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That Manu himself should be mentioned in the hymn seems to have caused no scruple to the Brahmans ; nor is it any real difficulty from our own point of view. No man of the name of M M 2 532 • HYMN TO THE ViSVE DBVAS. Manu ever existed. Manu was never more than a name — one of the oldest names for man ; and it was given in India, as elsewhere, to the supposed ancestor or an- cestors of the human race. The Brahmans, however, like most Aryan nations, changed the appellative into a proper name. They believed in a real Manu, or in seve^ ral real Manus, to whom they assigned various cogno- mina, such as Vaivasvata, Apsava (Rv. ix. 7. 3), S&mvarana (Rv. ix. 6. 5). All of these they natu- rally counted as among the earliest of human Rishis ; and the hymns which they ascribed to them must have belonged in their eyes to the earliest and most important class. In one sense it is true, no doubt, that invocations of all the gods, the Visve Devas ' as they are called, represent a later phase of thought than invocations of single deities. Nevertheless, there is nothing to show that this comprehensive view of all the deities belongs to an age later than that which gave rise to the most ancient hymns which we possess, and which celebrate the power and majesty of individual deities, such as Varuna, Indra, Agni (fire), the Maruts (the winds), Ushas (dawn), &c. When these individual gods are invoked, they are not conceived as limited by the power of others, as superior or inferior in rank. Each god is to the mind of the supplicant as good as all the gods. He is felt, at the time, as a real divinity — as supreme and absolute, in spite of the necessary limitations which, to our mind, a plurality of gods must entail on every single god. All the rest disappear for a moment from the vision of ^ Vi^ve Devah^ though treated as a plural, has sometimes the meaning of a pluralis majestatictis. See Ewald, Ausfiihrliches Lehrbuch, § 178, b. HYMN TO THE VISVE DEYAS. 53^ the poet, and he only who is to fulfil their desires stands in full light before the eyes of the worshippers. *' Among you, 0 gods, there is none that is small, none that is young ; you are all great indeed," is a sentiment which, though, perhaps, not so distinctly expressed as by Manu Vaivasvata, nevertheless, underlies all the poetry of the Veda. Although the gods are sometimes distinctly invoked as the great and the small, the young and the old (Rv. i. 27. 13), this is only an attempt to find the most comprehensive ex- pression for the divine powers, and nowhere is any of the gods represented as the slave of others. It would be easy to find, in the numerous hymns of the Veda, passages in which almost every single god is repre- sented as supreme and absolute. In the first hymn of the second Mandala, Agni is called the ruler of the universe^, the lord of men, the wise king, the father, the brother, the son, and friend of men^ ; nay, all the powers and names of the others are distinctly ascribed to Agni. The hymn belongs, no doubt, to the modern compositions ; yet, though Agni is thus highly exalted in it, nothing is said to disparage the divine character of the other gods. Indra is celebrated as the strongest god in the hymns as well as in the Br&hmanas, and the burden of one of the songs of the tenth book^ is : Vi6va- sm&d Indra uttarah, " Indra is greater than all." Of Soma it is said that he was bom great, and that he conquers every one.* He is called the king of the world^, he has the power to prolong the life of men^, * ^ f^^Rf^ ^4^4 qTir^ I ii. 1. 8. See Nirukta-pari- Bishta, i. ii. 1. 9. X. 86. * ix. 59. * ix. 96. 10., bhuvanasya raja. ix. 96. 14. M M 3 534 HYMN TO VARUNA. and in one sense he is called the maker of heaven and earth, of Agni, of SArya, of Indra, and of Vishnu.^ If we read the next hymn, which is addressed to Varuna (oupavog)^ we perceive that the god here in- voked is, to the mind of the poet, supreme and all- mighty. Nevertheless, he is one of the gods who is almost always represented in fellowship with another, Mitra; and even in our hymn there is one verse, the sixth, in which Varuna and Mitra are invoked in the dual. Yet what more could human language achieve, in trying to express the idea of a divine and supreme power, than what our poet says of Varuna; — "Thou art lord of all, of heaven and earth." Or, as is said in another hymn (ii. 27. 10.), " Thou art the king of all ; of those who are gods, and of those who are men." Nor is Varuna repre- sented as the Lord of nature only. He knows the order of nature, and upholds it ; for this is what is meant by dhritavrata.^ Varuna, therefore, knows the twelve months, and even the thirteenth ; he knows the course of the wind, the birds in the air, and the ships of the sea. He knows all the wondrous works of nature, and he looks not only into the past but into the future also. But, more than all this, Varuna watches over the order of the moral world. The poet begins with a confession that he has neglected the works of Viaruna, that he has offended against his laws. He craves his pardon; he appeals in self- defence to the weakness of human nature ; he depre- cates death as the reward of sin. His devotion is all ' ix. 96. 5. ^ Vrata means what must be done, and these Yratas or laws are not to be shaken (aprachjuta) because " they rest on Varuna as on a rock." (Rv. ii. 28. 8.) HYMN TO VABUNA. 635 he has wherewith to appease the anger of his god ; and how natural the feeling, when he hopes to soothe the god by his prayers as a horse is soothed by kind words. The poet has evidently felt the anger of Varuna. His friends, wishing for booty elsewhere, have left him, and he knows not how to bring back Varuna, who is the only giver of victory. He de- scribes the power of his god, and he praises him chiefly as the guardian of law and order. Like a true child of nature, he offers honey, sweet things, which the god is sure to like, and then appeals to him as to a friend : ** Now be good, and let us speak together again." This may seem childish, but there is a real and childish faith in it ; and, like all childish faith, it is rewarded by some kind of response. For, at that very moment, the poet takes a higher tone. He fancies he sees the god and his chariot passing by ; he feels that his prayer has been heard. True, there is much that is human, earthly, coarse, and false in the language applied to the deity as here invoked under the name of Varuna. Yet there is something also in these ancient strains of thought and faith which moves and cheers our hearts even at this great distance of time ; and a wise man will pause before he ascribes to purely evil sources what may be, for all we know, the working of a love and wisdom beyond our own. The hymn is ascribed to l^unah^epha, according to the legend of the later Brd.hmanas, the victim offered to Varuna by his oWn father Ajigarta Sauyavasi. (See page 413.) 1. However we break thy laws from day to day, men as we arc, 0 god, Varuna, 2. Do not deliver us unto death, nor to the blow of the furious ; not to the anger of the spiteful ! M M 4 536 HYMN TO VABUNA. 3. To propitiate thee, O Varuna, we bind thy mind with songs, as the charioteer a weary steed. 4. Away from me they flee dispirited, intent only on gaining wealth ; as birds to their nests. 5. When shall we bring hither the man who is victory to the warriors, when shall we bring Varuna, the wide-seeing, to be propitiated ? [6. This they take in conunon with delight, Mitra and Varuna ; they never fail the faithful giver.] 7. He who knows the place of the birds that fly through the sky, who, on the waters knows the ships, — 8. He, the upholder of order, who knows the twelve months with the offspring of each, and knows the month ^ that is engendered afterwards, — 9. He who knows the track of the wind *, of the wide, the bright, and mighty ; and knows those who reside on high ^, — 10. He, the upholder of order, Varuna sits down among his people; he, the wise, sits there to govern. 11. From thence perceiving all wondrous things, he sees what has been and what will be done. 12. May he, the wise son of time (&ditya), make our paths straight all our days ; may he prolong our lives ! 13. Varuna, wearing golden mail, has put on his shining cloak ; the spies* sat down around him.