rality,
sufficiently strong, it would seem, to restrain people from committing
as it were before the eyes of their gods what they were ashamed to
commit before the eyes of men. When speaking of Varu_n_a, the old god
of the sky, one poet says:[256]

"Varu_n_a, the great lord of these worlds, sees as if he were
near. If a man stands or walks or hides, if he goes to lie
down or to get up, what two people sitting together whisper
to each other, King Varu_n_a knows it, he is there as the
third.[257] This earth too belongs to Varu_n_a, the King, and
this wide sky with its ends far apart. The two seas (the sky
and the ocean) are Varu_n_a's loins; he is also contained in
this small drop of water. He who should flee far beyond the
sky, even he would not be rid of Varu_n_a, the King.[258] His
spies proceed from heaven toward this world; with thousand
eyes they overlook this earth. King Varu_n_a sees all this,
what is between heaven and earth, and what is beyond. He has
counted the twinklings of the eyes of men. As a player throws
down the dice, he settles all things (irrevocably). May all
thy fatal snares which stand spread out seven by seven and
threefold, catch the man who tells a lie, may they pass by
him who speaks the truth."

You see this is as beautiful, and in some respects as true, as
anything in the Psalms. And yet we know that there never was such a
Deva, or god, or such a thing as Varu_n_a. We know it is a mere name,
meaning originally "covering or all-embracing," which was applied to
the visible starry sky, and afterward, by a process perfectly
intelligible, developed into the name of a Being, endowed with human
and superhuman qualities.

And what applies to Varu_n_a applies to all the other gods of the Veda
and the Vedic religion, whether three in number, or thirty-three, or,
as one poet said, "three thousand three hundred and thirty-nine
gods."[259] They are all but names, quite as much as Jupiter and
Apollo and Minerva; in fact, quite as much as all the gods of every
religion who are called by such appellative titles.

Possibly, if any one had said this during the Vedic age in India, or
even during the Periklean age in Greece, he would have been called,
like Sokrates, a blasphemer or an atheist. And yet nothing can be
clearer or truer, and we shall see that some of the poets of the Veda
too, and, still more, the later Vedantic philosopher, h