were performed by Apollon to Admetos, by Herakles to Eurystheus, by Perseus, Theseus and other heroes, many of them no doubt of solar origin 1.

If then we see that one name in a myth may change, we can understand that two or three names may, that, in fact, the same typical myth may be told of a number of mythical persons, nay, may in the end be ascribed to purely historical characters. This, however, is very different from supposing that any of these stories were originally told of Somebody, and afterwards attached to this or that person. 'No name, no myth' is what all mythology teaches us, but it also teaches that as in modern so in ancient times, the same stories are often told of very different persons.

In Finland, where the collection of popular ballads and their arrangement as a complete epic poem has taken place within the memory of man, we know as a matter of fact that stories told originally of one hero were afterwards told of another. Lönnrot, who collected these ballads from the people themselves and published them under the name of Kalevala, tells us that Leminkainen was substituted for Kauko, who was the original hero in the second expedition to Pohjola (Songs 26-29), and that when one hero has become very popular in one locality, marvellous exploits performed by others are told as if performed by him 2.

And what applies to the myths of one people, applies also to the myths of a whole family. It is possible

1 Powell, Mythology of North-American Indians, p. 24; Report of Bureau of Ethnology, 1881.

2 See Athenaeum, Oct. 20, 1888.

In

that a myth told of Indra in the Veda, may be told of Apollon in the Iliad and Odyssey, because there was a time, before the Aryan nations separated, when the original both of the Vedic and the Greek myth may have been told of a person neither Indra nor Apollon, though drawing his origin from the same source. that case we have a right to speak of analogies between Indra and Apollon, but we shall have to admit, at the same time, an independent element in both, the concept namely which is embodied in their names, before these names could become the stems on which some older myths were grafted.

I must confess that I often feel giddy when others mount up step by step to greater and greater heights, and survey a larger and larger tract of country than I can span with my eyes. It may be the same in surveying the wide field of mythological ruins. Diversos diversa juvant, and there is plenty of work for all of us.

Varuna and Ormazd.

In order to exhibit the difference between the etymological and the analogical methods of Comparative Mythology quite clearly, I shall examine more in detail the supposed relationship between the Vedic God Varuna (Greek Ouranos) and Ormazd, the supreme god of the Avesta.

What do we really mean, if we say with M. Darmesteter and other Zend scholars, that Varuna is the same as Ormazd? We must not forget what I had to point out again and again, namely that Varuna and Ormazd are names-I never say, mere names but that they were names, and that there never was

an individual who by the Vedic Rishis was called Varuna, and by Zoroaster Ormazd. Varuna meant the sky, and was one of the many names by which the Aryans of India called the Unknown or the Infinite as manifested in the vault of the sky. Ormazd, on the contrary, the Zend Ahura Mazda, means the Wise Lord', and was from the beginning a more abstract concept, giving but little indication of those marked physical characteristics which distinguish the earliest names of other Aryan deities.

It is perfectly true that Varuna in many of the hymns addressed to him stands before us quite divested of his physical nature, as a supreme all-wise and all-powerful deity, and that many of these attributes of divine supremacy belonged to him in common with Ormazd.

But are we to suppose that Zoroaster changed the name of Varuna into that of Ormazd, and that his followers, after having formerly invoked Varuna, determined to invoke their old god in future by the new and more spiritual name of the Wise Lord'? If that is done, as it often is in the case of religious revolutions, or in the case of conversions, should we say that Jehovah, for instance, was the same god as Jupiter, because the same people who formerly called their highest god Jupiter, called him afterwards Jehovah? I think not. Both gods, no doubt, would receive from their worshippers the highest attributes of divinity, but when we speak of the two gods as historical products of the human mind, we should never say that the Semitic Jehovah was the same as the Aryan Jupiter.

1 Darmesteter, Ormazd et Ahriman, p. 29.

Suppose, however, that a Roman, brought up to believe in Jupiter as his supreme god, had later in life settled in Greece and adopted the worship of Zeus; in that case, whether he himself knew the original identity of Zeus and Jupiter or not, we should be justified in saying that his new god Zeus was the same as the god of his infancy, Jupiter. It is quite possible that a Roman might be shocked at the thought that his Jupiter Optimus Maximus should be believed to be the same person as the popular and somewhat immoral Greek Zeus; yet however different in character the two synonymous gods might be, they can be treated by us, with the knowledge which we possess, as originally the same.

These questions must be reasoned out carefully, otherwise we shall never understand each other. In one sense M. Darmesteter is no doubt justified in saying that the Vedic Varuna is the Avestic Ormazd. They both represent the highest conception of supreme deity, reached respectively by India and Persia. They betray also the earlier stages of religious thought traversed by their worshippers, by some of the attributes which the poets of the Veda and the poets of the Avesta assign to them. In that sense therefore they are the same. But in the same sense Jehovah also might be said to be the same god as Varuna and Ormazd, nay, all supreme gods may be said to be the same.

When we speak of Varuna, we can mean no more than what is expressly comprehended under this name by Vedic poets; and when we speak of Ormazd, we can mean no more than what is expressly comprehended under that name by Zoroaster and his k k

followers. And if we do that, we shall have to admit that the name Varuna, which forms the centre of a large cluster of religious and mythological thought, was different from the very beginning from the names of Ormazd and Jehovah, which were formed out of totally independent religious and mythological thought in Persia and in Judæa.

After we have come to this understanding, nothing can be more interesting and instructive than to compare Varuna and Ormazd, just as we might compare Karna and Cyrus, Vasishtha and Zoroaster.

Varuna shows his physical origin (1. c., p. 52) by his name, which, like the Greek Oupavós, means the vault of heaven. The sun is called his eye, the waters his wives, the lightning his son (apâm napât).

Ormazd (1. c., p. 30), though his name is purely spiritual, shows traces of earlier and more material conceptions in being likewise represented as having the sky for his vestment, the sun for his eye, the waters (âpô) for his wives, and the lightning (apâm napât) for his son.

Varuna is likewise represented as the maker1 and supreme ruler of the world, as the lord of Rita or law, as omniscient, as a supreme king of heaven and earth. He is called Asura, the living god.

And Ormazd also is addressed as the maker and supreme ruler of the world, as the lord of Asha or law, as revealed to Zoroaster, as omniscient (mazdâo), as the supreme King of heaven and earth. He is called Ahura, the lord.

This, though doubted, is clearly implied in passages like IV. 42, 3, 'Like a clever carpenter I have fashioned all things, and supported heaven and earth.'