The God Who Sends the World Home

The hymn begins at the moment the light changes.

"He has risen," says the poet. "The god Savitr has risen to set things moving. This is his work, and he never neglects it."

What the poet sees first is a pair of arms. Savitr has gone up high and stretched his broad hands out wide, so that everyone can see them. The hymn says that even the waters wait on his command, and that the wind itself comes to rest.

Then the poet looks down at the earth, and tells us what happens there.

A man is driving fast horses along the road. He pulls up and unyokes them. A chariot that was rolling stops. Even those who hurry along like gliding snakes are checked. Night has come, and night follows the rule of Savitr.

In a house a woman has been weaving, with the cloth stretched out on the loom. She rolls it up. A craftsman has a piece of work half done in his hands. He puts it down as it is. Nobody tells them to. The light has told them.

In every house the fire is lit, and the hymn watches the glow of Agni spread from dwelling to dwelling. A mother sets aside the best portion of the meal for her son.

The man who went away to win something comes back. He had a home all along, the poet says, and everything that moves longs for home. Each man leaves what he was doing and turns towards his own door, because Savitr has commanded it.

The poet looks further out, beyond the houses.

The wild animals have scattered through the dry country, looking for the water that Savitr has set aside for them. The woods he has given to the birds. "These are the laws of Savitr," the poet says, "and nobody breaks them."

Even a god goes home. At sunset Varuna, lord of the waters, hurries restlessly to his own place in the water. Each bird finds its nest and each beast its lair. Savitr has put every creature where it belongs.

Then the poet says what he thinks of a power like this.

"Varuna does not break his law. Indra does not, nor Mitra, nor Aryaman, nor Rudra. No ill-wisher can break it. That is the god I call on, here, for my own good."

He ends as the poets usually end, with a request. He asks that wealth may gather, that things may go well for his friends and for the singer who praises loudly, and that all of them may be dear to Savitr.

The hymn holds no battle and no demon. A god lifts his hands, the day's work stops, and every living thing goes home. The poet calls it a law that even Indra keeps.

A second hymn begins at the same hour and looks the other way. The evening hymn watches the houses. This one watches the god as he drives off into the dark.

A later poet of the Rigveda names the singer of old who praised Savitr like this, Hiranyastupa of the Angiras family. His hymn begins with a roll call. He calls on Agni first, then on Mitra and Varuna, then on Night, "who gives rest to everything that moves." Last he calls on Savitr.

Then the chariot comes.

It is golden, and its pole is golden. It is hung with pearl and shines in many colours. Two bay horses with white feet draw it. In it stands Savitr, golden-eyed and golden-handed, and he looks at every creature as he passes. He drives through the dark sky, laying gods and mortals to rest.

"He travels by the upward path and by the downward path," the poet says. "He comes from far away, and he drives off every trouble."

The poet knows where the roads lead, or some of it. There are three heavens, he says. Two of them belong to Savitr. The third is in the world of Yama, where the dead heroes live. Then he stops and challenges his listeners. "Whoever really knows this, let him say so here."

A harder question follows, and the poet asks it aloud.

"Where is the sun now? Who can tell us which heaven his light has reached?"

He gives no answer. He says only that Savitr goes on between earth and heaven with his golden hands, that he drives sickness away, and that he tells the sun to come.

The hymn ends on the road. "Your old paths through the air are well made and free of dust, Savitr. Come to us by those paths. Guard us from harm today, and bless us."