It is neither a morning nor an evening song in its original state, but mentions all the god's functions, without the later moral traits so prominent elsewhere, and with the old threefold division instead of thrice-three heavens.
TO SAVITAR (I.35).
I call on Agni first (the god of fire) for weal; I call on Mitra-Varuna to aid me here; I call upon the Night, who quiets all that moves; On Savitar, the shining god, I call for help.
After this introductory invocation begins the real song in a different metre.
Through space of darkness wending comes he hither, Who puts to rest th' immortal and the mortal, On golden car existent things beholding, The god that rouses, Savitar, the shining; Comes he, the shining one, comes forward, upward, Comes with two yellow steeds, the god revered, Comes shining Savitar from out the distance, All difficulties far away compelling.
His pearl-adorned, high, variegated chariot, Of which the pole is golden, he, revered, Hath mounted, Savitar, whose beams are brilliant, Against the darksome spaces strength assuming.
Among the people gaze the brown white-footed (Steeds) that the chariot drag whose pole is golden.
All peoples stand, and all things made, forever, Within the lap of Savitar, the heavenly.
[There are three heavens of Savitar, two low ones,[23] One, men-restraining, in the realm of Yama.
As on (his) chariot-pole[24] stand all immortals, Let him declare it who has understood it!] Across air-spaces gazes he, the eagle, Who moves in secret, th' Asura,[25] well-guiding, Where is (bright) S[=u]rya now?
who understands it?
And through which sky is now his ray extending?
He looks across the earth's eight elevations,[26] The desert stations three, and the seven rivers, The gold-eyed shining god is come, th' Arouser, To him that worships giving wealth and blessings.
The golden-handed Savitar, the active one, Goes earth and heaven between, compels demoniac powers, To S[=u]rya gives assistance, and through darksome space Extends to heaven, etc.[27] P[=U]SHAN AND BHAGA AS SUN-GODS.
With P[=u]shan, the 'bestower of prosperity,' appears an ancient side of sun-worship.

While under his other names the sun has lost, to a great extent, the attributes of a bucolic solar deity, in the case of P[=u]shan he appears still as a god whose characteristics are bucolic, war-like, and priestly, that is to say, even as he is venerated by the three masses of the folk.

It will not do, of course, to distinguish too sharply between the first two divisions, but one can very well compare P[=u]shan in these roles with Helios guiding his herds, and Apollo swaying armed hosts.

It is customary to regard P[=u]shan as too bucolic a deity, but this is only one side of him.

He apparently is the sun, as herdsmen look upon him, and in this figure is the object of ridicule with the warrior-class who, especially in one family or tribe, take a more exalted view of him.