The Religions of India Part 9

[Footnote 48: I.22.17, etc; 154 ff.; VII. too.]

[Footnote 49: VII. 100. 5-6. Vishnu (may be the epithet of Indra in I.61.7) means winner (?),]

[Footnote 50: VI. 69; VII. 99. But Vishnu is ordered about by Indra (IV. 18. 11; VIII. 89. 12).]

[Footnote 51: I.154. 5. In II. 1. 3, Vishnu is one with Fire (Agni).]

[Footnote 52: Thus, for example, Vishnu in the Hindu trinity, the separate wors.h.i.+p of the sun in modern sects, and in the cult of the hill-men.]

[Footnote 53: X. 149.]

[Footnote 54: II.41.20.]

[Footnote 55: vi.70.]

[Footnote 56: I.160.4; IV. 56.1-3; VII. 53. 2.]

[Footnote 57: I. 185. 8. _(J[=a]spati)._ The expiatory power of the hymn occurs again in I. 159.]

[Footnote 58: I. 185. 1.]

[Footnote 59: IV. 56. 7.]

[Footnote 60: I. 22. 15.]

[Footnote 61: X. 18. 10 (or: "like a wool-soft maiden").]

[Footnote 62: The lightning. In I. 31. 4, 10 "(Father) Fire makes Dyaus bellow" like "a bull" (v. 36. 5). Dyaus "roars"

in vi. 72. 3. Nowhere else is he a thunderer.]

[Footnote 63: 1. 24. 7-8. The change in metaphor is not unusual.]

[Footnote 64: This word means either order or orders (law); literally the 'way' or 'course.']

[Footnote 65: 1. 24 (epitomized).]

[Footnote 66: Perhaps better with Ludwig "of (thee) in anger, of (thee) incensed."]

[Footnote 67: Or: "Being (himself) in the (heavenly) flood he knows the s.h.i.+ps." (Ludwig.)]

[Footnote 68: An intercalated month is meant (not the primitive 'twelve days').]

[Footnote 69: Or 'very wise,' of mental strength.]

[Footnote 70: VIII. 41. 7; VII. 82. 6 (Bergaigne); X. 132.

4.]

[Footnote 71: Compare Bergaigne, _La Religion Vedique_, iii.

pp. 116-118.]

[Footnote 72: The insistence on the holy seven, the 'secret names' of dawn, the confusion of Varuna with Trita. Compare, also, the refrain, viii. 39-42. For X. 124, see below.]

[Footnote 73: Compare Hillebrandt's Varuna and Mitra, p. 5; and see our essay on the Holy Numbers of the Rig Veda (in the _Oriental Studies_).]

[Footnote 74: Varuna's forgiving of sins may be explained as a was.h.i.+ng out of sin, just as fire burns it out, and so loosens therewith the imagined bond, V. 2. 7. Thus, quite apart from Varuna in a hymn addressed to the 'Waters,' is found the prayer, "O waters, carry off whatever sin is in me ... and untruth," I. 23. 22.]

[Footnote 75: But as in iv. 42, so in x. 124 he shares glory with Indra.]

[Footnote 76: Later, Varuna's water-office is his only physical side. Compare [=A]it. [=A]r. II. I. 7. 7, 'water and Varuna, children of mind.' Compare with _v[=a]ri, oura_ = _v[=a]ra_, and _var[=i]_, an old word for rivers, _var[s.]_ (= _var_ + _s_), 'rain.' The etymology is very doubtful on account of the number of _var_-roots. Perhaps dew _(ersa)_ and rain first as 'coverer.' Even _var = vas_ 's.h.i.+ne,' has been suggested (ZDMG. XXII. 603).]

[Footnote 77: The old comparison of _Varena cathrugaosha_ turns out to be "the town of Varna with four gates"!]

[Footnote 78: In _India: What Can it Teach us_, pp. 197, 200, Muller tacitly recognizes in the physical Varuna only the 'starry' night-side.]

[Footnote 79: _Loc. cit._, III. 119. Bergaigne admits Varuna as G.o.d of waters, but sees in him ident.i.ty with Vritra a 'restrainer of waters.' He thinks the 'luminous side' of Varuna to be antique also (III. 117-119). Varuna's cord, according to Bergaigne, comes from 'tying up' the waters; 'night's fetters,' according to Hillebrandt.]

[Footnote 80: _Loc. cit._, p. 13.]

[Footnote 81: One of the chief objections to Bergaigne's conception of Varuna as restrainer is that it does not explain the antique union with Mitra.]

[Footnote 82: II. 28. 4, 7; VII. 82. 1, 2; 87.2]

[Footnote 83: vii. 87. 6; 88. 2.]

[Footnote 84: viii. 41. 2, 7, 8. So Varuna gives _soma_, rain. As a rain-G.o.d he surpa.s.ses Dyaus, who, ultimately, is also a rain-G.o.d (above), as in Greece.]

[Footnote 85: Compare cat. Br. V. 2.5.17, "whatever is dark is Varuna's."]

[Footnote 86: In II. 38. 8 _varuna_ means 'fish,' and 'water in I.184. 3.]

[Footnote 87: V. 62. I, 8; 64.7; 61. 5; 65. 2; 67. 2; 69.1; VI. 51.1; 67. 5. In VIII. 47.11 the [=A]dityas are themselves spies.]

[Footnote 88: Introduction to Gra.s.smann, II. 27; VI. 42.

Lex. s. v.]

[Footnote 89: _Religions of India,_ p. 17.]

[Footnote 90: The Rik knows, also, a Diti, but merely as ant.i.thesls to Aditi--the 'confined and unconfined.' Aditi is prayed to (for protection and to remove sin) in sporadic verses of several hymns addressed to other G.o.ds, but she has no hymn.]

[Footnote 91: Muller (_loc. cit._, below) thinks that the 'sons of Aditi' were first eight and were then reduced to seven, in which opinion as in his whole interpretation of Aditi as a primitive dawn-infinity we regret that we cannot agree with him.]

[Footnote 92: See Hillebrandt, _Die Gottin Aditi_; and Muller, SBE, x.x.xii., p. 241, 252.]

[Footnote 93: That is to say, if one believe that the 'primitive Aryans' were inoculated with Zoroaster's teaching. This is the sort of Varuna that Koth believes to have existed among the aboriginal Aryan tribes (above, p.

13, note 2).]

[Footnote 94: VII. 77.]