Vedic Mythology c5.s4.8

c5.s4.8

Probably because of his creative agency in the womb⁴, Tvaṣṭṛ is closely allied with celestial females (*gnāḥ*, *janayaḥ*) or the wives of the gods, who are his most frequent attendants (1, 22⁹ &c.)⁵. Tvaṣṭṛ is chiefly mentioned with gods of cognate activity, Pūṣan, Savitṛ, Dhātṛ, Prajāpati. ‘Savitṛ’ is indeed an attribute of Tvaṣṭṛ in two passages (3, 55¹⁹; 10, 10⁵) in which occurs the identical collocation *devas tvaṣṭā savitā viśvarūpaḥ*⁶, ‘god Tvaṣṭṛ, the omniform vivifier’, and in both of which the generative or creative faculty of the deity is referred to. In the Kauśika Sūtra, Tvaṣṭṛ is identified with Savitṛ and Prajāpati⁷, and in the Mārkaṇḍeya Purāṇa, with Viśvakarman and Prajāpati. In the later mythology Tvaṣṭṛ is one of the twelve Ādityas and in the Mahābhārata and the Bhāgavata Purāṇa is once or twice a form of the sun.