The Origin of Thought and Speech

by M. Moncalm

“He who should flee far beyond the sky—even he would not be rid of Varuna, the king. King Varuna sees all this, what is between heaven and earth, and what is beyond. This earth, too, belongs to Varuna, the king, and this wide sky with its ends far apart. The two seas are Varuna’s loins; he is also contained in this small drop of water.”

“The great lord of these worlds sees as if he were near: if a man stands or walks, if he goes to lie down or to get up, if he thinks he is walking by stealth, the god Varuna knows it all. What two people sitting together whisper, King Varuna knows it, he is there as the third.”[96]

The prayers of the rishis overflow with the acknowledgment of their sins, and their belief that the gods have the power to deliver them from the burden of their faults.

“Let me not yet, O Varuna, enter into the house of clay (earth). Have mercy, Almighty, have mercy. If I move along trembling, like a cloud driven by the wind, have mercy. Through want of strength, have I gone astray, thou strong and bright god, have mercy. Thirst came upon the worshipper, though he stood in the midst of the waters—have mercy, Almighty, have mercy.”[97]

It is noticeable that in the Hindoo mind the sun, in its many manifestations, is sometimes synonymous with the firmament: Indra, as the illuminator of the zenith; Savitar, as the bestower of life; Mitra, as the friend of humanity; the indefatigable Agni, so modest but so active, in cooking the food and smelting iron, so powerful when it bears the smoke of the sacrifices heavenwards, and so exalted when it takes its place in the sun and descends in the form of lightning; and the spacious firmament which holds them all in its bosom; they are all one to the adorer of the divine powers; all are equally marvellous, it is a galaxy of brilliance. What innumerable gods, and not one to whom it could be said, “Deliver us from evil.”

Urged on by an irresistible curiosity the rishis ceaselessly probe into the unknown and the distant.

“Beyond the sky, beyond the earth, beyond the Devas and the Asuras, what was the first germ which the waters bore, wherein all gods were seen? The waters bore that first germ in which all the gods came together. That one thing in which all creatures rested was placed in the lap of the unborn. You will never know him who created these things, something else stands between you and Him. Enveloped in mist and with faltering voices, the poets walk along rejoicing in life.”[98]

How was it that in the midst of the magnificence of their immense Pantheon, the poets succeeded in obtaining glimpses of the One. Who was He? The mists surround Him and prevent Him being clearly discerned.

If there was one thing in nature more adapted than another to satisfy the desire of bridging over the limits of the visible world, it was certainly the vault of heaven; above the storms and clouds which are temporary, beyond all that is changeable; amongst all the changing objects which meet the eyes, surely the firmament was the most exalted, the most extended, and immovable. We know the genealogy of the name of the sky, Dyaus, which enables us to trace the transformations and subsequent applications; and as we advance we shall glean some particulars of that science which at a later date was called grammar.

It is known that in the Aryan languages some of the oldest words are without gender; speaking grammatically, pater is not a masculine, nor mater a feminine; nor do the oldest words for river, mountain, tree, or sky, disclose any outward sign of grammatical gender. But though without any signs of gender, all ancient nouns expressed activity. The distinction of gender began, not with the introduction of masculine nouns, but with the setting apart of certain derivative suffixes for feminine words; thus when bona was introduced, bonus became masculine; when puella could be applied to a girl, puer, which formerly meant both boy and girl, became restricted to the meaning of boy. Therefore, whenever it happens that we have a female representative of a natural phenomenon by the side of a male, the female may almost always be taken as the later form. This rule, which has been strictly applied to the name of Dyaus, dates from so remote a time that its origin is lost in the mists of ages.