Borne by swift coursers, he will now unyoke them: The speeding chariot he has stayed from going. He checks the speed of them that glide like serpents: Night has come on by Savitri's commandment. The weaver rolls her outstretched web together, The skilled lay down their work in midst of toiling, The birds all seek their nests, their shed the cattle: Each to his lodging Savitri disperses.
To this god is addressed the most famous stanza of the Rigveda, with which, as the Stimulator, he was in ancient times invoked at the beginning of Vedic study, and which is still repeated by every orthodox Hindu in his morning prayers. From the name of the deity it is called the Savitri, but it is also often referred to as "the Gayatri," from the metre in which it is composed:--
May we attain that excellent Glory of Savitri the god, That he may stimulate our thoughts (iii. 62, 10).
A peculiarity of the hymns to Savitri is the perpetual play on his name with forms of the root su, "to stimulate," from which it is derived.
Pushan is invoked in some eight hymns of the Rigveda. His name means "Prosperer," and the conception underlying his character seems to be the beneficent power of the sun, manifested chiefly as a pastoral deity. His car is drawn by goats and he carries a goad. Knowing the ways of heaven, he conducts the dead on the far path to the fathers. He is also a guardian of roads, protecting cattle and guiding them with his goad. The welfare which he bestows results from the protection he extends to men and cattle on earth, and from his guidance of mortals to the abodes of bliss in the next world.
Judged by a statistical standard, Vishnu is only a deity of the fourth rank, less frequently invoked than Surya, Savitri, and Pushan in the Rigveda, but historically he is the most important of the solar deities. For he is one of the two great gods of modern Hinduism. The essential feature of his character is that he takes three strides, which doubtless represent the course of the sun through the three divisions of the universe. His highest step is heaven, where the gods and the fathers dwell. For this abode the poet expresses his longing in the following words (i. 154, 5):--
May I attain to that, his well-loved dwelling, Where men devoted to the gods are blessèd: In Vishnu's highest step--he is our kinsman, Of mighty stride--there is a spring of nectar.