, as some scholars
assure us, in an abbreviated form in most Slavonic dialects, namely,
in Old Slavonic as _Perun_, in Polish as _Piorun_, in Bohemian as
_Peraun_, all meaning thunder or thunderstorm?[254]

Such facts strike me as if we saw the blood suddenly beginning to flow
again through the veins of old mummies; or as if the Egyptian statues
of black granite were suddenly to begin to speak again. Touched by the
rays of modern science the old words--call them mummies or
statues--begin indeed to live again, the old names of gods and heroes
begin indeed to speak again.

All that is old becomes new, all that is new becomes old, and that one
word, Par_g_anya, seems, like a charm, to open before our eyes the
cave or cottage in which the fathers of the Aryan race, our own
fathers--whether we live on the Baltic or on the Indian Ocean--are
seen gathered together, taking refuge from the buckets of Par_g_anya,
and saying, "Stop now, Par_g_anya; thou hast sent rain; thou hast made
the deserts passable, and hast made the plants to grow; and thou hast
obtained praise from man."

* * * * *

We have still to consider the third class of gods, in addition to the
gods of the earth and the sky, namely the gods of the highest heaven,
more serene in their character than the active and fighting gods of
the air and the clouds, and more remote from the eyes of man, and
therefore more mysterious in the exercise of their power than the gods
of the earth or the air.

The principal deity is here no doubt the bright sky itself, the old
_Dyaus_, worshipped as we know by the Aryans before they broke up into
separate people and languages, and surviving in Greece as Zeus, in
Italy as Jupiter, Heaven-father, and among the Teutonic tribes as
_Tyr_ and _Tiu_. In the Veda we saw him chiefly invoked in
connection with the earth, as Dyava-p_ri_thivi, Heaven and Earth. He
is invoked by himself also, but he is a vanishing god, and his place
is taken in most of the Vedic poems by the younger and more active
god, _Indra_.

Another representative of the highest heaven, as covering, embracing,
and shielding all things, is Varu_n_a, a name derived from the root
var, to cover, and identical with the Greek _Ouranos_. This god is one
of the most interesting creations of the Hindu mind, because though
we can still perceive the physical background from which he rises, the
vast, starry, brilliant expanse above, his features, more