The dominion of solar deities is largely thought to be all the skills and trades related to the sun, the yang, the masculine, though the occurrence of solar goddesses (Sol, Amaterasu Omikami, Shapshu) is undeniable. 

The Hindu tradition describes a group of divinities called the Adityas (“sons of Aditi”) as the solar gods. So prominent are Aditi and her sons that later texts deem Aditi the mother of all gods in general, even when she functionally isn’t. 

The actual identities of the Adityas are somewhat fluid and elusive. In the Samhitas (Vedic hymn collections), their number swims between seven and eight. The Rigveda hymn 9.114 pronounces seven Adityas. The Brahmanas (prose texts explaining Vedic narratives and sacrifices; part of the Vedas), led by Shatapatha Brahmana, extend this number to twelve, as twelve solar deities representing the sun in the twelve months of the year (SB 11.6.3). Among the Upanishads (philosophical treatises; also part of the Vedas), Brihadaranyaka Upanishad solidifies this number and further establishes the Adityas as sun gods first and foremost, offering another etymology of aditya, simplified through Shankaracharya’s commentary. As monthly suns, these gods rotate, taking “all this” (ada), implying the lifespans and fates of all creatures, with them, and hence are called Adityas (BU 3.9.5). This number is most accepted and repeated throughout the Sanskrit corpus, though the names and identities of the twelve Adityas continue to vary. 

Of the Adityas, Surya-Vivasvat, Daksha, Savitr, Bhaga, and Pushan share a mythic motif of wounding or disfigurement through some intertwined narratives.

The origins of the primary sun god Surya can be found in Aditi’s “eighth” son Martanda (“stemming from a dead egg”). Aditi had “cast away” Martanda to be the first man and, thus, the first dead man (Rigveda 10.72, Jamison and Brereton 2014). The Yajurveda Samhitas and the Shatapatha Brahmana relate the specifics. As his name suggests, Martanda was miscarried, or forcefully “expelled” by the older Adityas (Maitrayani Samhita 1.6.12, Kathaka Samhita 11.6). Upon Aditi’s plea, the Adityas “shaped” him as “man here (on earth) is shaped” (Shatapatha Brahmana 3.1.3), bringing forth the Aditya they named Vivasvat (MS 1.6.12, KS 11.6, SB 3.1.3). This Vivasvat (and so Martanda) and the literal sun Surya were already considered the same deity in as early as the Rigvedic texts (Jamison 1991), a view supported by the Sanskrit commentators. 

The specter of this failed birth continued to haunt Surya-Vivasvat. 

In the Rigveda Samhita (1.105), Kathaka Samhita (33.6), and other texts, the gods feared the sun “falling down” from heaven. The Sanskrit avapad (“falling down”) is used idiomatically for miscarriage, echoing Surya’s unnatural birth. To prop up the sun, the gods “fastened him up with five reins” (Aitareya Brahmana 4.19), conceptually mimicking the umbilical cord (Jamison 1991).

That didn’t end Surya-Vivasvat’s troubles. The entity Svarbhanu wounded him, and Surya’s eventual rescue or healing is phrased like a childbirth (Jamison 1991). 

In subsequent mythography, this Svarbhanu gets assimilated with the eclipse demon Rahu (who “swallows” the sun), but the actual actions they perform are different (“wound” versus “swallow”). From Vedic phraseological patterns, the mysterious Svarbhanu can be identified as the familiar fire god Agni (Jamison 1991). The word svarbhanu (“having the light of the sun”) is a proleptic epithet for Agni who “gets possession” of the sun’s radiance (bhanu) through his attack (Jamison 1991). 

In Jamison’s (1991) analysis, this identification crystallizes the mechanics of the sun’s mutilation: “Svarbhanu pierced the sun with darkness” (formulaic core verse from the Rigveda, Shatapatha Brahmana, Jaiminiya Brahmana, Kaushitaki Brahmana, and other texts). The typical weapon used with the Sanskrit root verb vyadh (“to wound, pierce, or strike”) tends to be pointed (as an arrow) and hot (like Agni’s flames). Also, “darkness” could be filling the grammatical slot for the weapon. In other texts, Svarbhanu-Agni “hides” the sun with darkness (RV 5.40), like Agni’s black smoke flowing to heaven (as in RV 5.11, 6.48). Ultimately, Jamison (1991) visualizes this attack as Svarbhanu-Agni’s sharp flame or arrow piercing the sun, leaving areas of darkness like sunspots, and enveloping the wounded sun in smoke (reminiscent of the later eclipse myth). 

