आदित्यानामहं विष्णुर्ज्योतिषां रविरंशुमान्।मरीचिर्मरुतामस्मि नक्षत्राणामहं शशी॥
ādityānām ahaṃ viṣṇur jyotiṣāṃ ravir anśumānmarīcir marutām asmi nakṣatrāṇām ahaṃ śaśī
Word by word
The verse says
Among the sons of Aditi I am Viṣṇu. Among lights, the sun with its rays. Among the winds I am Marīci, and among the stars, the moon.
In plain words
The list begins with the obvious ones.
The brightest light. The brightest thing in the night sky. The chief of a group of gods.
He starts where anybody would, and the list gets stranger as it goes.
Where you've felt this · in community
Ask anybody in your town to name its landmark and they all say the same building. It is the one visible from the bypass, the one on the postcards, the one people give directions by. Nobody has to think about the answer, and nobody disagrees.
Going deeper
Starting with the obvious is a reasonable way to begin teaching anybody to recognise something.
The sun among lights is not a surprising claim and is not meant to be. It establishes the pattern — within each category, the one at the top — so that the reader has the shape of the sentence before the contents start doing unexpected things. By verse 36 the same sentence will say that he is the gambling of cheats, and that only lands because the pattern was set here.
There is also a quieter point in the choice of the moon. Among stars, the brightest thing in the night sky is not a star at all, and its light is borrowed.
What the opening gives a reader is permission to start with what is obvious to them. Whatever in your life is clearly the best of its kind is a legitimate place to begin looking, and the verse does not ask you to find something more sophisticated first.