Sanjna

In the oldest layers (Rigveda) she appears as Saranyu/Saraṇyū, a divine woman who bears twins Yama and Yami and who mysteriously disappears, leaving a female substitute (savarna). The Rigvedic cycle also contains a narrative in which she takes the form of a mare and flees the sun; the pursuing Vivasvant/Surya, as a stallion, unites with her and the equine union produces the twin horse-gods, the Ashvins. Later expository texts (Nirukta, Brhaddevata) and epic/Puranic material (Harivamsa, Puranas) elaborate and rename her Samjñā/Sanjna, introduce the named substitute Chhaya, and attribute additional progeny (including Vaivasvata Manu and in later lists Revanta), marking an evolution from the Vedic Saranyu traditions to the Harivamsa/Puranic Samjñā narratives and interpretive layers.

Primary sources and later summaries consistently praise her beauty and radiance but provide limited anthropomorphic detail. In Rigvedic narrative she transforms into a mare to escape the Sun; later Puranic name-lists and epithet-lists ascribe luminous titles (for example Prabhā, Suvarcalā in later lists summarized in the sources) and epithets that emphasize sky/queen/mother roles, but concrete physical description beyond 'resplendent/beautiful' and the mare-form is not provided in the supplied summaries.

Across sources she is portrayed as a shape-shifter (notably assuming mare form in the Rigvedic account), a mother whose unions (or unions involving her substitute) produce key mythic offspring (Yama, Yami, the Ashvins, Manu, and later Revanta in Puranic lists), and an agent who creates or leaves a savarna/Chhaya (a substitute or shadow) to take her place with Vivasvant/Surya. Textual layers present her flight as prompted by the unbearable brilliance of the Sun; other abilities beyond transformation, substitution, and procreative role are not attested in the provided material and thematic links to dawn/twilight or flowing forces are presented in scholarship as associative rather than as explicit powers.