But this identity of Svarbhanu as the god Agni begs the question of whether the sun god did anything to prompt such an attack from a fellow god. The Atharvaveda (2.10.8) and Kathaka Samhita (11.5) mention the gods seeking “atonement” or “expiation” (prayaschitta) for Surya and releasing him from “sin” (enas). 

A hymn (RV 1.71) dedicated to Agni sings: “The archer [Agni] boldly loosed a missile at him (when) the god placed his brilliance in his own daughter” (Jamison 1991). The god in question is Dyaus-Pitr (sky father, pitr meaning father),who “sprang on” his own daughter Ushas (Dawn) in a famous, vividly described Vedic myth (RV 10.61). The word for “brilliance” (tvishi) is used elsewhere with Surya (Jamison 1991), and Dyaus-Pitr isn’t much known for this characteristic. The resemblance to Svarbhanu piercing Surya is conspicuous. 

In a later variant of this myth, the creator god Prajapati (more commonly called Brahma later) replaced Dyaus-Pitr and violated his own daughter Ushas (Shatapatha Brahmana 1.7.4, Aitareya Brahmana 3.33). SB 1.7.4 itself acknowledges this incident as referring to RV 10.61. In a purely functional sense, Dyaus-Pitr and Prajapati embody similar archetypes as heavenly father figures or creators. 

However, Prajapati is nowhere observed as the father of Ushas in the Rigveda, where he occurs a mere handful of times, sometimes as an epithet (“lord of creatures”) for other gods (Jamison 1991). As for Ushas being called daughter of Dyaus-Pitr, in a less physical sense, the phrase divo duhitar may also mean “divine daughter” or “daughter of heaven”. 

Jamison (1991) identifies Ushas (Dawn) as the archetypal Rigvedic bride, the “daughter of the sun”, addressed only by the patronymic Suryaa. Meanwhile, Surya is a lover or consort of Ushas in RV 1.115, 7.10, and other hymns. 

The punisher, likewise, differs in the Prajapati version. Born to “oversee” those who transgress (Jaiminiya Brahmana 3.262), the god Rudra killed Prajapati with an arrow at the urging of the outraged gods (“This one transgresses”). As in the Svarbhanu-Agni myth of wounding Surya, the root verb vyadh is again applied with Rudra’s arrow killing Prajapati. Indeed, when Rudra is born, it is said that “it is Agni that was really born thus” (JB 3.262), and “this Rudra is (really) Agni” (Maitrayani Samhita 1.6.6).

Superimposing the mythic fragments of Svarbhanu-Agni punishing Surya (whose sin wasn’t mentioned) and Rudra-Agni punishing the licentious father of Ushas shows the probable cause behind the wounding of the sun god. 

The Prajapati myth doesn’t end here. It further describes a sacrifice leading to the mutilation of three other solar gods: Savitr, Bhaga, and Pushan. 

After Rudra killed him, Prajapati’s body became the “sacrifice” (Shatapatha Brahmana 1.7.4). The sacrificial matter stuck to the arrow was the prototype of the “first fruit” of the sacrifice, feared because of Rudra’s arrowhead still embedded in it or the power of the divine remains (Dumezil 1988). 

In the Kaushitaki Brahmana (6.13), Savitr loses his hands because he touches the “first fruit”. The agent noun savitr is derived from the Sanskrit root word su meaning “to impel, excite, or propel”, corresponding with Savitr’s divine function as the “impeller” who drives all existences, including the other gods. His hands, with which Savitr performs his role, are oft-described (“with broad hands”, “of the lovely hands”, “golden-handed”) (RV 2.38, 3.33, 6.71). He “extended his arms for all to obey” and “stretched his two arms for the offspring of the living world”, setting the world in motion, then steadying it down again at night (RV 2.38, 4.53). After Savitr’s dismemberment, the gods gave him two golden hands (as in RV 6.71). 

