The Religions of India: Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume 1, Edited by Morris Jastrow — John Shaqi
The Religions of India: Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume 1, Edited by Morris JastrowHopkins, Edward Washburn
Religion
The Religions of India: Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume 1, Edited by Morris Jastrow
Hopkins, Edward Washburn
India -- Religion
Through space of darkness wending comes he hither,
Who puts to rest th' immortal and the mortal,
On golden car existent things beholding,
The god that rouses, Savitar, the shining;
Comes he, the shining one, comes forward, upward,
Comes with two yellow steeds, the god revered,
Comes shining Savitar from out the distance,
All difficulties far away compelling.
His pearl-adorned, high, variegated chariot,
Of which the pole is golden, he, revered,
Hath mounted, Savitar, whose beams are brilliant,
Against the darksome spaces strength assuming.
Among the people gaze the brown white-footed
(Steeds) that the chariot drag whose pole is golden.
All peoples stand, and all things made, forever,
Within the lap of Savitar, the heavenly.
[There are three heavens of Savitar, two low ones,[23]
One, men-restraining, in the realm of Yama.
As on (his) chariot-pole[24] stand all immortals,
Let him declare it who has understood it!]
Across air-spaces gazes he, the eagle,
Who moves in secret, th' Asura,[25] well-guiding,
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]
P[=U]SHAN 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[=u]shans, 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
Rudra's characteristics, who, in the Vedic period, and later as
Rudra-Çiva, is also a 'guardian of cattle' and has the 'braided hair.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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