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3. Beyond lightning (there is) Varuṇa, on account of the connexion (of the two).

The Cḥāndogya continues, ‘From Āditya to the moon, from the moon to lightning.’ Here Varuṇa (mentioned in the Kaushītaki-upan.) has to be brought in so that above that lightning he goes to the world of Varuṇa. For there is a connexion between lightning and Varuṇa; the broad lightnings dance forth from the womb of the clouds with the sound of deep thunder, and then water falls down. And a Brāhmaṇa also says, ‘It lightens, it thunders, it will rain’ (Cḥ. Up. VII, 11, 1). But the lord of all water is Varuṇa, as known from Śruti and Smr̥ti.

And above Varuṇa there come Indra and Prajāpati, as there is no other place for them, and according to the force of the text, as it stands. Varuṇa and so on should be inserted at the end, for that reason also that they are merely additional, no particular place being assigned to them. And lightning is the end of the road beginning with light ¹.