie

To the gods Mitra and Varuna let our praise go forth with power, with all reverence, to the two of mighty race.

These did the gods establish in royal power over themselves, because they were wise and the children of wisdom, and because they excelled in power.

They are protectors of hearth and home, of life and strength; Mitra and Varuna, prosper the mediations of your worshippers....

As the sun rises to-day do I salute Mitra and Varuna, and glorious Aryaman.... The blessings of heaven are our desire....

Prof. Arnold's translation.

In Babylonian mythology the sun is the offspring of the moon. The Semitic name of the sun god is Samas (Shamash), the Sumerian name is Utu; among other non-Semitic names was Mitra, “apparently the Persian Mithra”. The bright deity also “bears the names of his attendants ‘Truth’ and ‘Righteousness’, who guided him upon his path as judge of the earth”.[83]

It may be that the Indian Mitra was originally a sun god; the religion of the sun god Mithra spread into Europe. “Dedications to Mithra the Unconquered Sun have been found in abundance.”[84] Vedic references suggest that Mitra had become a complex god in the pre-Vedic Age, being probably associated with a group of abstract deities—his attributes symbolized—who are represented by the Adityas. The Mitra-Varuna group of Celestials were the source of all heavenly gifts; they regulated sun and moon, the winds and waters and the seasons. If we assume that they were of Babylonian or Sumerian origin—deities imported by a branch of Aryan settlers who had been in contact with Babylonian civilization—their rivalry with the older Aryan gods, Indra and Agni, can be understood. Ultimately they were superseded, but the influence exercised by their cult remained and left its impress upon later Aryan religious thought.

The Assyrian word “metru” signifies rain.[85] The quickening rain which caused the growth of vegetation was, of course, one of the gifts of the Celestials of the firmament. It is of interest to note, therefore, in this connection that Professor Frazer includes the western Mithra among the “corn gods”. Dealing with Mithraic sculptures, which apparently depict Mithra as the sacrificer of the harvest bull offering, he says: “On certain of these monuments the tail of the bull ends in three stalks of corn, and in one of them cornstalks instead of blood are seen issuing from the wound inflicted by the knife”.[86]

Commenting on the Assyrian “metru” Professor Moulton says: “If this is his (Mithra's) origin, we get a reasonable basis for the Avestan (Early Persian and Aryan) use of the word to denote a ‘contract’, as also for the fact that the deity is in the Avesta patron of Truth and in the Veda of Friendship. He is ‘the Mediator’ between Heaven and Earth, as the firmament was by its position, both in nature and mythology: an easy corollary is his function of regulating the relations of man and man.”

The character of an imported deity is always influenced by localization and tribal habits. Pastoral nomads would therefore have emphasized the friendliness of Mithra, who sent rain to cause the growth of grass on sun-parched steppes. Both Mithra and Varuna had their dwelling-place in the sea of heaven, the waters “above the firmament” from which the rain descended. Ultimately the Indian Mitra vanished, being completely merged in Varuna, who became the god of ocean after the Aryans reached the sea coast. In post-Vedic sacred literature the priestly theorists, in the process of systematizing their religious beliefs, taught that a great conflict took place between the gods and demons. When order was restored, the various deities were redistributed. Indra remained the atmospheric god of battle, and Varuna became the god of ocean, where, as the stern judge and lawgiver and the punisher of wrongdoers, he kept watch over the demons. In the “Nala and Damayanti” epic narrative, the four “world guardians” are: Indra, king of the gods; Agni, god of fire; Varuna, god of waters; and Yama, judge of the dead.