556 MR J. MUIR ON THE PRINCIPAL DEITIES OF THE RIGVEDA. 



points. Not to insist on the fact, that Varuna is a far more important deity in 

 the mythology of the Veda than Uranos is in that of Hesiod, there is also this 

 special difference between the two, that in the Indian- mythology there is no rela- 

 tion between Varuna and Prithivi, the earth, as husband and wife, as there is 

 between Uranos and Gaia in Hesiod ; nor is Varuna represented like Uranos as 

 the progenitor of Dyaus or Zeus, except in the general way in which he is said 

 (like many of the other Indian deities) to have formed and to preserve heaven and 

 earth. The original identity of the two gods, however, appears to be not the less 



undoubted. 



Varuna is also, in the opinion of certain Avriters,* connected, at least, in- 

 directly, with the Ahura Mazda of the old Persian mythology ; and in support of 

 this it may be alleged, — (1.) That the name of Asura, the divine being,f is fre- 

 quently applied to Varuna, as an epithet ; (2.) That the class of Indian gods, called 

 Adityas, of whom Varuna is the most distinguished, bears a certain analogy to 

 the Amshaspands of the Zend mythology, of whom Ahura Mazda is the highest • 

 and, (3.) That a close connection exists between Varuna and Mitra, just as Ahura 

 and Mithra are frequently associated in the Zendavesta, though the position of 

 the two has otherwise become altered, and Mithra is not even reckoned among 

 the Amshaspands. Other scholars, however, think that there is no sufficient 

 proof of Varuna and Ahura Mazda being connected with one another. 



The common origin of the Mitra of the Indian and the Mithra of the Persian 

 mythology is, however, placed beyond a doubt by the identity of their names. 

 Accordingly, the late Dr F. Windischmann, in his dissertation on the Persian 

 Mithra, t regards it as proved that this god was common to the whole primitive 

 Aryan race before the separation of its Iranian (or Persian) from its Indian 

 l)ranch; though the conception of his character was afterwards modified by 

 Zoroastrian ideas. That Mithra was worshipped in Persia in the age of Hero- 

 dotus is, as Windischmann remarks, established by the currency of such Persian 

 names as Mitradates and Mitrobates. Herodotus himself (i. 131) speaks of Mitra 

 not as a god but as a goddess. But Xenophon describes the Persians as swearing 

 by the god Mitra. And Plutarch, in his treatise on Isis and Osiris, chapter xlvi., 

 tells us that Zoroaster conceived of Mithra as standing between the deities 

 Oromazes, the representative of light, and Areimanius the representative of dark- 

 ness and ignorance. I need not further refer to the Persian Mithra, the ultimate 

 introduction of whose worship into the west, in the time of the Roman Emperors, 

 is matter of history. 



* Roth in the Journal of the German Oriental Society, vi. 69 f. ; Whitney in the Journal of 

 the American Oriental Society, vol. iii. p. 327. 



•]• A name identical with the Zend Ahura, as the letter s of Sanskrit words is always represented 

 by h in Zend. 



+ Abhandlungen fiir die kunde des Morgenlandes. Mithra, ein Beitrag zur Mythengeschichte 

 des Orients. Leipzig, 1857. 