Savitr’s solar role as the impeller often extends to the creator principle, such that he is also called Prajapati (Shatapatha Brahmana 12.3.5) and prayed to in that capacity. In SB 1.7.4, it is Savitr himself who renders the “first fruit” safe for consumption. Of all the Adityas, Savitr is most often identified with Surya the sun, not merely as a fellow solar god but as an example of syncretism, which further supports the blending of Surya with Prajapati in the context of the Ushas myth. 

Bhaga loses his eyes when he looks at the “first fruit” (Kaushitaki Brahmana 6.13). While Savitr propels generation of fortune, Bhaga (“wealth, fortune” or “distributor, apportioner”) presides over sharing of fortune (Dumezil 1988): “Might the Lord of the Family [Bhaga] concede this treasure of god Savitr’s to us” (RV 7.38). He is often linked with marriage, an act expected to bring prosperity through offspring (Jamison and Brereton 2014). 

Pushan loses his teeth because he tastes the “first fruit”, and is henceforth only served karambh, a watery rice porridge (Kaushitaki Brahmana 6.13). Pushan (from the Sanskrit root word push meaning “to nurture, support, or cause to thrive”) seems to be a pastoral god, with “goats for horses”, and an awl and a goad as his tools and weapons (RV 6.53). He uses colloquialisms, finds our lost possessions (mainly cattle), and is the knower of paths: “who will direct (us) aright, who will say ‘just here it is’” (RV 6.54, Jamison and Brereton 2014). He guides souls in their afterlife (RV 10.17). He is vimucho napat or vimochana (“releaser”, RV 6.55, 8.4). In an offhand, matter-of-fact manner, Pushan is said to be the lover of his sister, wooer of his mother, and also husband to the daughter of the sun (RV 6.58), who Jamison (1991) identified as Ushas. 

Found in the later iterations of this “sacrifice” motif in the epics and Puranas, the case of Daksha (son of Aditi in the Vedas, and son of Prajapati-Brahma afterwards) is more peculiar. Daksha had also come to be addressed by the epithet prajapati as a progenitor of diverse beings through his daughters, including, surprisingly, Aditi. So goes RV 10.72: “From Aditi, Daksha was born, and from Daksha, Aditi.” This paradox references the cyclic nature of time, and the importance of both ritual skill (daksha meaning “skillful, able”) and immunity from offensive actions (aditi) in any sacrifice (Jamison and Brereton 2014). 

The Vedic role of this Aditya, Daksha, as presiding over the sacrificers’ competence is quite ironic. After all, Daksha became infamous for the sacrifice he conducted without inviting the god Shiva (also called Rudra), who then cut off Savitr’s hands, plucked out Bhaga’s eyes, and knocked down Pushan’s teeth with the end of his bow in retaliation (Mahabharata 10.18). The parallels to the older sacrifice are unmistakable. 

Neither the epic Mahabharata nor its appendix Harivamsha offers a profounder reason behind Shiva’s fury. This might have appeared incongruent to the later poets, for they uncovered a more personal dimension to this myth, starring the goddess Sati, who was Daksha’s daughter and Shiva’s spouse. 

The gist of the many Puranic variants is that Daksha despised Shiva, and held a sacrifice without inviting him or Sati. In some Puranas, he even omitted ritual hymns praising Shiva during the sacrifice. Sati still attended the sacrifice, whereupon Daksha grievously humiliated her and her husband, resulting in Sati’s self-immolation. Bereaved, Shiva sent his fierce aspects and attendants to destroy the sacrifice, which led to the aforesaid mutilations. In this version of the sacrifice, the most well-known ‘disfiguration’ is that of Daksha himself, who was beheaded. 

Once pacified, Shiva compensated the injured (and the dead). Daksha was revived and given a goat’s head (Bhagavata Purana 4.7, Devi Bhagavata Purana 7.30), which was at least slightly sardonic since goats were common sacrificial creatures.

In the Bhagavata Purana, Savitr seems to have “found” his “lost arms or hands” through Pushan’s hands and the Ashvins’ arms (twin horsemen, physicians, usually offspring of Surya). Bhaga was told to see through the “eyes of Mitra” (another Aditya). These specifications are right out of the sacred formula uttered by the priest accepting the ritually charged sacrificial offering in the Vajasaneyi Samhita 1.16 (Dumezil 1988). No reparation is mentioned for Pushan, and the watery gruel remains his “food of choice”. Calling to him as karambhad (“gruel-eater”) is unique enough that worshippers needn’t pray to him again with other epithets (RV 6.56). In the Mahabharata (10.18), however, Shiva “returned” to Savitr his hands, to Bhaga his eyes, and to Pushan his teeth. 

