uns to
dispute with him in the duel of the storm. In this struggle against
darkness the beneficent hero remains the conqueror, the gloomy army of
Mara, or Satan, broken and rent, is scattered; the Apearas, daughters of
the demon, the last light vapors which float in the heaven, try in vain
to clasp and retain the vanquisher; he disengages himself from their
embraces, repulses them; they writhe, lose their form, and vanish.

Free from every obstacle, and from every adversary, he sets in motion
across space his disk with a thousand rays, having avenged the attempts
of his eternal foe. He appears then in all his glory, and in his
sovereign splendor; the god has attained the summit of his course, it is
the moment of triumph.

8. _He was put to death on the cross._ The Sun has now reached his
extreme Southern limit, his career is ended, and he is at last overcome
by his enemies. The powers of _darkness_, and of _winter_, which had
sought in vain to wound him, have at length won the victory. The bright
Sun of summer is finally slain, _crucified in the heavens_, and pierced
by the arrow, spear or thorn of winter.[483:1] Before he dies, however,
he sees all his disciples--his retinue of light, and the _twelve_ hours
of the day, or the twelve months of the year--disappear in the
sanguinary melee of the clouds of the evening.

Throughout the tale, the _Sun-god_ was but fulfilling his doom. These
things must be. The suffering of a violent death was a necessary part of
the mythos; and, when his hour had come, he must meet his doom, as
surely as the Sun, once risen, must go across the sky, and then sink
down into his bed beneath the earth or sea. It was an iron fate from
which there was no escaping.

Crishna, the crucified Saviour of the Hindoos, is a personification of
the Sun crucified in the heavens. One of the names of the Sun in the
Vedic hymns is _Vishnu_,[483:2] and Crishna is Vishnu in human
form.[483:3]

In the hymns of the _Rig-Veda_ the _Sun_ is spoken of as "_stretching
out his arms_," in the heavens, "to bless the world, _and to rescue it
from the terror of darkness_."

Indra, the crucified Saviour worshiped in Nepal and Tibet,[484:1] is
identical with Crishna, the Sun.[484:2]

The principal Phenician deity, El, which, says Parkhurst, in his Hebrew
Lexicon, "was the very name the heathens gave to their god SOL, their
Lord or Ruler of the Hosts of Heaven," was called "_The Preserver_ (or
_Saviour_) of _the World