The Antiquities of Orissa v1.c11.93.3

v1.c11.93.3

while the other, Aruṇavābha, took them to indicate "the different positions of the sun at his rising, his culmination, and his setting".⁴³ Sāyaṇa Ācārya explains them differently in different places, but he understands them to refer to the dwarf incarnation, in which Viṣṇu put one foot on the earth, another on the firmament and a third, according to some, on the heavens, and according to others, on the head of the Titan Bali, whom he defrauded of his sovereignty of the world to bestow it on Indra. Durgācārya, in his comment on the *Nirukta*, boldy asserts that the Viṣṇu indicated by the epithets was no other than the sun Āditya, whose different position in the sky at dawn, at midday, and at vesper, referred to by Aruṇavābha, were the three steps alluded to in the epithets. That this is the right interpretation is evident from the phrase used in the hymn which says the deity "is fixed like an eye in the sky". The expression, "who envelops the world with his dust," has been interpreted by Benfey in one place, to mean, "the earth was subject to him," and in another place, that "the god is so mighty that the dust which his tread raises, fills the whole earth". But Dr. Muir asks, "Can this dust be understood of the dazzling brightness of the sun's rays, surrounding his progress, and obscuring his disk from the view of the observer? The prophet Nahum, i.