These did the gods establish in royal power over themselves, because they were wise and the children of wisdom, and because they excelled in power. They are protectors of hearth and home, of life and strength; Mitra and Varuna, prosper the mediations of your worshippers.... As the sun rises to-day do I salute Mitra and Varuna, and glorious Aryaman.... The blessings of heaven are our desire.... _Prof. Arnold's translation._ In Babylonian mythology the sun is the offspring of the moon. The Semitic name of the sun god is Samas (Shamash), the Sumerian name is Utu; among other non-Semitic names was Mitra, “apparently the Persian Mithra”. The bright deity also “bears the names of his attendants ‘Truth’ and ‘Righteousness’, who guided him upon his path as judge of the earth”.[83] [83] _The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria_, by Dr. T. G. Pinches, p. 68. It may be that the Indian Mitra was originally a sun god; the religion of the sun god Mithra spread into Europe. “Dedications to Mithra the Unconquered Sun have been found in abundance.”[84] Vedic references suggest that Mitra had become a complex god in the pre-Vedic Age, being probably associated with a group of abstract deities—his attributes symbolized—who are represented by the Adityas. The Mitra-Varuna group of Celestials were the source of all heavenly gifts; they regulated sun and moon, the winds and waters and the seasons. If we assume that they were of Babylonian or Sumerian origin—deities imported by a branch of Aryan settlers who had been in contact with Babylonian civilization—their rivalry with the older Aryan gods, Indra and Agni, can be understood. Ultimately they were superseded, but the influence exercised by their cult remained and left its impress upon later Aryan religious thought. [84] Frazer's “Golden Bough” (_Adonis, Attis, Osiris_, p. 255, n., third edition). The Assyrian word “metru” signifies rain.[85] The quickening rain which caused the growth of vegetation was, of course, one of the gifts of the Celestials of the firmament. It is of interest to note, therefore, in this connection that Professor Frazer includes the western Mithra among the “corn gods”. Dealing with Mithraic sculptures, which apparently depict Mithra as the sacrificer of the harvest bull offering, he says: “On certain of these monuments the tail of the bull ends in three stalks of corn, and in one of them cornstalks instead of blood are seen issuing from the wound inflicted by the knife”.[86] [85] Professor H. W. Hogg, in Professor Moulton's _Early Religious Poetry of Persia_, p. 37. [86] “The Golden Bough” (_Spirits of the Corn and Wild_, vol. ii, p. 10).