The original religion of Arya originated in Bactria. From thence, before the time of Zoroaster, it was brought over, with the great migration of the people, to the land of the seven rivers, which they conquered, and which stretched from the Indus to the Hesidrus. It consisted, according to the oldest literature of the Veda, in a polytheistical worship of the divine, either as the beneficent or the baneful power of nature. The clear, blue sky, the light of the sun, the rosy dawn, the storm that spends itself in fruitful rain, the winds and gales which drive away the clouds, the rivers whose fruitful slime overspreads the fields,--these moved the inhabitants of India to the worship of the divine as the beneficent power of nature which blesses man. On the other hand, he changed under the impression of the harmful phenomena of nature, the dark and close-packed clouds which hold back the rain and intercept the sunshine, the parching heat of summer, which dries up the rivers and hinders growth and fruitfulness, and these also he erected into objects of awe and religious adoration. From this view of nature sprang the Indian mythology. The oldest divinity (Deva) of the Indians is Varuna, the all-embracing heaven, who marks out their courses for the heavenly luminaries, who rules the day and the night, who is lord of life and death, whose protection is invoked, whose anger deprecated. After him, the great ruler of nature, there appear, in the Veda hymns, Indra, the blue sky, god of light and thunder, the warrior who in battle stands beside the combatants; Vayu, the god of the wind, the chief of the Maruts, or the winds; Rudra, the god of the hurricane; Vritra, the hostile god of the clouds; Ahi, the parching heat of summer. In the mythology of the people, Indra, god of light, aided by Vayu and Rudra, wages war with Vritra,--who, as god of the clouds, holds back the rain and the light,--and appears as opponent of the destructive Ahi. The other divinities also which appear in the Vedas are personified powers of nature,--the twin brothers Aswins (equites), or the first rays of the sun, Ushas the maiden, or the rosy dawn, Surya, Savitri, the god of the sun. Great significance is given in the Indian mythology to Agni, the god of fire, who burns the sacrifice in honor of the gods, who conveys the offerings and prayers of men to gods and their gifts to men, who gladdens the domestic hearth, lights up the darkness of night, drives away the evil spirits, the Ashuras and Rakshas, and purges of evil the souls of men. Religion, still wholly patriarchal in form, and free from hierarchical constraint and from the later dogmatic narrowness, bore in this earlier stage of its development the character of the still free and warlike life of a nomadic people living in the midst of a sublime nature, where everything, the clear sky, sunshine, and boisterous storm, mountains and rivers, disposed to worship. As yet the Indian knew no close priestly caste.