tyas, literally the sons of Aditi, or the gods beyond the
visible earth and sky--in one sense, the infinite gods. One of them is
Varu_n_a, others Mitra and Aryaman (Bhaga, Daksha, A_ms_a), most of
them abstract names, though pointing to heaven and the solar light of
heaven as their first, though almost forgotten source.

When Mitra and Varu_n_a are invoked together, we can still perceive
dimly that they were meant originally for day and night, light and
darkness. But in their more personal and so to say dramatic aspect,
day and night appear in the Vedic mythology as the two A_s_vins, the
two horsemen.

Aditi, too, the infinite, still shows a few traces of her being
originally connected with the boundless Dawn; but again, in her more
personal and dramatic character, the Dawn is praised by the Vedic
poets as Ushas, the Greek Eos, the beautiful maid of the morning,
loved by the A_s_vins, loved by the sun, but vanishing before him at
the very moment when he tries to embrace her with his golden rays. The
sun himself, whom we saw reflected several times before in some of the
divine personifications of the air and the sky and even of the earth,
appears once more in his full personality, as the sun of the sky,
under the names of Surya (Helios), Savit_ri_, Pushan, and Vish_n_u,
and many more.

You see from all this how great a mistake it would be to attempt to
reduce the whole of Aryan mythology to solar concepts, and to solar
concepts only. We have seen how largely the earth, the air, and the
sky have each contributed their share to the earliest religious and
mythological treasury of the Vedic Aryans. Nevertheless, the Sun
occupied in that ancient collection of Aryan thought, which we call
Mythology, the same central and commanding position which, under
different names, it still holds in our own thoughts.

What we call the Morning, the ancient Aryans called the Sun or the
Dawn; "and there is no solemnity so deep to a rightly-thinking
creature as that of the Dawn." (These are not my words, but the words
of one of our greatest poets, one of the truest worshippers of
Nature--John Ruskin.) What we call Noon, and Evening, and Night, what
we call Spring and Winter, what we call Year, and Time, and Life, and
Eternity--all this the ancient Aryans called _Sun_. And yet wise
people wonder and say, How curious that the ancient Aryans should have
had so many solar myths. Why, every time we say "Good-morning," we
commit a solar myth. E