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Rig Veda · 976 of 1027
Mandala 10: HYMN CXXXIX. Savitar.
1.SAVITAR, golden-haired, hath lifted eastward, bright With the sunbeams, his eternal lustre; He in whose energy wise Pūṣan marches, surveying all existence like a herdsman.
2.Beholding men he sits amid the heaven filling the two world-halves and air’s wide region. He looks upon the rich far-spreading pastures between the eastern and the western limit.
3.He, root of wealth, the gatherer-up of treasures, looks with his might on every form and figure. Savitar, like a Godẉhose Law is constant, stands in the battle for the spoil like Indra.
4.Waters from sacrifice came to the Gandharva Visvavasu, O Soma, when they saw him. Indra, approaching quickly, marked their going, and looked around upon the Sun’s enclosures.
5.This song Visvavasu shall sing us, meter of air’s mid-realm celestial Gandharva, That we may know aright both truth and falsehood: may he inspire our thoughts and help our praises.
6.In the floods’ track he found the bootyseeker: the rocky cow-pen’s doors he threw wide open. These, the Gandharva told him, Rowed with Amṛta. Indra knew well the puissancc of the dragons.
Asked of Guide
Why does this hymn call Savitar both a herdsman and root of wealth?
The hymn pictures Savitar as a herdsman because he “surveys all existence like a herdsman,” watching the world’s pastures between east and west and tending what grows there. That image links to his function as source and guardian: by overseeing life and movement he becomes the “root of wealth” and “gatherer-up of treasures,” the active cause from which prosperity flows.
This pairing of pastoral care and cosmic providence echoes other Vedic songs where deities’ ordinary occupations reveal metaphysical roles, like Pūṣan guiding travelers. Reading this alongside Rig Veda hymns to Pūṣan or to Pūshan in other books clarifies how daily images (herdsman, guide) stand for Divine ordering and abundance.
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