Usas
USAS (from the root lias, to shine, and cognate to Latin Aurora and Greek 'Ho>s,) in Hindu mythology, the goddess of dawn. She is celebrated in some twenty hymns of the Rig Veda, and is the most graceful creation of Vedic poetry. She is borne on a shining car drawn by ruddy cows or bulls. She is the daughter of the sky and the Sun is her lover. She is described as " rising resplendent as from a bath, showing her charms she comes with light . . . ever shortening the ages of men she shines forth . . . she reveals the paths of men and bestows new life . . . she opens the doors of darkness as the cows their stalls." Scarcely the name of the goddess survives to-day, so completely was she associated with the Vedism long dead and gone.
See A. A. Macdonell, Vedic Mythology (Strassburg, 1897).
Note - this article incorporates content from Encyclopaedia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, (1910-1911)
