* * * * * ('Tis Varuna) who knows the track Of birds that fly within the air, And knows the ships upon the flood;[67] Knows, too, the (god) of order firm, The twelve months with their progeny, And e'en which month is later born;[68] Knows, too, the pathway of the wind, The wide, the high, the mighty (wind), And knows who sit above (the wind). (God) of firm order, Varuna His place hath ta'en within (his) home For lordship, he, the very strong.[69] Thence all the things that are concealed He looks upon, considering Whate'er is done and to be done. May he, the Son of Boundlessness, The very strong, through every day Make good our paths, prolong our life. Bearing a garment all of gold, In jewels clothed, is Varuna, And round about him sit his spies; A god whom injurers injure not, Nor cheaters cheat among the folk, Nor any plotters plot against; Who for himself 'mid (other) men Glory unequalled gained, and gains (Such glory) also 'mid ourselves. Far go my thoughts (to him), as go The eager cows that meadows seek, Desiring (him), the wide-eyed (god). Together let us talk again, Since now the offering sweet I bring, By thee beloved, and like a priest Thou eat'st. I see the wide-eyed (god): I see his chariot on the earth, My song with joy hath he received. Hear this my call, O Varuna, Be merciful to me today, For thee, desiring help, I yearn. Thou, wise one, art of everything, The sky and earth alike, the king; As such upon thy way give ear, And loose from us the (threefold) bond; The upper bond, the middle, break, The lower, too, that we may live. In the portrait of such a god as this one comes very near to monotheism. The conception of an almost solitary deity, recognized as watcher of wrong, guardian of right, and primitive creator, approaches more closely to unitarianism than does the idea of any physical power in the Rig Veda. To the poet of the Rig Veda Varuna is the enveloping heaven;[70] that is, in distinction from Dyaus, from whom he differs _toto caelo_, so to speak, the invisible world, which embraces the visible sky. His home is there where lives the Unborn, whose place is unique, above the highest heaven.[71] But it is exactly this loftiness of character that should make one shy of interpreting Varuna as being originally the god that is presented here. Can this god, 'most august of Vedic deities,' as Bergaigne and others have called him, have belonged as such to the earliest stratum of Aryan belief?