Varuna, the king. His spies proceed from heaven towards this world; with thousand eyes they overlook this earth. 5. King Varuna sees all this that is between heaven and earth, and what is beyond. He has counted the twinklings of the eyes of men. As a player throws the dice he settles all things. 6. May all thy fatal nooses, which stand spread out seven by seven and threefold, catch the man who tells a lie; may they pass by him who tells the truth" (A. S. L.—Atharva-Veda, iv. 16).
A consciousness of the unity of Deity, under whatever form
he may be worshiped, adumbrated here and there in earlier
hymns, becomes very prominent in the later portions of the
Veda. From the most ancient times, possibly, occasional sages
may have attained the conception so familiar to the Hindu
thinkers of a later age, that a single mysterious essence of
divinity pervaded the universe. And in the tenth book of the
Rig-Veda, which is generally admitted to belong to a more
recent age than the other nine books, as also in the Atharva-Veda,
this essence is celebrated under various names; as Purusha,
as Brahma, as Prajâpati (Lord), or Skambha (Support). The
hymns in which this consciousness appears are extremely mystical,
but a notice of the Veda, however slight, would be very
imperfect without a due recognition of their presence. They
form the speculative element partly in the midst of, partly succeeding
to, the simple, practical, naked presentation of the common-place
daily wants and physical desires of the early Rishis.
Take the following texts from the first book of the Rig-Veda.
They give utterance to an incipient sentiment of divine unity.
The first celebrates a goddess Aditi: "Aditi is the sky, Aditi is
the air, Aditi is the mother and father and son. Adita is all the
gods and the five classes of men. Aditi is whatever has been
born. Aditi is whatever shall be born" (O. S. T., vol. v. p. 354.—Rig-Veda,
i. 89. 10). More remarkable than this—for we may
suspect here a sectarian desire to glorify a favorite goddess—is
this assertion: "They call him Indra, Mitra, Varuna, Agni;
and he is the celestial (well-winged) Garutmat. Sages name
variously that which is but one: they call it Agni, Yama, Mâtarisvan"
(O. S. T., vol. v. p. 353.—Rig-Veda, i. 164, 46). In
the tenth book of the Rig-Veda, the presence of the speculative
element in the theology of the Rishis,—their longing
