Reviews Of Different Books

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226 REVIEWS of the Rgveda about the "day-night opposition" etc. of Mitra and Varuna should first be explained. ..." Needless to say, I fully agree with Gonda (cf. IIJ. III, p. 211, V, p. 51). The crucial point is, however, how such an explanation can be given on the basis of the explicit textual evidence. If there is a silence on the part of the Rigvedic poets, the question arises as to what was the character of this collection of hymns. A century ago such sharp-sighted scholars as C. P. Thiele and Auguste Barth were fully aware of this basic problem and the latter concluded that "it is evident that a literature such as this will only embrace what is within the scope of a limited horizon, and will have authoritative weight only in regard to things in a more or less special reference, and the negative conclusions especially which may be deduced from such documents must be received with not a little reservation" (The Religions of India, 3d ed., Preface, p. xv; cf. p. 18 = Quarante ans d'indianisme I, pp. 5, 29. Cf. also, e.g., Ogibenin's recent remark on the "positivistic" character of the Rigveda in Struktura mifologiceskix tekstov "Rigvedy", p. 77 n. 1). Many students of the Veda have been struck by the "one-sided" or deviating character of the theology as presented by the Rigvedic poets. Attempts to explain it in terms of an evolution in post-Rigvedic religious thought fail to convince (see IIJ, III, p. 211). On the other hand, stating that the testimony of the Rigvedic hymns has a special character is one thing, explaining it another. The need for a better insight into the special nature of the Rigveda as a whole, in order to understand the reasons of its reticence in certain matters, has more than once been stressed in recent times but the progress made since Barth wrote the words quoted above is not impressive. It will be the task of a future generation of Vedic scholars to tackle this problem. Since Gonda does not take up a position in such disputes there is sometimes inevitably some vagueness in this book. Thus he writes on p. 42f. as follows: "As I cannot enter into a discussion of Varuna's nature I must limit myself to the remark that I do not feel inclined to think, on the strength of texts such as KB. 18,9 "the sun, having entered the waters, becomes Varuna", that there was a more or less exclusive, original or fundamental association of that god with night or the nocturnal heaven. It would rather appear to me that this relation, like that of Mitra with light, is one of the expressions of the complementary character of the duality Mitra-Varuna. It is, to wind up with, perfectly clear, on the one hand, that both gods, guardians of the sta, are quite naturally conjointly concerned also with the light of heaven, which is a manifestation of universal Order, and, on the other, that their functions do not coincide". In general I agree with Gonda. However, a foot-note to the words "association of that god with night or the nocturnal heaven" attributes a different view to me. I may, therefore, be permitted to observe that I am afraid that Renou's statement (Etudes vediques et panineennes XV, p. 8), to the effect that I am inclined "a relier Varuna au ciel nocturne comme conception fondamentale", does not give a quite accurate view of what I attempted to do in my paper in IIJ, VIII. What I there tried to demonstrate is that Varuna is one of the gods of the nether world and, as such, god of the waters and the nocturnal heaven. Anyway, if the functions of the two gods do not coincide (which is beyond question), it may be asked in which respect Varuna's function differed from Mitra's with regard to, e.g., sunrise and sunset. If they actually were two aspects of one and the same deity, one is led to surmise that the function of the one was determined by the other's, and that Mitra's function cannot be fully understood unless it is contrasted with Varuna's. Gonda, indeed, describes their functions in terms of contrast on p. 34, where he follows Luders in considering Varuna a denizen of heaven, while suggesting that Mitra may have been associated with earth. If so, Varuna would have been a god of both day-time and night-time sky. On p. 41 the admittedly difficult stanza RS. V.62.8 is, indeed, explained as saying that Varuna in day-time ascends to the top of the cosmic axis. This, however, is not the author's final conclusion for on p. 113 n. 4 he returns to the