578 ME, J. MUIR ON THE PRINCIPAL DEITIES OF THE RIGVEDA. 



From the above review, it is clear that there are but few of the Vedic gods 

 \vho can be certainly identified with any deities of the Greek and Roman mytho- 

 logies, by the double correspondence of names and functions. Of the numerous 

 divinities who were originally common to these three branches of the Indo-Ger- 

 manic family, the greater part became soon so extensively modified by one or 

 other, or all, of these races, after their separation from each other, that at the 

 dawn of history only two or three survived in such a form that we can without 

 hesitation afl&rm them to have preserved, in some measure at least, their original 

 character from the earliest times. These, as we have seen, are the Dyaus or 

 Dyaushpitar, the Varuna, and the Ushas of the Veda, corresponding with the 

 Zeus and Diespiter, the Ouranos, and the Eos or Auos, and Aurora of the Greeks 

 and Latins. The Indian Agni, too, is evidently the Latin Ignis ; but I am not 

 aware that any trace exists in Latin literature of the element of fire having ever 

 been worshipped under this name ; and the adoration of Agni may, perhaps, have 

 originated Math the Indians and Persians after they parted from their kindred 

 tribes. I need scarcely allude to Mitra or Mithra, who, though common to the 

 Indian and Iranian mythologies, was unknown in the West till his worship was 

 introduced from Persia. 



Several of the remaining deities of the Veda, such as Indra, the thunderer, 

 Surya or Savitri, the sun, Vayu, the wind, Yama,* the god of the dead, corre- 

 spond in their functions with the Jupiter, Apollo, iEolus, and Pluto of the classical 

 writers ; but as the names of these parallel divinities do not coincide in the dif- 

 ferent literatures, the resemblances in their offices scarcely suffice, perhaps, to 

 establish any traditional connection between them, or to prove anything more 

 than a similarity in the mental processes by which these gods were severally 

 created. Between different systems of nature- worship, especially between the 

 systems prevailing among cognate races (even though they may have been long 

 separated), we may reasonably expect a general resemblance, as the great physical 

 objects and phenomena which are common to all countries, are also those to 

 which the process of personification is most naturally applied. 



But it is not merely the primitive deities of the earliest Indo-European race 

 which have undergone modification. The gods of the Veda themselves were soon 

 subjected to a similar process, the most eminent among their number being, in 

 the course of time, reduced to a subordinate rank, while others, originally less 

 distinguished, were raised to the highest position. In the later mythology Varuna, 

 the noblest of the Vedic divinities, was stripped of his attribute of supreme 

 dominion, as well as of all his moral grandeur, and was only regarded as the god 



* Yama's brother, Manu (who, as I have mentioned above, p. 573, note, is most commonly 

 represented in the Rigveda as the first man, or progenitor of the Aryan race), resembles in name the 

 Greek Minos, and the Mannus of the early Germans. See my paper on this subject in the " Jom'nal 

 of the Royal Asiatic Society," vol. xx. pp. 429 f. 



