tions has been leading
up to the declaration now made public: 'all these gods are but names
of the One.'

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
be