Very soon this great work of making heaven and earth was ascribed, like other mighty works, to the mightiest of their gods, to Indra. At first we read that Indra, originally only a kind of _Jupiter pluvius_, or god of rain, stretched out heaven and earth, like a hide;[180] that he held them in his hand,[181] that he upholds heaven and earth,[182] and that he grants heaven and earth to his worshippers.[183] But very soon Indra is praised for having made Heaven and Earth;[184] and then, when the poet remembers that Heaven and Earth had been praised elsewhere as the parents of the gods, and more especially as the parents of Indra, he does not hesitate for a moment, but says:[185] "What poets living before us have reached the end of all thy greatness? for thou hast indeed begotten thy father and thy mother together[186] from thy own body!" That is a strong measure, and a god who once could do that, was no doubt capable of anything afterward. The same idea, namely that Indra is greater than heaven and earth, is expressed in a less outrageous way by another poet, who says[187] that Indra is greater than heaven and earth, and that both together are only a half of Indra. Or again:[188] "The divine Dyaus bowed before Indra, before Indra the great Earth bowed with her wide spaces." "At the birth of thy splendor Dyaus trembled, the Earth trembled for fear of thy anger."[189] Thus, from one point of view, Heaven and Earth were the greatest gods, they were the parents of everything, and therefore of the gods also, such as Indra and others. But, from another point of view, every god that was considered as supreme at one time or other, must necessarily have made heaven and earth, must at all events be greater than heaven and earth, and thus the child became greater than the father, ay, became the father of his father. Indra was not the only god that created heaven and earth. In one hymn[190] that creation is ascribed to Soma and Pûshan, by no means very prominent characters; in another[191] to Hira_n_yagarbha (the golden germ); in another again to a god who is simply called Dhat_ri_, the Creator,[192] or Vi_s_vakarman,[193] the maker of all things. Other gods, such as Mitra and Savit_ri_, names of the sun, are praised for upholding Heaven and Earth, and the same task is sometimes performed by the old god Varu_n_a[194] also.