.]
No divinity has fuller worship paid him than Agni, the Fire (_Ignis_).
More hymns are dedicated to him than to any other being. Astonishment at
the properties of fire; a sense of his condescension in that he, a
mighty god, resides in their dwellings; his importance as the messenger
between heaven and earth, bearing the offerings aloft; his kindness at
night in repelling the darkness and the demons which it hides--all these
things raised Agni to an exalted place. He is fed with pure clarified
butter, and so rises heavenward in his brightness. The physical
conception of fire, however, adheres to him, and he never quite ceases
to be the earthly flame; yet mystical conceptions thickly gather round
this root-idea; he is fire pervading all nature; and he often becomes
supreme, a god of gods.

[Sidenote: Soma highly exalted.
Soma becomes a very mighty god.]
All this seems natural enough; but one is hardly prepared for the high
exaltation to which Soma is raised. Soma is properly the juice of a
milky plant (_asclepias acida_, or _sarcostemma viminale_), which, when
fermented, is intoxicating. The simple-minded Aryas were both astonished
and delighted at its effects; they liked it themselves; and they knew
nothing more precious to present to their gods. Accordingly, all of
these rejoice in it. Indra in particular quaffs it "like a thirsty
stag;" and under its exhilarating effects he strides victoriously to
battle. Soma itself becomes a god, and a very mighty one; he is even the
creator and father of the gods;[3] the king of gods and men;[4] all
creatures are in his hand. It is surely extraordinary that the Aryas
could apply such hyperbolical laudations to the liquor which they had
made to trickle into the vat, and which they knew to be the juice of a
plant they had cut down on the mountains and pounded in a mortar; and
that intoxication should be confounded with inspiration. Yet of such
aberrations we know the human mind is perfectly capable.

[Sidenote: Connection with Persian, Greek, and Roman systems.
Varuna, the god of heaven.
The sublimity of the Vedic description of him.]
We have first referred to Agni and Soma, as being the only divinities of
highest rank which still retain their physical character. The worship
paid to them was of great antiquity; for it is also prescribed in the
Persian Avesta, and must have been common to the Indo-Iranian branch of
the Aryan race before the Hindus entered India. But we can inferen