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Sāvitrī, but it is also often referred to as “the Gāyatrī,” from the metre in which it is composed:—

      May we attain that excellent

      Glory of Savitṛi the god,

      That he may stimulate our thoughts (iii. 62, 10).

      A peculiarity of the hymns to Savitṛi is the perpetual play on his name with forms of the root sū, “to stimulate,” from which it is derived.

      Pūshan is invoked in some eight hymns of the Rigveda. His name means “Prosperer,” and the conception underlying his character seems to be the beneficent power of the sun, manifested chiefly as a pastoral deity. His car is drawn by goats and he carries a goad. Knowing the ways of heaven, he conducts the dead on the far path to the fathers. He is also a guardian of roads, protecting cattle and guiding them with his goad. The welfare which he bestows results from the protection he extends to men and cattle on earth, and from his guidance of mortals to the abodes of bliss in the next world.

      Judged by a statistical standard, Vishṇu is only a deity of the fourth rank, less frequently invoked than Sūrya, Savitṛi, and Pūshan in the Rigveda, but historically he is the most important of the solar deities. For he is one of the two great gods of modern Hinduism. The essential feature of his character is that he takes three strides, which doubtless represent the course of the sun through the three divisions of the universe. His highest step is heaven, where the gods and the fathers dwell. For this abode the poet expresses his longing in the following words (i. 154, 5):—

      May I attain to that, his well-loved dwelling,

      Where men devoted to the gods are blessèd:

      In Vishṇu’s highest step—he is our kinsman,

      Of mighty stride—there is a spring of nectar.

      Vishṇu seems to have been originally conceived as the sun, not in his general character, but as the personified swiftly moving luminary which with vast strides traverses the three worlds. He is in several passages said to have taken his three steps for the benefit of man.

      To this feature may be traced the myth of the Brāhmaṇas in which Vishṇu appears in the form of a dwarf as an artifice to recover the earth, now in the possession of demons, by taking his three strides. His character for benevolence was in post-Vedic mythology developed in the doctrine of the Avatārs (“descents” to earth) or incarnations which he assumed for the good of humanity.

      Ushas, goddess of dawn, is almost the only female deity to whom entire hymns are addressed, and the only one invoked with any frequency. She, however, is celebrated in some twenty hymns. The name, meaning the “Shining One,” is cognate to the Latin Aurora and the Greek Ēōs. When the goddess is addressed, the physical phenomenon of dawn is never absent from the poet’s mind. The fondness with which the thoughts of these priestly singers turned to her alone among the goddesses, though she received no share in the offering of soma like the other gods, seems to show that the glories of the dawn, more splendid in Northern India than those we are wont to see, deeply impressed the minds of these early poets. In any case, she is their most graceful creation, the charm of which is unsurpassed in the descriptive religious lyrics of any other literature. Here there are no priestly subtleties to obscure the brightness of her form, and few allusions to the sacrifice to mar the natural beauty of the imagery.

      To enable the reader to estimate the merit of this poetry I will string together some utterances about the Dawn goddess, culled from various hymns, and expressed as nearly as possible in the words of their composers. Ushas is a radiant maiden, born in the sky, daughter of Dyaus. She is the bright sister of dark Night. She shines with the light of her lover, with the light of Sūrya, who beams after her path and follows her as a young man a maiden. She is borne on a brilliant car, drawn by ruddy steeds or kine. Arraying herself in gay attire like a dancer, she displays her bosom. Clothed upon with light, the maiden appears in the east and unveils her charms. Rising resplendent as from a bath, she shows her form. Effulgent in peerless beauty, she withholds her light from neither small nor great. She opens wide the gates of heaven; she opens the doors of darkness, as the cows (issue from) their stall. Her radiant beams appear like herds of cattle. She removes the black robe of night, warding off evil spirits and the hated darkness. She awakens creatures that have feet, and makes the birds fly up: she is the breath and life of everything. When Ushas shines forth, the birds fly up from their nests and men seek nourishment. She is the radiant mover of sweet sounds, the leader of the charm of pleasant voices. Day by day appearing at the appointed place, she never infringes the rule of order and of the gods; she goes straight along the path of order; knowing the way, she never loses her direction. As she shone in former days, so she shines now and will shine in future, never aging, immortal.

      The solitude and stillness of the early morning sometimes suggested pensive thoughts about the fleeting nature of human life in contrast with the unending recurrence of the dawn. Thus one poet exclaims:—

      Gone are the mortals who in former ages

      Beheld the flushing of the earlier morning.

      We living men now look upon her shining;

      They are coming who shall in future see her (i. 113, 11).

      In a similar strain another Rishi sings:—

      Again and again newly born though ancient,

      Decking her beauty with the self-same colours,

      The goddess wastes away the life of mortals,

      Like wealth diminished by the skilful player (i. 92, 10).

      The following stanzas from one of the finest hymns to Dawn (i. 113) furnish a more general picture of this fairest creation of Vedic poetry:—

      This light has come, of all the lights the fairest,

      The brilliant brightness has been born, far-shining.

      Urged onward for god Savitṛi’s uprising,

      Night now has yielded up her place to Morning.

      The sisters’ pathway is the same, unending:

      Taught by the gods, alternately they tread it.

      Fair-shaped, of different forms and yet one-minded,

      Night and Morning clash not, nor do they linger.

      Bright leader of glad sounds, she shines effulgent:

      Widely she has unclosed for us her portals.

      Arousing all the world, she shows us riches:

      Dawn has awakened every living creature.

      There Heaven’s Daughter has appeared before us,

      The maiden flushing in her brilliant garments.

      Thou sovran lady of all earthly treasure,

      Auspicious Dawn, flush here to-day upon us.

      In the sky’s framework she has shone with splendour;

      The goddess has cast off the robe of darkness.

      Wakening up the world with ruddy horses,

      Upon her well-yoked chariot Dawn is coming.

      Bringing upon it many bounteous blessings,

      Brightly shining, she spreads her brilliant lustre.

      Last of the countless mornings that have gone by,

      First of bright morns to come has Dawn arisen.

      Arise! the breath, the life, again has reached us:

      Darkness has gone away and light is coming.

      She leaves a pathway for the sun to travel:

      We have arrived where men prolong existence.

      Among the deities of celestial light, those most frequently invoked are the twin gods of morning named Açvins. They are the sons of Heaven,

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