unnatural child devours the parent brands.

TO VARUNA

The mighty lord on high our deeds, as if at hand, espies;
The gods know all men do, though men would fain their acts disguise.
Whoever stands, whoever moves, or steals from place to place,
Or hides him in his secret cell,--the gods his movements trace.
Wherever two together plot, and deem they are alone
King Varuna is there, a third, and all their schemes are known.
This earth is his, to him belong those vast and boundless skies;
Both seas within him rest, and yet in that small pool he lies.
Whoever far beyond the sky should think his way to wing,
He could not there elude the grasp of Varuna the king.
His spies, descending from the skies, glide all this world around,
Their thousand eyes all-scanning sweep to earth's remotest bound.
Whate'er exists in heaven and earth, whate'er beyond the skies,
Before the eyes of Varuna, the king, unfolded lies.
The ceaseless winkings all he counts of every mortal's eyes,
He wields this universal frame as gamester throws his dice.
Those knotted nooses which thou fling'st, O God, the bad to snare,
All liars let them overtake, but all the truthful spare.

Varuna, the all-embracing sky, is also in many hymns a solar deity.
There are also other solar deities; Mitra who is frequently invoked
along with Varuna; Surya, Savitri, Vishnu, and Pushan, are all gods
of this class. Each of these has some attributes or some story of his
own. Surya keeps his eye on men and reports their failings to Varuna
and Mitra. Savitri, the quickener, raises all things from sleep in
the morning with his long arms of gold, and covers them with sleep in
the evening. Vishnu, the active, traverses the universe with three
strides. Pushan is a shepherd who loses none of his flock; a guide
also, both in the journeys of this world and in the last journey. A
number of the principal gods have the common title of Adityas or
children of Aditi, immensity, a being too vast and undetermined to be
clearly represented. We should also mention Ushas, the dawn, a
goddess whom the sun-god is daily chasing; the Asvins or two heavenly
charioteers, who daily make the circuit of the heavens; Tvashtri, the
smith who made the thunderbolt of Indra; the Ribhus, artificers who
were once men and have been admitted to the society of the gods. Yama
is the god of the dead, he first traversed the road to the country
beyond, and now he rules over it, an