Note 60 — Chapter I

He is the chief rain-sender60; there is a couplet used in Gujarat illustrative of this belief. It runs:—“Oblations are cast into the Fire: the smoke carries the prayers to the sun; the Divine Luminary, propitiated, responds in sending down gentle showers.” “The sacred smoke, rising from the sacrificial offerings, ascends through the ethereal regions to the Sun. He transforms it into the rain-giving clouds, the rains produce food, and food produces the powers of generation and multiplication and plenty. Thus, the sun, as the propagator of animal life, is believed to be the highest deity.60”