Oaths by the Sun and Moon, Sun and Wind, etc., are also mentioned in Old
Irish literature.^22
THE SUN’S MOTION CONCEPTUALIZEDSaying that the Sun is an all-seeing god, or the eye of a god, is satisfying to
morality but leaves an obvious question unanswered. The luminary’s smooth
and regular daily transit from east to west, and its reappearance in the east the
next morning, call for further exegesis. There is much evidence, both literary
and iconographic, for the sun being conceived as a wheel. A wheel –– more
than an eye –– is perfectly circular, and it runs easily along. But one can hardly
say that a god is a wheel, and the solar wheel needs a moving cause, as its path
is not all downhill. So the Sun-god may be said, not to be, but to have a wheel,
which he drives or rolls along. Or the wheel is drawn along by a horse. Or it
becomes a one-wheeled chariot in which the god rides; or a regular chariot,
drawn by two horses or even four. Another concept is that of a boat that
carries the solar disc across the sky. Or again the two ideas are combined, with
the horse or horses taking the sun across the sky during the day and the boat
conveying him on the ocean through the night.
The solar wheelIn the Rigveda there are eleven references to the wheel (cakrám) of Su ̄rya or
Suvar.^23 In Greek tragedy ]λου κ3κλο is something of a formulaic phrase
(Aesch. Pers. 504, [Aesch.] Prom. 91; Soph. Ant. 416; Eur. Hec. 412, El. 465),
and Empedocles (B 47) has Eνακτο ... >γα κ3κλον‘the lord’s pure
wheel’ in the same sense. We also find]λου τροχο ́ (Ar. Thesm. 17). But
κ3κλο is evidently the traditional word. It corresponds etymologically to
the Vedic word (which is usually neuter, but occasionally masculine), both
going back to kw(e)-kwl-o-, a reduplicated formation from the root kwel
‘turn’. This is also the source of Old Norse hvél, which is likewise found in
poetic expressions for the sun and sometimes the moon. In Alvíssmál 14. 3
(^22) Fled Dúin na nGéd p. 1. 5 Lehmann (Dublin 1964); a poem attributed to Cinæd ua
h-Artacáin, ed. L. Gwynn, Ériu 7 (1914), 227/235 st. 61; further references in O’Rahilly
(1946), 298.
(^23) RV 1. 130. 9, 174. 5, 175. 4; 2. 11. 20; 4. 16. 12, 17. 14, 28. 2, 30. 4; 5. 29. 10; 6. 31. 3, 56. 3. The
passages are set out by Schmitt (1967), 166 f. There are others referring simply to ‘the wheel’ in a
solar context.
- Sun and Daughter 201