THE SUN-GOD.
The hymn which was translated in the first chapter gives an epitome of the simpler conceptions voiced in the few whole hymns to the sun. But there is a lower and a higher view of this god. He is the shining god par excellence, the deva, s[=u]rya,[2] the red ball in the sky. But he is also an active force, the power that wakens, rouses, enlivens, and as such it is he that gives all good things to mortals and to gods. As the god that gives life he (with others)[3] is the author of birth, and is prayed to for children. From above he looks down upon earth, and as with his one or many steeds he drives over the firmament he observes all that is passing below. He has these, the physical side and the spiritual side, under two names, the glowing one, S[=u]rya, and the enlivener, Savitar;[4] but he is also the good god who bestows benefits, and as such he was known, probably locally, by the name of Bhaga. Again, as a herdsman's god, possibly at first also a local deity, he is P[=u]shan (the meaning is almost the same with that of Savitar). As the 'mighty one' he is Vishnu, who measures heaven in three strides. In general, the conception of the sun as a physical phenomenon will be found voiced chiefly in the family-books: "The sightly form rises on the slope of the sky as the swift-going steed carries him … seven sister steeds carry him."[5] This is the prevailing utterance. Sometimes the sun is depicted under a medley of metaphors: "A bull, a flood, a red bird, he has entered his father's place; a variegated stone he is set in the midst of the sky; he has advanced and guards the two ends of space."[6] One after the other the god appears to the poets as a bull, a bird,[7] a steed, a stone, a jewel, a flood, a torch-holder,[8] or as a gleaming car set in heaven. Nor is the sun independent. As in the last image of a chariot,[9] so, without symbolism, the poet speaks of the sun as made to rise by Varuna and Mitra: "On their wonted path go Varuna and Mitra when in the sky they cause to rise Surya, whom they made to avert darkness"; where, also, the sun, under another image, is the "support of the sky."[10] Nay, in this simpler view, the sun is no more than the "eye of Mitra Varuna,"[11] a conception formally retained even when the sun in the same breath is spoken of as pursuing Dawn like a lover, and as being the 'soul of the universe' (I. 115. 1-2). In the older passages the later moral element is almost lacking, nor is there maintained the same physical relation between Sun and Dawn. In the earlier hymns the Dawn is the Sun's mother, from whom he proceeds.[12] It is the "Dawns produced the Sun," in still more natural language;[13] whereas, the idea of the lover-Sun following the Dawn scarcely occurs in the family-books.[14] Distinctly late, also, is the identification of the sun with the all-spirit ([=a]tm[=a], I. 115. 1), and the following prayer: "Remove, O sun, all weakness, illness, and bad dreams." In this hymn, X. 37. 14, S[=u]rya is the son of the sky, but he is evidently one with Savitar, who in V. 82. 4, removes bad dreams, as in X. 100. 8, he removes sickness. Men are rendered 'sinless' by the sun (IV. 54. 3; X. 37. 9) exactly as they are by the other gods, Indra, Varuna, etc. In a passage that refers to the important triad of sun, wind and fire, X. 158. I ff., the sun is invoked to 'save from the sky,' i.e. from all evils that may come from the upper regions; while in the same book the sun, like Indra, is represented as the slayer of demons (asuras) and dragons; as the slayer, also, of the poet's rivals; as giving long life to the worshipper, and as himself drinking sweet soma. This is one of the poems that seem to be at once late and of a forced and artificial character (X. 170).
Although S[=u]rya is differentiated explicitly from Savitar (V. 81. 4, "Savitar, thou joyest in S[=u]a's rays"), yet do many of the hymns make no distinction between them. The Enlivener is naturally extolled in fitting phrase, to tally with his title: "The shining-god, the Enlivener, is ascended to enliven the world"; "He gives protection, wealth and children" (II. 38.1; IV. 53. 6-7). The later hymns seem, as one might expect, to show greater confusion between the attributes of the physical and spiritual sun. But what higher power under either name is ascribed to the sun in the later hymns is not due to a higher or more developed homage of the sun as such. On the contrary, as with many other deities, the more the praise the less the individual worship. It is as something more than the sun that the god later receives more fulsome devotion. And, in fact, paradoxical as it seems, it is a decline in sun-worship proper that is here registered. The altar-fire becomes more important, and is revered in the sun, whose hymns, at most, are few, and in part mechanical.
Bergaigne in his great work, La Religion Védique, has laid much stress on sexual antithesis as an element in Vedic worship. It seems to us that this has been much exaggerated. The sun is masculine; the dawn, feminine. But there is no indication of a primitive antithesis of male and female in their relations. What occurs appears to be of adventitious character. For though sun and dawn are often connected, the latter is represented first as his mother and afterwards as his 'wife' or mistress. Even in the later hymns, where the marital relation is recognized, it is not insisted upon. But Bergaigne[15] is right in saying that in the Rig Veda the sun does not play the part of an evil power, and it is a good illustration of the difference between Rik and Atharvan, when Ehni cites, to prove that the sun is like death, only passages from the Atharvan and the later Brahmanic literature.[16]
When, later, the Hindus got into a region where the sun was deadly, they said, "Yon burning sun-god is death," but in the Rig Veda' they said, "Yon sun is the source of life,"[17] and no other conception of the sun is to be found in the Rig Veda.
