visible phenomena of the sky should become, in their turn, children of the cow." Aditi then is "the great spotted cow." Thus did the Vedic poets (according to Gubernatis) descend from the unconditioned to the byre.
From Aditi, however she is to be interpreted, we turn to her famous children, the Adityas, the high gods.
There is no kind of consistency, as we have so often said, in Vedic mythical opinion. The Adityas, for example, are now represented as three, now as seven; for three and seven are sacred numbers. To the triad a fourth is sometimes added, to the seven an eighth Aditya. The Adityas are a brotherhood or college of gods, but some of the members of the fraternity have more individual character than, for example, the Maruts, who are simply a company with a tendency to become confused with the Adityas. Considered as a triad, the Adityas are Varuna, Mitra, Aryaman. The name of Varuna is commonly derived from vri (or Var),[1] to cover, according to the commentator Sayana, because "he envelops the wicked in his snares," the nets which he carries to capture the guilty. As god of the midnight sky, Varuna is also "the covering" deity, with his universal pall of darkness. Varuna's name has frequently been compared to that of Uranus (Οὐρανὸς), the Greek god of heaven, who was mutilated by his son Cronos. Supposing Varuna to mean the heaven, we are not much advanced, for dyu also has the same meaning; yet
- ↑ Max Müller, Select Essays, i. 371.
