Verse 2.

Note [1:72:2:1]1. Here we have again the myth of the hidden Agni whom the gods seek. Agni is meant by the calf.

Note [1:72:2:2]2. Going on foot, Sayana.

Note [1:72:2:3]3. I follow Sayana, Bollensen, and Ludwig in taking ka'ru as a locative.

Verse 3.

Note [1:72:3:1]1. 'Was not Sayana right in taking this verse as referring to the Maruts? Cf. VI, 48, 21.... sugata also is an epithet of the Maruts, I, 88, 3; 166, 12.' M. M.

Note [1:72:3:2]2. As to the subjunctive, comp. Delbruck, Syntaktische Forschungen, I, p. 67. The Taittiriya Brahmana (II, 4, 5, 6) reads saparyan.

Verse 4.

Note [1:72:4:1]1. I follow the Padapatha which has rudriya. But possibly we may have the nom. plur. rudriyah: 'the worshipful Rudriyas (i. e. Maruts) rushed forward.'

Note [1:72:4:2]2. The translation of nemadhita is in jeopardy.

Verse 5.

Note [1:72:5:1]1. Probably the mortals, as Ludwig understands it. Comp. martah, verse 4.

Note [1:72:5:2]2. The venerable one is Agni.

Note [1:72:5:3]3. Possibly the text is corrupt. In IV, 24, 3 we read ririkva'msah tanvah krinvata tra'm, 'abandoning (i. e. risking) their bodies they took him (Indra) for their protector' (comp. I, 100, 7). Should sva'h have supplanted another word, for instance, tra'm? As the pronoun sva very frequently stands in apposition with tanu', it may have found its way also into passages to which it did not belong.

Note [1:72:5:4]4. The meaning seems to be that whenever the attention of one of the friends relaxed, another friend watched instead of the first. See Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenl. Gesellschaft, XLIV, 328; Bartholomae, Studien zur indogerm. Sprachgeschichte, I, 95.

Verse 6.

Note [1:72:6:1]1. Sayana explains the trih sapta pada' as the three times seven kinds of sacrifices, the seven Pakayagnas, the seven Haviryagnas, the seven Somayagnas. But this later system of the twenty-one forms of sacrifice can scarcely have existed at the time of the Rig-veda Samhita. Three times seven is a favourite number in Rig-vedic mysticism; comp. I, 191, 12. 14; IV, 1, 16; VII, 87, 4; VIII, 46, 26; 69, 7; 96, 2; IX, 70, 1; 86, 21; X, 64, 8; 90, 15: Possibly three times seven pieces of wood (samidhah) are alluded to, comp. X, 90, 15, but everybody who has studied Bergaigne's Arithmetique mythologique (Rel. Ved. II, 114 seq.; see especially p. 122) will admit that there are ever so many possible interpretations of a passage like this. Prof. Max Muller's translation is: 'The worshipful gods found in thee the twenty-one words which are hidden in thee. They guard with them the immortal (Agni).'--Instead of avidan (Padapatha) I think we must read avidan.