To this god is addressed the most famous stanza of the Rigveda, with which, as the Stimulator, he was in ancient times invoked at the beginning of Vedic study, and which is still repeated by every orthodox Hindu in his morning prayers. From the name of the deity it is called the Savitri, but it is also often referred to as "the Gayatri," from the metre in which it is composed:-- May we attain that excellent Glory of Savitri the god, That he may stimulate our thoughts (iii. 62, 10). A peculiarity of the hymns to Savitri is the perpetual play on his name with forms of the root su, "to stimulate," from which it is derived. Pushan 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, Vishnu is only a deity of the fourth rank, less frequently invoked than Surya, Savitri, and Pushan 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 Vishnu's highest step--he is our kinsman, Of mighty stride--there is a spring of nectar. Vishnu 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 Brahmanas in which Vishnu 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 Avatars ("descents" to earth) or incarnations which he assumed for the good of humanity.