Despite the abundance of such references, the gods are never portrayed as having command over "Ṛta". Instead, the gods, like all created beings, remain subject to "Ṛta", and their divinity largely resides in their serving it in the role of executors, agents or instruments of its manifestation. As Day (1982) notes, the gods "do not govern "Ṛta" so much as immanentalize it through the particularities of divine ordinances and retributions concerning both rewards and punishments. In this sense they do not "govern" "Ṛta"; they serve it as agents and ministers".