[The Religions of India by Edward Washburn Hopkins]@TWC D-Link book
The Religions of India

CHAPTER III
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5: "Dawn, whose seat is upon the hills." Dawn is intimately connected not only with Agni but with the Twin Horsemen, the Acvins (equites)--if not so intimately connected as is Helen with the Dioskouroi, who, _pace_ Pischel, are the Acvins of Hellas.

This relationship is more emphasized in the hymns to the latter gods, but occasionally occurs in Dawn-hymns, of which another is here translated in full.
TO DAWN (IV.

52).
The Daughter of Heaven, this beauteous maid, Resplendent leaves her sister (Night), And now before (our sight) appears.
Red glows she like a shining mare, Mother of kine, who timely comes-- The Horsemen's friend Aurora is.
Both friend art thou of the Horsemen twain, And mother art thou of the kine, And thou, Aurora, rulest wealth.
We wake thee with our praise as one Who foes removes; such thought is ours, O thou that art possesst of joy.
Thy radiant beams beneficent Like herds of cattle now appear; Aurora fills the wide expanse.
With light hast thou the dark removed, Filling (the world), O brilliant one.
Aurora, help us as thou us'st.
With rays thou stretchest through the heaven And through the fair wide space between, O Dawn, with thy refulgent light.
It was seen that Savitar (P[=u]shan) is the rising and setting sun.
So, antithetic to Dawn, stands the Abendroth with her sister, Night.
This last, generally, as in the hymn just translated, is lauded only in connection with Dawn, and for herself alone gets but one hymn, and that is not in a family-book.

She is to be regarded, therefore, less as a goddess of the pantheon than as a quasi-goddess, the result of a poet's meditative imagination, rather than one of the folk's primitive objects of adoration; somewhat as the English poets personify "Ye clouds, that far above me float and pause, ye ocean-waves ...

ye woods, that listen to the night-bird's singing, O ye loud waves, and O ye forests high, and O ye clouds that far above me soared; thou rising sun, thou blue rejoicing sky!"-- and as in Greek poetry, that which before has been conceived of vaguely as divine suddenly is invested with a divine personality.


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