The name of Indra is peculiar to India, and must have been formed after the separation of the great Aryan family had taken place, for we find it neither in Greek, nor in Latin, nor in German. There are Vedic gods, as I mentioned before, whose names must have been framed before that separation, and which occur therefore, though greatly modified in character, sometimes in Greek, sometimes in Latin, sometimes in the Celtic, Teutonic, and Slavonic dialects. D y a u s, for instance, is the same word as Zeus or Jupiter, U s h a s is Eos, N a k t â is Nyx, S û r y a is Helios, A g n i is ignis, B h a g a is Baga in Old Persian, B o g ǔ in Old Slavonic, V a r u _n_ a is Uranos, V â t a is Wotan, V â _k_ is vox, and in the name of the _Maruts_, or the storm-gods, the germs of the Italic god of war, Mars, have been discovered. Besides these direct coincidences, some indirect relations have been established between Hermes and S â r a m e y a, Dionysos and D y u n i _s_ y a, Prometheus and p r a m a n t h a, Orpheus and _R i_ b h u, Erinnys and S â r a _n_ y u, Pân and P a v a ṇ a.[231] But while the name of Indra as the god of the sky, also as the god of the thunderstorm, and the giver of rain, is unknown among the north-western members of the Aryan family, the name of another god who sometimes acts the part of Indra (Indra_h_ Par_g_anyâtmâ), but is much less prominent in the Veda, I mean Par_g_anya, must have existed before that of Indra, because two at least of the Aryan languages have carried it, as we shall see, to Germany, and to the very shores of the Baltic. Sometimes this Par_g_anya stands in the place of Dyaus, the sky. Thus we read in the Atharva-Veda, XII. 1, 12:[232] "The Earth is the mother, and I am the son of the Earth. Par_g_anya is the father; may he help us!" In another place (XII. 1, 42) the Earth, instead of being the wife of Heaven or Dyaus, is called the wife of Par_g_anya. Now who or what is this Par_g_anya? There have been long controversies about him,[233] as to whether he is the same as Dyaus, Heaven, or the same as Indra, the successor of Dyaus, whether he is the god of the sky, of the cloud, or of the rain.