He looks across the earth's eight elevations,[26]
The desert stations three, and the seven rivers,
The gold-eyed shining god is come, th' Arouser,
To him that worships giving wealth and blessings.
The golden-handed Savitar, the active one,
Goes earth and heaven between, compels demoniac powers,
To S[=u]rya gives assistance, and through darksome space
Extends to heaven, etc.[27]
P[=U]SHAN AND BHAGA AS SUN-GODS.
With P[=u]shan, the 'bestower of prosperity,' appears an ancient side of sun-worship. While under his other names the sun has lost, to a great extent, the attributes of a bucolic solar deity, in the case of P[=u]shan he appears still as a god whose characteristics are bucolic, war-like, and priestly, that is to say, even as he is venerated by the three masses of the folk. It will not do, of course, to distinguish too sharply between the first two divisions, but one can very well compare P[=u]shan in these rôles with Helios guiding his herds, and Apollo swaying armed hosts. It is customary to regard P[=u]shan as too bucolic a deity, but this is only one side of him. He apparently is the sun, as herdsmen look upon him, and in this figure is the object of ridicule with the warrior-class who, especially in one family or tribe, take a more exalted view of him. Consequently, as in the case of Varuna, one need not read into the hymns more than they offer to see that, not to speak of the priestly view, there are at least two P[=u]shans, in the Rig Veda itself.[28]
As the god 'with braided hair,' and as the 'guardian of cattle,'
P[=u]shan offers, perhaps, in these particulars, the original of
Rudra's characteristics, who, in the Vedic period, and later as
Rudra-Çiva, is also a 'guardian of cattle' and has the 'braided hair.'
Bergaigne identifies P[=u]shan with Soma, with whom the poets were apt to identify many other deities, but there seems to be little similarity originally.[29] It is only in the wider circles of each god's activity that the two approach each other. Both gods, it is true, wed S[=u]rya (the female sun-power), and Soma, like P[=u]shan, finds lost cattle. But it must be recognized once for all that identical attributes are not enough to identify Vedic gods. Who gives wealth? Indra, Soma, Agni, Heaven and Earth, Wind, Sun, the Maruts, etc. Who forgives sins? Agni, Varuna, Indra, the Sun, etc. Who helps in war? Agni, P[=u]shan, Indra, Soma, etc. Who sends rain? Indra, Parjanya, Soma, the Maruts, P[=u]shan, etc. Who weds Dawn? The Açvins, the Sun, etc. The attributes must be functional or the identification is left incomplete.
The great disparity in descriptions of P[=u]shan may be illustrated by setting VI. 48. 19 beside X. 92. 13. The former passage merely declares that P[=u]shan is a war-leader "over mortals, and like the gods in glory"; the latter, that he is "distinguished by all divine attributes"; that is to say, what has happened in the case of Savitar has happened here also. The individuality of P[=u]shan dies out, but the vaguer he becomes the more grandiloquently is he praised and associated with other powers; while for lack of definite laudation general glory is ascribed to him. The true position of P[=u]shan in the eyes of the warrior is given unintentionally by one who says,[30] "I do not scorn thee, O P[=u]shan," i.e., as do most people, on account of thy ridiculous attributes. For P[=u]shan does not drink soma like Indra, but eats mush. So another devout believer says: "P[=u]shan is not described by them that call him an eater of mush."[31] The fact that he was so called speaks louder than the pious protest. Again, P[=u]shan is simply bucolic. He uses the goad, which, however, according to Bergaigne, is the thunderbolt! So, too, the cows that P[=u]shan is described as guiding have been interpreted as clouds or 'dawns.' But they may be taken without 'interpretation' as real cows.[32] P[=u]shan drives the cows, he is armed with a goad, and eats mush; bucolic throughout, yet a sun-god. It is on these lines that his finding-qualities are to be interpreted. He finds lost cattle,[33] a proper business for such a god; but Bergaigne will see in this a transfer from P[=u]shan's finding of rain and of soma.[34] P[=u]shan, too, directs the furrow[35]
Together with Vishnu and Bhaga this god is invoked at sacrifices, (a fact that says little against or for his original sun-ship),[36] and he is intimately connected with Indra. His sister is his mistress, and his mother is his wife (Dawn and Night?) according to the meagre accounts given in VI. 55. 4-5.[37] As a god of increase he is invoked in the marriage-rite, X. 85. 37.
As Savitar and all sun-gods are at once luminous and dark, so P[=u]shan has a clear and again a revered (terrible) appearance; he is like day and night, like Dyaus (the sky); at one time bright, at another, plunged in darkness, VI. 58. 1. Quite like Savitar he is the shining god who "looks upon all beings and sees them all together"; he is the "lord of the path," the god of travellers; he is invoked to drive away evil spirits, thieves, footpads, and all workers of evil; he makes paths for the winning of wealth; he herds the stars and directs all with soma. He carries a golden axe or sword, and is borne through air and water on golden ships; and it is he that lets down the sun's golden wheel. These simpler attributes appear for the most part in the early hymns. In what seem to be later hymns, he is the mighty one who "carries the thoughts of all"; he is like soma (the drink), and attends to the filter; he is "lord of the pure"; the "one born of old," and is especially called upon to help the poets' hymns.[38] It is here, in the last part of the Rig Veda, that he appears as [Greek: psuchopompós], who "goes and returns," escorting the souls of the dead to heaven. He is the sun's messenger, and is differentiated from Savitar in X. 139. 1.[39] Apparently he was a god affected most by the Bharadv[=a]ja family (to which is ascribed the sixth book of the Rig Veda) where his worship was extended more broadly. He seems to have become the special war-god of this family, and is consequently invoked with Indra and the Maruts (though this may have been merely in his rôte as sun). The goats, his steeds, are also an attribute of the Scandinavian war-god Thor (Kaegi, Rig Veda, note 210), so that his bucolic character rests more in his goad, food, and plough.
Bhaga is recognized as an [=A]ditya (luminous deity) and was perhaps a sun-god of some class, possibly of all, as the name in Slavic is still kept in the meaning 'god,' literally 'giver.' In the Rig Veda the word means, also, simply god, as in bhágabhakta, 'given by gods'; but as a name it is well known, and when thus called Bhaga is still the giver, 'the bestower' (vidhart[=á]). As bhaga is also an epithet of Savitar, the name may not stand for an originally distinct personality. Bhaga has but one hymn.[40] There is in fact no reason why Bhaga should be regarded as a sun-god, except for the formal identification of him as an [=A]dityà, that is as the son of Aditi (Boundlessness, see below); but neither S[=u]rya nor Savitar is originally an [=A]dityà, and in Iranic bagha is only an epithet of Ormuzd.