But which is truer?
Which accords more with the facts as they are collected from a wider field?
As man in the process of development, in whatever quarter of earth he be located, makes for himself independently clothes, language, and gods, so he makes myths that are more or less like those of other peoples, and it is only when names coincide and traits that are unknown elsewhere are strikingly similar in any two mythologies that one has a right to argue a probable community of origin.
But even if the legend of the flood were Babylonian, and the Asuras as devils were due to Iranian influence--which can neither be proved nor disproved--the fact remains that the Indian religion in its main features is of a purely native character.
As the most prominent features of the Vedic religion must be regarded the worship of _soma_ of nature-gods that are in part already more than this, of spirits, and of the Manes; the acknowledgment of a moral law and a belief in a life hereafter.

There is also a vaguer nascent belief in a creator apart from any natural phenomenon, but the creed for the most part is poetically, indefinitely, stated: 'Most wonder-working of the wonder-working gods, who made heaven and earth'(as above).

The corresponding Power is Cerus in Cerus-Creator (Kronos ?), although when a name is given, the Maker, Dh[=a]tar, is employed; while Tvashtar, the artificer, is more an epithet of the sun than of the unknown creator.

The personification of Dh[=a]tar as creator of the sun, etc., belongs to later Vedic times, and foreruns the Father-god of the last Vedic period.

Not till the classical age (below) is found a formal identification of the Vedic nature-gods with the departed Fathers (Manes).