He who gives life; He who gives strength ; whose command all the bright gods" (the stars?) "revere; whose light is immortality; whose shadow is death.… He who through his power is the one God of the breathing and awakening world. He who governs all, man and beast. He whose greatness these snowy mountains, whose greatness the sea proclaims, with the distant river. He through whom the sky is bright and the earth firm.… He who measured out the light in the air.… Wherever the mighty water-clouds went, where they placed the seed and lit the fire, thence arose He who is the sole life of the bright gods.… He to whom heaven and earth, standing firm by His will, look up, trembling inwardly.… May he not destroy us; He, the creator of the earth; He, the righteous, who created heaven. He also created the bright and mighty waters."
This is plainly a hymn to the sun, or to a god whose most glorious representative was the sun. It is the hymn of a people near the sea; it was not written by a people living in the heart of Asia. It was the hymn of a people living in a volcanic country, who call upon their god to keep the earth "firm" and not to destroy them. It was sung at daybreak, as the sun rolled up the sky over an "awakening world."
The fire (Agni) upon the altar was regarded as a messenger rising from the earth to the sun:
"Youngest of the gods, their messenger, their invoker.… For thou, O sage, goest wisely between these two creations (heaven and earth, God and man) like a friendly messenger between two hamlets."
The dawn of the day (Ushas), part of the sun-worship, became also a god:
"She shines upon us like a young wife, rousing every living being to go to his work. When the fire had to be kindled by man, she made the light by striking down the darkness."
As the Egyptians and the Greeks looked to a happy abode (an under-world) in the west, beyond the waters, so the Aryan's paradise was the other side of some body of water. In the