This conflict between Daksha and Shiva echoes the older narratives of Dyaus-Pitr’s or Prajapati’s transgression, and of Svarbhanu wounding the sun, as if based on the same mythic template or kernel or motif (or “mytheme” of Claude Lévi-Strauss). The deities merge and diverge. The key players shift from version to version. Identities and epithets get scrambled together, but a narrative skeleton remains discernible if ambiguous, a familiar feature of oral traditions. 

The humiliation of Sati by her father Daksha replaces the violation of Ushas by her father (Dyaus-Pitr, Prajapati, or Surya), though none of the later texts imply any incestuous feelings, shifting focus instead to Daksha’s contempt for Shiva. The destroyer god Shiva is assimilated with the Vedic Rudra, who was initially the fire god Agni (Svarbhanu). The progenitor Daksha substitutes for the sky father Dyaus-Pitr, the creator god Prajapati, or the sun god Surya, and their wounding caused by Rudra-Agni is also reflected in the other solar gods Savitr (sometimes called Prajapati), Bhaga, and Pushan. 

Whether or not the above explicates the sin the sun had to atone for, Surya-Vivasvat did ultimately realize Aditi’s original intention for Martanda (RV 10.7, “for procreation but also for death”), but only through his sons. He fathered Manu, progenitor of men, and also Yama, the first man to die, the king of the dead, the god who judges you in the afterlife. 

Etymologically, aditi means “without binding”. A hymn in the Rigveda (RV 8.51) requests the Adityas to render worshippers’ oblations offenseless (adititve) (Jamison and Brereton 2014). Hence, the Vedic solar gods are to guide good behaviour, and steer us away from the fetters resulting from bad karma. 

The sun is always watching. 

But the sun is also being watched. 

In the Skanda Purana (5.3.17), at the time of annihilation, the twelve Adityas emerge from the punisher Rudra-Shiva’s mouth as twelve blazing suns, burning, consuming the world. 

REFERENCES

Debroy, Bibek. The Mahabharata, Vol 1-10. Penguin Random House India Private Limited. 2015.

Debroy, Bibek. The Bhagavata Purana 1-3. Penguin Random House India Private Limited, 2019.

Dumézil, George. Mitra-Varuna: An Essay on Two Indo-European Representations of Sovereignty. Translatedby Derek Coltman, Zone Books, New York, 1988. (Original work published 1948)

Eggeling, Julius. The Satapatha-Brâhmana: According to the Text of the Mâdhyandina School, Part I-V. Sacred Books of the East, 1990. 

Jamison, Stephanie W. The Ravenous Hyenas and the Wounded sun: Myth and Ritual in Ancient India. Cornell University Press, 1991.

Jamison, Stephanie W. and Brereton, Joel P. The Rigveda: The Earliest Religious Poetry of India (Vol. 1). Oxford University Press, 2014.

Keith, Arthur B. Rigveda Brāhmanas: The Aitareya and Kausītaki Brāhmanas of the Rigveda. Harvard Oriental Series 25. Harvard University Press, 1920.

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Swami, Madhavananda (1950). The Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad with the Commentary of Śaṅkarācārya. Advaita Ashram, 1950. 

Swami, Vijnanananda. The Śrīmad Devī Bhāgawatam, Vol 1-2. Chaukhamba Sanskrit Pratishthan, 1921. 

Tagare, Ganesh V. The Skanda Purāna. Motilal Banarsidass Publishers Private Limited, Delhi, 1950.

Vira, Raghu and Chandra, Lokesh. Jaiminīya-Brāhmana of the Sāmaveda. Sarasvati-Vihara Series 31, 1954. 

[Chandreyee Chakraborty (she/her) is an Indian writer, dancer, and photographer. Her nonfiction has appeared in Eternal Haunted Summer, and her poetry in SpecPoVerse. Her photography is forthcoming in The Sunlight Press. She can be found on Substack (@cchak) and Bluesky (@cchakraborty.bsky.social). ]