Page:The Mythology of the Aryan Nations.djvu/234

202 higher and higher, and when his daily course is run, he sinks, like Endymiôn or Kephalos, into the waters. "I have beheld the permanent orb of the sun, your dwelling-place, concealed by water where (the hymns of the pious) liberate his steeds."

Savitar, the inspirer, from the root su, to drive or stimulate, is especially the glistening or golden god. He is golden-eyed, golden-tongued, and golden-handed; and in the later Brahmanic mythology such epithets might furnish a groundwork for strange and uncouth fancies. Thus the story (which probably started as the myth of Midas and ended with the ass which poured out gold from its mouth on hearing the word Bricklebrit) went that once when Savitar cut off his hand at a sacrifice, the priests gave him instead a hand of gold; and in the same spirit the commentators interpreted the epithet as denoting not the splendour of the sun but the gold which he carried in his hand to lavish on his worshippers. The Teutonic god Tyr is also said to have lost one hand; but the German story ran that Tyr placed his hand as a pledge in the mouth of the wolf and that the wolf bit it off. In the latter tale we have an instance of that confusion of homonyms which converted Lykâôn into a wolf, Kallistô into a bear, and the Seven Arkshas into seven sages.

The power and strength of Savitar are naturally represented as rresistible. Not even Indra, or Varuna, or any other being can resist his will; and the verse which is regarded as the holiest in the Veda is addressed to Savitar. He is a Tithonos who waxes not old.

" Shining forth, he rises from the lap of the Dawn, praised by singers ; he, my god Savitar, stepped forth, who never misses the same place.

"He steps forth, the splendour of the sky, the wide-seeing, the far-shining, the shining wanderer ; surely, eLkvened by the sun, do men go to their tasks and do their work.""