In general, the conception of the sun as a physical phenomenon will be found voiced chiefly in the family-books: "The sightly form rises on the slope of the sky as the swift-going steed carries him ...

seven sister steeds carry him."[5] This is the prevailing utterance.

Sometimes the sun is depicted under a medley of metaphors: "A bull, a flood, a red bird, he has entered his father's place; a variegated stone he is set in the midst of the sky; he has advanced and guards the two ends of space."[6] One after the other the god appears to the poets as a bull, a bird,[7] a steed, a stone, a jewel, a flood, a torch-holder,[8] or as a gleaming car set in heaven.
Nor is the sun independent.

As in the last image of a chariot,[9] so, without symbolism, the poet speaks of the sun as made to rise by Varuna and Mitra: "On their wonted path go Varuna and Mitra when in the sky they cause to rise Surya, whom they made to avert darkness"; where, also, the sun, under another image, is the "support of the sky."[10] Nay, in this simpler view, the sun is no more than the "eye of Mitra Varuna,"[11] a conception formally retained even when the sun in the same breath is spoken of as pursuing Dawn like a lover, and as being the 'soul of the universe' (I.115.

1-2).