[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 roles 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-Civa, is also a ‘guardian of cattle’ and has the ‘braided hair.’

Bergaigne identifies P[=u]shan with Soma, with whom the poets were apt to identify many other deities, but there seems to be little similarity originally.[29] It is only in the wider circles of each god’s activity that the two approach each other.  Both gods, it is true, wed S[=u]rya (the female sun-power), and Soma, like P[=u]shan, finds lost cattle.  But it must be recognized once for all that identical attributes are not enough to identify Vedic gods.  Who gives wealth?  Indra, Soma, Agni, Heaven and Earth, Wind, Sun, the Maruts, etc.  Who forgives sins?  Agni, Varuna, Indra, the Sun, etc.  Who helps in war?  Agni, P[=u]shan, Indra, Soma, etc.  Who sends rain?  Indra, Parjanya, Soma, the Maruts, P[=u]shan, etc.  Who weds Dawn?  The Acvins, the Sun, etc.  The attributes must be functional or the identification is left incomplete.