________________
Where is (bright) S[=u]rya now? who understands it? And through which sky is now his ray extending?
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]
PE=UJSHAN 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[=ujshans, 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