Varuna
Varuna South and Central AsiaHe is one of the oldest Hindu deities. Unlike Indra, whose birth was described as the product of a union between ‘a vigorous god’ and ‘a heroic female’, Varuna is uncreate. He is the universal encompasser, a personification of the all-investing sky, the source and sustenance of created things. Associated with Mitra, the ruler of the day probably connected with the Persian Mithra, Varuna ruled the sky at night, whose star-like presence was the cause of wonder in early men everywhere. In later times he lost his position as the supreme deity and became a kind of Neptune, a god of the seas and rivers, who rides upon the Makara, a fabulous sea animal, part crocodile, part shark, and part dolphin.
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