*Péh₂usōn ("Protector") was a proposed Proto-Indo-European pastoral god guarding roads and herds.
[1][2][3] He may have had a bushy beard and keen sight.
[3][5] The deity was first proposed due to association between the Greek god Pan and the Vedic god Pūshān first identified in 1924 by German linguist Hermann Collitz.
[6][7] The minor discrepancies between the two deities could be explained by the possibility that many of Pan's original attributes were transferred over to Hermes,[8][5] the two of which were likely originally the same deity.
[9][10] According to West, the reflex may be at least of Graeco-Aryan origin: "Pūshān and Pan agree well enough in name and nature—especially when Hermes is seen as a hypostasis of Pan—to make it a reasonable conclusion that they are parallel reflexes of a prototypical god of ways and byways, a guide on the journey, a protector of flocks, a watcher of who and what goes where, one who can scamper up any slope with the ease of a goat.