Bergaigne in his great work, La Religion Vedique, has laid much stress on sexual antithesis as an element in Vedic worship.  It seems to us that this has been much exaggerated.  The sun is masculine; the dawn, feminine.  But there is no indication of a primitive antithesis of male and female in their relations.  What occurs appears to be of adventitious character.  For though sun and dawn are often connected, the latter is represented first as his mother and afterwards as his ‘wife’ or mistress.  Even in the later hymns, where the marital relation is recognized, it is not insisted upon.  But Bergaigne[15] is right in saying that in the Rig Veda the sun does not play the part of an evil power, and it is a good illustration of the difference between Rik and Atharvan, when Ehni cites, to prove that the sun is like death, only passages from the Atharvan and the later Brahmanic literature.[16]

When, later, the Hindus got into a region where the sun was deadly, they said, “Yon burning sun-god is death,” but in the Rig Veda’ they said, “Yon sun is the source of life,"[17] and no other conception of the sun is to be found in the Rig Veda.

There are about a dozen hymns to S[=u]rya, and as many to Savitar, in the Rig Veda.[18] It is noteworthy that in the family-books the hymns to Savitar largely prevail, while those to S[=u]rya are chiefly late in position or content.  Thus, in the family-books, where are found eight or nine of the dozen hymns to Savitar, there are to S[=u]rya but three or four, and of these the first is really to Savitar and the Acvins; the second is an imitation of the first; the third appears to be late; and the fourth is a fragment of somewhat doubtful antiquity.  The first runs as follows:  “The altar-fire has seen well-pleased the dawns’ beginning and the offering to the gleaming ones; come, O ye horsemen (Acvins), to the house of the pious man; the sun (S[=u]rya), the shining-god, rises with light.  The shining-god Savitar has elevated his beams, swinging his banner like a good (hero) raiding for cattle.  According to rule go Varuna and Mitra when they make rise in the sky the sun (S[=u]rya) whom they have created to dissipate darkness, being (gods) sure of their habitation and unswerving in intent.  Seven yellow swift-steeds bear this S[=u]rya, the seer of all that moves.  Thou comest with swiftest steeds unspinning the web, separating, O shining-god, the black robe.  The rays of S[=u]rya swinging (his banner) have laid darkness like a skin in the waters.  Unconnected, unsupported, downward extending, why does not this (god) fall down?  With what nature goes he, who knows (literally, ’who has seen’)?  As a support he touches and guards the vault of the sky” (IV. 13).