May Pushan, guard of the world whose cattle are never harmed, bear you hence, for he has knowledge; may he give you to the Fathers and Agni to the gods. May Ayu protect you on the distant path and Savitr carry you to where the pious dwell. Pushan knows all these realms; may he lead us by the safest ways and go before us. He was born to move on distant paths, far from earth and far from heaven, and travels to both meeting places and returns with perfect knowledge.
The Atharvaveda's funeral book repeats the Pushan verses and adds a prayer to Agni and Soma, makers of paths, to send Pushan to carry the dead on the paths the goat has trodden. A separate short hymn (7.9) uses the same verses for a living traveller and ends with Pushan's right hand driving back what is lost.
What is different here:
Names the goat's path; shows the same verses used both for the dead and for lost property.
At the horse sacrifice a dappled goat, the share of Pushan, is led in front of the horse. It goes straight on, bleating, to the place dear to Indra and Pushan, and announces the sacrifice to the gods.
What is different here:
Pushan's animal, not Pushan, is the guide; the one led is the sacrificial horse.
The face of the True is covered with a golden disc; Pushan is asked to open it so that the speaker may see. He is addressed as lone seer, Yama, Surya, child of Prajapati, and asked to spread his rays and gather them; the speaker sees his fairest form and says, I am he. Breath goes to the air, the body ends in ashes, the mind is told to remember what was done, and Agni is asked for a good path.
What is different here:
No journey to the Fathers: Pushan uncovers rather than conducts, and the prayer ends in identity with the person in the sun.
Sources: Hymns of the Rigveda, tr. R. T. H. Griffith (1896), hymns read for the Vedic layer; Hymns of the Atharva-Veda, tr. R. T. H. Griffith (1895); The Upanishads, tr. F. Max Muller (Sacred Books of the East 1 and 15)