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THE HERITAGE OF ARYAN PEOPLES 151 time". It is remarkable that there is hardly a word about love or women, or in praise of beauty in the whole of the Veda, no descriptions of scenery or of domestic joys. The strong religious spirit of that early race only preserved those poems that were of a devotional character.
Light and Fire, Indra and Agni—these were foremost among the Vedic deities. The powers and names of all lower deities are ascribed to Agni, and Indra is declared to be greater than all. It sometimes appears that precedence of one deity over another is not defined, for Varuna is said to be Lord of all, of Heaven and Earth, King of all, both Gods and Men. With regard to Agni it is said in the Atharva-veda, "Agni becomes Varuna (the evening star) in the evening; rising in the morning he is Mitra (the morning star); becoming Savriti (the moon) he moves through the air ; becoming Indra, he glows in the middle of the sky.” Indra and Agni are often associated together; Indra is the light that flows forth through the sun, the lord of light, the purest of the elements. In later times the Hindus ascribed the powers of Indra to Brahma, as we find in the following: “Brahma, through whom all things are illumined, who with his light lets the sun and the
