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Other points of similarity between Varuna and Ormazd have been collected by M. Darmesteter in his learned essay on Ormazd and Ahriman. Ormazd, for instance, is the first of a class of deities called Ameshaspenta, i. e. Immortal benefactors. Their number at first is uncertain, but was afterwards fixed at seven, still later at thirty-three. Varuna is the first of a class of deities called Âdityas, the sons of Aditi,the Infinite, whose number, uncertain at first, is fixed afterwards at seven or eight1, while the number of all the deities of the Veda is frequently given as thirtythree.

Varuna in the Veda is generally associated with Mitra, the two, if thus united, representing darkness and light, night and day, heaven and earth, while formerly Varuna alone embraced everything, the three heavens and the three earths 2. Ormazd, too, in the Avesta is associated with Mithra, but he had already become so supreme that no other god could be called his match; and Mithra, not even counted as one of the Amesha-speñtas, had to become one of his Yet traces remain to show that this was not always so. Mithra-Ahura (1. c., p. 65) occurs in the Avesta as a divine dvandva, just like the Vedic MitrâVarunau, and the sun is actually called the eye of Ahura Mazda and Mithra 3.

sons.

Though we might match many of these attributes, both physical and metaphysical, with passages in the

1 See M. M., Rig-veda Sanhitâ, translated, pp. 223-51.

2 Rv. VI. 67, 5; VII. 87, 2.

On the great differences between the Vedic Mitra and the Zoroastrian Mithra, see Muir, Sanskrit Texts, v. p. 71; Geiger, Civilisation of Eastern Iranians, p. xxxiii; on their original identity, see Windischmann, Mithra, ein Beitrag zur Mythengeschichte des Orients, 1857.

Psalms, there is this great difference between Varuna and Ormazd on one side and Jehovah on the other, that the former share certain names in common, such as Asura and Ahura, and are surrounded by synonymous characters, such as Apah and Apố, the Waters, apâm napât and apâm napât, the Lightning, while Jehovah lives in a language peculiarly his own.

It will now be clear what is meant by calling the relationship between Varuna, Ormazd, and Jehovah, psychological, that between Varuna and Ormazd analogical, while the relationship between Dyaus and Zeus, between the Sanskrit apâm napât and the Zend apâm na pât is etymological, that is, genealogical and perfect is in fact not relationship, but real original identity.

The analogical school would not only identify the Vedic Varuna with the Ormazd of the Avesta, but likewise with the Greek Zeus. While the etymological school identifies Zeus with the Vedic Dyaus, and tries to explain the later modifications which the one underwent in India, the other in Greece, the analogical school would boldly identify Zeus, not with Dyaus, but with the Vedic Varuna, who is, like Zeus, the creator and ruler of the world, omniscient and omnipotent (Darmesteter, 1. c., p. 78). But what becomes in that case of all the legends told of Zeus, not one of which would agree with the spiritual and highly moral character of Varuna? The very foundations of Comparative Mythology would be shaken, if we followed this principle. Zeus, having become in Greece the supreme deity, would naturally share many attributes which in the Veda belong to Varuna. But as little as Indra is the same as Varuna in the Veda, though

he too becomes supreme in many Vedic hymns, and is actually introduced as disputing the supremacy of Varuna, can Zeus be said to have been originally the same as Varuna and Ahura Mazda.

The same scholar who thus attempts to identify Varuna and Zeus, does not shrink from identifying the Vedic Dyaus with the Greek Ouranos. Where would this lead to? By all means let us study how Dyaus and Zeus, Varuna and Ouranos, starting from common centres, did arrive at such widely distant points that the Vedic Dyaus should on some points resemble the Greek Ouranos, while the Vedic Varuna resembles the Greek Zeus. That is a study worthy of a true historian and a true psychologist.

However wide apart Dyaus and Zeus and Jupiter may be and on some points they are almost diametrically opposed to each other-we know as a matter of historical certainty that one unbroken thread holds them together, and that, if only we follow that thread far enough, it will lead us on to the true vital germ, namely the original name, out of which the whole entangled growth of Jovian mythology arose. It might have been said with perfect truth by an orthodox Roman that the Homeric Zeus was not his Jupiter, and yet neither his native Jupiter nor the foreign Zeus could have been fully understood, unless they were traced back to a common origin. Nor does it make any difference to us, if we are told that the Roman Jupiter and the Greek Zeus must have been the same god, because the Roman youth believed them to be so. If that faith had been founded on true etymological studies, the case would be different. But that was impossible in the time of

Cato and Varro. The mere teaching of Greek schoolmasters and philosophers that their Greek gods were the same as the Roman gods was wrong, even where it was right. It was accidentally right in the case of Zeus and Jupiter, it was accidentally wrong in the case of Demeter and Ceres, Poseidon and Neptunus. The same process of mythological and religious compromise may be watched at present among the Himalayan hill tribes. On more than one occasion,' as Mr. Oldham writes (Contemp. Rev., March, 1885), 'I have heard wandering religious devotees assure the people of a village that their Deota (godhead) was identical with Siva or some other orthodox divinity. The rustics are flattered to find their god is so famous, and are persuaded without much difficulty to adopt the new title.' Of course, if there is a similarity in name or in character between the two deities, the process of amalgamation becomes all the easier.

But to say that because Ouranos embraces the Earth, therefore he is not Varuna, but Dyaush-pitâ, the husband of Prithivi mâta, would be a kind of reasoning 1 which would identify the planet Budha (Mercury) with Buddha, the prophet, because both have nearly the same name. Si duo faciunt idem, non sunt iidem, ought to be a fundamental principle of comparative mythology, whether etymological, historical, or psychological, while, if we only go back far enough, the fundamental principle of our science will never mislead us, viz. idem nomen, idem numen.

1 I see that M. Darmesteter himself, in his Notes Additionelles, has modified this statement. 'Cette répartition,' he says, 'n'a pas cependant été absolue.'

III. PSYCHOLOGICAL SCHOOL. (VÖLKER-PSYCHOLOGIE.) We now have to consider a third school of Comparative Mythologists, which declares itself entirely independent both of etymology and analogy, and which nevertheless seems to me to have rendered most excellent service to the students of mythology. The followers of that school do not confine themselves to the study of the mythology of one linguistic family only, whether Aryan, Semitic, African, Australian, American, etc., but they consider the mythological stage as a necessary phase in the psychological growth of man in every part of the world, and therefore look for analogies, not only where the common origin of nations and languages possessing certain myths in common has been proved, but where no such relationship seems possible. This study has been cultivated with great success during the last fifty years, and is generally known on the Continent as a branch of Völker-psychologie. I have often been blamed, both for having been too enthusiastic an advocate and for having been too critical a judge of this new branch of mythological research, but I can plead Not Guilty to both these charges.

Advantages in England: India, Colonies, Missionary Societies.

Living in England, I naturally tried to avail myself of the splendid opportunities which this country offers for linguistic and ethnological studies. India, to me the most interesting of all countries in the world, is now divided from England by a three weeks' journey only, and through a number of eminent Englishmen who spend their lives in India, and a number of promising young men whom India sends to be educated

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