Ludwig: Dessen die schneebedeckten (berge, die Himavân) vermöge seiner grösze, als des eigentum man ocean und Rasâ nennt, des dise himelsgegenden, des arme sie, Ka, dem gotte, möchten wir mit havis aufwarten.

Note 1. Muir's translation, which suggests itself very naturally to a European mind, is impossible, because mahitvâ´ cannot be either mahitvám (as Sâyana also and Mahîdhara suggest), or mahitvâ´ni; and because âhúh does not mean declare. Otherwise nothing could be better than his rendering: 'Whose greatness these snowy mountains, and the sea with the Rasâ (river), declare.'

Mahitvâ´, as Sâyana also rightly perceives, TS. IV, 1, 8, 4, is a very common instrumental (see Lanman, Noun-inflection, pp. 335-6), and the same mahitvâ´ must be supplied for samudrám. We might make the whole sentence dependent on âhuh without much change of meaning. The Atharva-veda text supplies a lectio facilior, but not therefore melior.

Note 2. The Rasâ is a distant river, in some respects like the Greek Okeanos. Dr. Aufrecht takes it as a name of the milky way, Z. D. M. G. XIII, 498: see Muir, S. T. II, p. 373, n. 19.

Verse 5.

Muir: By whom the sky is fiery, and the earth fixed, by whom the firmament and the heaven were established, who in the atmosphere is the measurer of the aerial space: to what god shall we offer our oblation?

Ludwig: Durch den gewaltig der himel and fest die erde, durch den gestützt Svar, and das gewölbe, der die räume im mittelgebiete ausgemeszen, Ka, dem gotte, möchten wir mit havis aufwarten.

Note 1. In this verse I decidedly prefer the reading of the Atharva-veda, yena dyaur ugrâ prithivî ka drilhe. It seems not a lectio facilior, and we avoid the statement that the heaven has been made ugrâ. Ugrâ, as applied to dyaus, means awful and grand, as an inherent quality rather, and not simply strong. See Ludwig, Notes, p. 441.

Note 2. Rágaso vimâ´nah has been fully discussed by Muir, S. T. IV, p. 71, but it is difficult to find a right translation for it, because the cosmography of the Veda is so different from our own (see I, 6, 9, note 1, and I, 19, 3, note 1). I think we may translate it here by the air, or even by space, particularly the bright air in the sky, the sky (antariksha or nabhas) being between heaven (dyu) and earth (prithivî), while svah and nâka are still higher than the heaven (dyu), svah being sometimes explained as the abode of the sun, the ether, or empyrean, nâka, the firmament, as svarga (Mahîdhara); or svah as svarga, and nâka as âditya (Sâyana). Vimâna is here simply the measurer, though vimâ, from meaning to measure, is apt to take the meaning of to make, which is an excuse for Sâyana's rendering, 'who makes the rain in the sky.'

The Atharva-veda rendering is very free, and certainly no improvement.

Verse 8.