There are about a dozen hymns to S[=u]rya, and as many to Savitar, in the Rig Veda.[18] It is noteworthy that in the family-books the hymns to Savitar largely prevail, while those to S[=u]rya are chiefly late in position or content. Thus, in the family-books, where are found eight or nine of the dozen hymns to Savitar, there are to S[=u]rya but three or four, and of these the first is really to Savitar and the Açvins; the second is an imitation of the first; the third appears to be late; and the fourth is a fragment of somewhat doubtful antiquity. The first runs as follows: "The altar-fire has seen well-pleased the dawns' beginning and the offering to the gleaming ones; come, O ye horsemen (Açvins), to the house of the pious man; the sun (S[=u]rya), the shining-god, rises with light. The shining-god Savitar has elevated his beams, swinging his banner like a good (hero) raiding for cattle. According to rule go Varuna and Mitra when they make rise in the sky the sun (S[=u]rya) whom they have created to dissipate darkness, being (gods) sure of their habitation and unswerving in intent. Seven yellow swift-steeds bear this S[=u]rya, the seer of all that moves. Thou comest with swiftest steeds unspinning the web, separating, O shining-god, the black robe. The rays of S[=u]rya swinging (his banner) have laid darkness like a skin in the waters. Unconnected, unsupported, downward extending, why does not this (god) fall down? With what nature goes he, who knows (literally, 'who has seen')? As a support he touches and guards the vault of the sky" (IV. 13).
There is here, no more than in the early hymn from the first book, translated in the first chapter, any worship of material phenomena. S[=u]rya is worshipped as Savitar, either expressly so called, or with all the attributes of the spiritual. The hymn that follows this[19] is a bald imitation. In V. 47 there are more or less certain signs of lateness, e.g., in the fourth stanza ("four carry him, … and ten give the child to drink that he may go," etc.) there is the juggling with unexplained numbers, which is the delight of the later priesthood. Moreover, this hymn is addressed formally to Mitra-Varuna and Agni, and not to the sun-god, who is mentioned only in metaphor; while the final words námo divé, 'obeisance to heaven,' show that the sun is only indirectly addressed. One cannot regard hymns addressed to Mitra-Varuna and S[=u]rya (with other gods) as primarily intended for S[=u]rya, who in these hymns is looked upon as the subject of Mitra and Varuna, as in VII. 62; or as the "eye" of the two other gods, and 'like Savitar' in VII. 63. So in VII. 66. 14-16, a mere fragment of a hymn is devoted exclusively to S[=u]rya as "lord of all that stands and goes." But in these hymns there are some very interesting touches. Thus in VII. 60. 1, the sun does not make sinless, but he announces to Mitra and Varuna that the mortal is sinless. There are no other hymns than these addressed to S[=u]rya, save those in the first and tenth books, of which nine stanzas of I. 50 (see above) may be reckoned early, while I. 115, where the sun is the soul of the universe, and at the same time the eye of Mitra-Varuna, is probably late; and I. 163 is certainly so, wherein the sun is identified with Yama, Trita, etc.; is 'like Varuna'; and is himself a steed, described as having three connections in the sky, three in the waters, three in the sea. In one of the hymns in the tenth book, also a mystical song, the sun is the 'bird' of the sky, a metaphor which soon gives another figure to the pantheon in the form of Garutman, the sun-bird, of whose exploits are told strange tales in the epic, where he survives as Garuda. In other hymns S[=u]rya averts carelessness at the sacrifice, guards the worshipper, and slays demons. A mechanical little hymn describes him as measuring the 'thirty stations.' Not one of these hymns has literary freshness or beauty of any kind. They all belong to the class of stereotyped productions, which differ in origin and content from the hymns first mentioned.[20]
SAVITAR.
Turning to Savitar one finds, of course, many of the same descriptive traits as in the praise of S[=u]rya, his more material self. But with the increased spirituality come new features. Savitar is not alone the sun that rises; he is also the sun that sets; and is extolled as such. There are other indications that most of the hymns composed for him are to accompany the sacrifice, either of the morning or of the evening. In II. 38, an evening song to Savitar, there are inner signs that the hymn was made for rubrication, but here some fine verses occur: "The god extends his vast hand, his arms above there—and all here obeys him; to his command the waters move, and even the winds' blowing ceases on all sides." Again: "Neither Indra, Varuna, Mitra, Aryaman, Rudra, nor the demons, impair his law" We call attention here to the fact that the Rig Veda contains a strong(stong in the original) current of demonology, much stronger than has been pointed out by scholars intent on proving the primitive loftiness of the Vedic religion.
In III. 62. 7-9 there are some verses to P[=u]shan, following which is the most holy couplet of the Rig Veda, to repeat which is essentially to repeat the Veda. It is the famous G[=a]yatr[=i] or S[=a]vitr[=i] hymnlet (10-12):