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Mircea Eliade – Patterns in Comparative religion

As a typical example of the first class – sovereigns and guardians of the law – take T'ien, Varuna, Ahura Mazda.  The second class – that of the fecundators – is morphologically richer.  But note, in all the figures grouped under this heading, the following constantly recurring themes; marriage with the Earth Goddess; thunder, storm and rain; ritual and mythical connection with bulls.

Among the gods of the second class – 'fecundators' and also 'storm gods' – one may place Zeus, Min and the Hittite god, but also Parjanya, Indra, Rudra, Hadad, Ba'al, Jupiter Dolichenus, Thor; in fact all that are known as storm gods.....

In this present section what we are primarily concerned with is the elements they have in common, the values they share.  The most important of these are; the power of originating life (and hence their connection with bulls – the earth very often depicted as a cow), thunder and rain; the epiphanies, in fact, of force and of violence, the necessary sources of those energies on which the life in the universe depends.