The Gayatri, and Savitr Beside Surya

Rigveda 3.62.10 is a verse in the Gayatri metre addressed to Savitr. It meditates on the desirable radiance of the god and asks that he impel our thoughts. Because it is addressed to Savitr it is properly the Savitri, and because of its metre it is universally called the Gayatri. It is embedded in the upanayana, the initiation at which the sacred thread is given and the teacher conveys the verse to the initiate, and it is recited at the morning and evening sandhya observance. It is very likely the most frequently recited verse in any living religion, and almost none of those who recite it are addressing a solar personality with a biography.

Whether Savitr is a separate deity from Surya is an old question that the Rigveda does not settle. Some hymns treat them as distinct and address them separately, and Savitr can be spoken of as preceding or following Surya. Others use the names in ways that are hard to hold apart at all. The traditional resolution, given in the ritual literature and repeated by later commentators, is that the sun before rising and after setting is Savitr while the visible disc between is Surya, so that one body carries two names according to whether its power or its appearance is in view. Modern scholarship treats that as a reconciliation offered later rather than as the position the hymns themselves take.