[Pramāṇa](https://indike.org/pramana/) › [Studies](https://indike.org/pramana/ins) › [Religion and philosophy](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.religion) › [The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.religion.keith-1925) › v1.c19.s7.11 # The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v1.c19.s7.11 The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v1.c19.s7.11 - **Language:** English ### [v1.c19.s7.11](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.religion.keith-1925.v1.c19.s7.11) Hillebrandt,⁶ therefore, suggests, with much more plausibility, that the steed is divine as being the horse which was to be sacrificed at the end of the period of a year, during which the sacrificial horse for the horse sacrifice of the king was allowed to wander at pleasure, guarded by the king's sons and warriors, as a sign that his sovereignty was acknowledged on all sides. The suggestion is interesting and is correct, in so far as it is clear that the horse at the horse sacrifice was addressed in terms appropriate to divinity: it cannot seriously be doubted that for the time being the horse was considered as being in a sense divine, nor that in the offering the horse represented the embodiment of the sun. It is, therefore, probable that we have in the horse of the sacrifice a sun fetish,⁷ and this being so we have support for the theory that Dadhikrāvan is the sun in horse shape, but we need not suppose that Dadhikrāvan in the hymns in question was actually the horse of the horse sacrifice: he is instead the theriomorphic form of the sun, which in the horse sacrifice is represented by a real horse. - [Previous: v1.c19.s7.10](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.religion.keith-1925.v1.c19.s7.10) - [Next: v1.c19.s7.12](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.religion.keith-1925.v1.c19.s7.12) - [Up: v1.c19.s7](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.religion.keith-1925.v1.c19.s7) --- Source: [https://indike.org/pramana/ins.religion.keith-1925.v1.c19.s7.11](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.religion.keith-1925.v1.c19.s7.11) · Pramāṇa