But there are not many hymns addressed to Mitra alone. And he stands far behind Indra or Agni in the Vedic creed as we actually find it. Another sun-god--the disk of the sun, so to say--is Surya, the shiner. He is sometimes called the eye of Mitra and Varuna. But in other places he is said to come through heaven dragging his wheel. Yet great as he is, the sun-god is compelled to follow his daily round. ‘He travels upon changeless paths.’ Another sun-god is Savitar, whose name is almost identical in meaning with Surya.
The writers of the Vedic hymns were very largely taken up with observing and recording in their mythic fashion all the skyey phenomena from dawn to sunset. For each changed aspect of the heavens, bright or cloudy, calm or windy, they had a divinity. They sang to the fair young morning as she came out of the chambers of darkness and opened the stalls for the cattle to go forth to pasture; they sang the heavy labouring sun of midday; they sang the stormy sky or the hurrying clouds; and at evening they sang the evening sun sinking peacefully to rest and bringing ‘night and peace’ to all the world. Wherefore, to bring to a close this picture of the religion of the Vedas, we will give just two more hymns from that vast collection, the Rig-Veda--a hymn to the morning, and a hymn to the sun (Savitar) at sun-setting.
‘Dawn full of wisdom, rich in everything! Fairest! attend the singers’ song of praise. O thou rich goddess, old, yet ever young! Thou, all-dispenser, in due order comest.
‘Shine forth, O goddess, thine eternal morning, With thy bright cars our song of praise awakening. Thee draw through heaven the well-yoked team of horses-- The horses golden-bright, that shine afar.
‘Enlightener of all being, breath of morning, Thou holdest up aloft the light of gods. Unto one goal ever thy course pursuing, Oh, roll towards us now thy wheel again!
‘Opening at once her girdle, she appears, The lovely Dawn, the ruler of the stalls. She, light-producing, wonder-working, noble, Up-mounted from the coast of earth and heaven.
‘Up, up, and bring to meet the Dawn, the goddess Bright beaming now, your humble song of praise. To heaven climbed up her ray the sweet due bearing, Joying to shine the airy space she filled.