MANDALA I, HYMN 76.

ASHTAKA I, ADHYAYA 5, VARGA 24.

1. What supplication is to thy mind's taste ? What (pious) thought may be, O Agni, most agreeable to thee? Or who has won for himself thy wisdom by sacrifices? Or with what thoughts may we worship thee ?

2. Come hither, Agni, sit down here as a Hotri. Become our undeceivable leader . May Heaven and Earth, the all-embracing, protect thee. Offer the sacrifice to the gods that they may be highly gracious to us.

3. Burn down all sorcerers, O Agni; become a protector of the sacrifices against imprecations. And. conduct hither the lord of Soma (Indra) with his two bay horses. We have prepared hospitality for him, the good giver.

4. With words procuring offspring, carrying thee (to our sacrifice) with my mouth , I call thee hither, and thou shalt sit down here with the gods. Perform the service of a Hotri and of a Potri , O worshipful one. Be thou a giver and a father of riches.

5. As thou didst perform sacrifice to the gods with the sacrificial food of the wise Manu , a sage together with sages, thus, O highly truthful Hotri, perform thou the sacrifice to-day, O Agni, with thy joy-giving sacrificial ladle .

NOTES.

The same Rishi. Metre, Trishtubh.

Verse 1.

Note [1:76:1:1]1. Sayana takes vara in the sense of 'holding back' (comp. I, 143, 5), and makes manasah depend on varaya. He says, 'he agne te tava manaso varaya nivaranayasmasv. avasthapanaya kopetir bhuvat kidrisam upagamanam bhavet.' The modern translators are evidently right in assigning to vara the meaning of 'wish' or the like (comp. VII, 59, 2. yah vah varaya da'sati), but they differ as to whether manasah should be taken as belonging to varaya or to upetih. Ludwig translates, 'Welches nahen des geistes ist gegenstand der wal dir?' Grassmann, 'Welch Nahen ist nach deines Herzens Wunsche?' My opinion is that the tradition of the text is not quite free from suspicion. My doubts are based on VI, 21, 4. kas te yagnah manase sam varaya, 'What sacrifice (O Indra) is agreeable to thy mind, to thy wish?' Here we have a question addressed to the god, beginning with kas te, quite similar to the question of our poet, which begins with ka' te. We have the word sam, as in our passage samtama. We have varaya exactly as in our passage. We have, by the side of varaya, a case-form of manas as in our passage. But we have the dative manase instead of the genitive manasah. We may add that there are some other passages in which a dative of a similar meaning stands likewise by the side of varaya: thus, VIII, 82, 3. aram varaya manyave bhuvat te indra sam (comp. bhuvat agne samtama in our passage) hride, 'May it be, O Indra, according to thy wish and thy mood, may it be agreeable to thy heart;' VIII, 84, 4. varaya deva manyave, 'to thy wish, O god, to thy mood.'