sun, either as the actual Creator, or as an emblem of the great
energizing force in Nature, has been worshipped by every nation
of the globe, there is no lack of evidence to prove; neither do
we lack proof to establish the fact that, since the adoption of
the sun as a divine object, or perhaps I should say as the emblem
of Wisdom and creative power, it has never been wholly eliminated
from the god-idea of mankind.
Bryant produces numberless etymological proofs to establish the
fact that all the early names of the Deity were derived or
compounded from some word which originally meant the sun.
Max Muller says that Surya was the sun as shining in the sky.
Savitri was the sun as bringing light and life. Vishnu was the
sun as striding with three steps across the sky, etc.
Inman, whose etymological researches have given him considerable
prominence as a Sanskrit and Hebrew scholar, says that Ra, Ilos,
Helos, Bil, Baal, Al, Allah, and Elohim were names given to the
sun as representative of the Creator.
We are assured by Godfrey Higgins that Brahme is the sun the same
as Surya. Brahma sprang from the navel of Brahme. Faber in his
Pagan Idolatry says that all the gods of the ancients "melt
insensibly into one, they are all equally the sun." The word
Apollo signifies the author or generator of Light. In the Rig
Veda, Surya, the sun, is called Aditya. "Truly, Surya, thou art
great; truly Aditya, thou art great."
Selden observes that whether the gods be called Osiris, or
Omphis, or Nilus, or any other name, they all center in the sun.
According to Diodorus Siculus, it was the belief of the ancients
that Dionysos, Osiris, Serapis, Pan, Jupiter and Pluto were all
one. They were, the sun.
Max Muller says that a very low race in India named the Santhals
call the sun Chandro, which means "bright." These people
declared to the missionaries who settled among them, that Chandro
had created the world; and when told that it would be absurd to
say that the sun had created the world, they replied: "We do not
mean the visible Chandro, but an invisible one."
Not only did Dionysos, and all the rest of the gods who in later
ages came to be regarded as men, represent the sun, but after the
separation of the male and female elements in the originally
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