rt 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: psuchopompos], 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 rote 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 _bhagabhakta_, 'given by gods'; but as
a name it is well known, and when thus called Bhaga is still the
giver, 'the bestower' _(vidhart[=a])_. 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]ditya, that is as the son of Aditi
(Boundlessness, see below); but neither S[=u]rya nor Savitar is
originally an [=A]ditya, and in Iranic _bagha_ is only an epithet of
Ormuzd.

HYMNS TO P[=U]SHAN AND BHAGA.

To P[=U]SHAN (vi. 56).

The man who P[=u]shan designates
With words like these, 'mush-eater he,'
By him the god is not described.

With P[=u]shan joined in unison
That best of warriors, truest lord,
Indra, the evil demons slays.

'T is he, the best of warriors, drives
The golden chariot of the sun
Among the speckled kine (the clouds).

Whate'er we ask of thee to-day,
O wonder-worker, praised and wise,
Accomplish thou for us that prayer.

And this our band, which hunts for kine,[41]
Successful make for booty's gain;
Afar, O P