If we examine their epithets, we find that many of them reflect simply the physical aspects of Heaven and Earth. Thus they are called u r u, wide; u r u v y a _k_ a s, widely expanded, d û r e - a n t e, with limits far apart, g a b h î r a, deep; g h _r i_ t a v a t, giving fat; m a d h u d u g h a, yielding honey or dew; p a y a s v a t, full of milk; b h û r i - r e t a s, rich in seed.
Another class of epithets represents them already as endowed with certain human and superhuman qualities, such as a s a _s k_ a t, never tiring, a _g_ a r a, not decaying, which brings us very near to immortal; a d r u h, not injuring, or not deceiving, p r a _k_ e t a s, provident, and then pitâ-mâta, father and mother, devaputra, having the gods for their sons, _r i_ t a - v_ r i_ d h and _r i_ t a v a t, protectors of the _Ri_ta, of what is right, guardians of eternal laws.
Here you see what is so interesting in the Veda, the gradual advance from the material to the spiritual, from the sensuous to the supersensuous, from the human to the superhuman and the divine. Heaven and Earth were seen, and, according to our notions, they might simply be classed as visible and finite beings. But the ancient poets were more honest to themselves. They could see Heaven and Earth, but they never saw them in their entirety. They felt that there was something beyond the purely finite aspect of these beings, and therefore they thought of them, not as they would think of a stone, or a tree, or a dog, but as something not-finite, not altogether visible or knowable, yet as something important to themselves, powerful, strong to bless, but also strong to hurt. Whatever was between Heaven and Earth seemed to be theirs, their property, their realm, their dominion. They held and embraced all; they seemed to have produced all. The Devas or bright beings, the sun, the dawn, the fire, the wind, the rain, were all theirs, and were called therefore the offspring of Heaven and Earth. Thus Heaven and Earth became the Universal Father and Mother.
Then we ask at once: "Were then these Heaven and Earth gods?" But gods in what sense? In our sense of God? Why, in our sense, God is altogether incapable of a plural. Then in the Greek sense of the word? No, certainly not; for what the Greeks called gods was the result of an intellectual growth totally independent of the Veda or of India. We must never forget that what we call gods in ancient mythologies are not substantial, living, individual beings, of whom we can predicate this or that. D e v a, which we translate by god, is nothing but an adjective, expressive of a quality shared by heaven and earth, by the sun and the stars and the dawn and the sea, namely _brightness_; and the idea of god, at that early time, contains neither more nor less than what is shared in common by all these bright beings. That is to say, the idea of god is not an idea ready-made, which could be applied in its abstract purity to heaven and earth and other such like beings; but it is an idea, growing out of the concepts of heaven and earth and of the other bright beings, slowly separating itself from them, but never containing more than what was contained, though confusedly, in the objects to which it was successively applied.