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Rig Veda · 309 of 1027
Mandala 4: HYMN XIII. Agni.
1.AGNI hath looked, benevolently-minded, on the wealth-giving spring of radiant Mornings. Come, Aśvins, to the dwelling of the pious: Sūrya the God is rising with his splendour.
2.Savitar, God, hath spread on high his lustre, waving his flag like a spoil-seeking hero. Their stablished way go Varuṇa and Mitra, what time they make the Sun ascend the heaven.
3.Him whom they made to drive away the darkness, Lords of sure mansions, constant to their object, Him who beholds the universe, the Sun-God, seven strong and youthful Coursers carry onward.
4.Spreading thy web with mightiest Steeds thou comest, rending apart, thou God, the black-hued mantle. The rays of Sūrya tremulously shining sink, like a hide, the darkness in the waters.
5.How is it that, unbound and not supported, he falleth not although directed downward? By what self power moves he? Who hath seen it? He guards the vault of heaven, a close-set pillar.
Asked of Guide
Why does the hymn call the Sun “unbound and not supported” yet kept from falling?
The hymn observes the Sun’s motion as miraculous: Sūrya “unbound and not supported” moves downward without falling, because divine powers—Varuṇa and Mitra, and Savitar—“made” him to drive away darkness and guard the heaven. The image treats the Sun as upheld by a cosmic order rather than by visible support, a “close-set pillar” held by the gods’ ordinance.
This is a poetic way to name an order that ordinary sight cannot explain; the rishis attribute the steady, lawlike rising and sinking to divine agencies and to an inner self-power in the Sun. For a similar move of attributing cosmological regularity to divine law, compare Hesiod’s Works and Days, which describes Zeus establishing order for human affairs.
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