Here Arushá shares the same half-mythological character as Ushas. Where we should speak of dawn and morning as mere periods of time, the Vedic poet speaks of them as living and intelligent beings, half human, half divine, as powers of nature capable of understanding his prayers, and powerful enough to reward his praises. I do not think therefore that we need hesitate to take Arushá in this passage as a proper name of the morning, or of the morning sun, to whom the dark goddess, the Night, yields the path when he rises in the East.

VI, 49, 2. diváh sísum sáhasah sûnúm agním yagñásya ketúm arushám yágadhyai.

To worship the child of Dyu, the son of strength, Agni, the light of the sacrifice, the Red one (Arushá.).

In this verse, where the name of Agni actually occurs, it would be easier than in the preceding verse to translate arushá as an adjective, referring it either to Agni, the god of fire, or to yagñásya ketúm, the light of the sacrifice. I had myself yielded a so far to these considerations that I

gave up my former translation, and rendered this verse by 'to worship Agni, the child of the sky, the son of strength, the red light of the sacrifice a.' But I return to my original translation, and I prefer to see in Arushá an independent name, intended, no doubt, for Agni, as the representative of the rising sun and, at the same time, of the sacrificial fire of the morning, but nevertheless as having in the mind of the poet a personality of his own. He is the child of Dyu, originally the offspring of heaven. He is the son of strength, originally generated by the strong rubbing of the aranis, i. e. the wood for kindling fire. He is the light of the sacrifice, whether as reminding man that the time for the morning sacrifice has come, or as himself lighting the sacrifice on the Eastern altar of the sky. He is Arushá, originally as clothed in bright red colour, but gradually changed into the representative of the morning. We see at once, if examining these various expressions, how some of them, like the child of Dyu, are easily carried away into mythology, while others, such as the son of strength, or the light of the sacrifice, resist that unconscious metamorphosis. That Arushá was infected by mythology, that it had approached at least that point where nomina become changed into numina, we see by the verse immediately following:

VI, 49, 3. arushásya duhitárâ vírûpe (íti ví-rûpe) stríbhih anyâ´ pipisé sû´rah anyâ´.

There are two different daughters of Arushá; the one is clad in stars, the other belongs to the sun, or is the wife of Svar.

Here Arushá is clearly a mythological being, like Agni or Savitar or Vaisvânara; and if Day and Night are called his daughters, he, too, can hardly have been conceived otherwise than as endowed with human attributes, as the child of Dyu, as the father of Day and Night, and not as a mere period of time, not as a mere cause or effect.