Vedic Mythology c4.s1.6

c4.s1.6

There are in the last book of the RV. some hymns which treat the origin of the world philosophically rather than mythologically. Various passages show that in the cosmological speculation of the RV. the sun was regarded as an important agent of generation. Thus he is called the soul (*ātmā*) of all that moves and stands (1, 115¹). Statements such as that he is called by many names though one (1, 164⁴⁶; 10, 114⁵ cp. Vāl. 10²) indicate that his nature was being tentatively abstracted to that of a supreme god, nearly approaching that of the later conception of Brahmā. In this sense the sun is once glorified as a great power of the universe under the name of the ‘golden embryo’, *hiraṇya-garbha*, in RV. 10, 121.³ It is he who measures out space in the air and shines where the sun rises (vv. 5. 6). In the last verse of this hymn, he is called Prajāpati⁴, ‘lord of created beings’, the name which became that of the chief god of the Brāhmaṇas. It is significant that in the only older passage of the RV. in which it occurs (4, 53²), *prajāpati* is an epithet of the solar deity Savitṛ, who in the same hymn (v. ⁶) is said to rule over what moves and stands⁵.