Note 1. The only difficult word is avâtâ´m. Sâyana explains it, 'without wind.' But it is hardly possible to understand how the Maruts, themselves the gods of the storm, the sons of Rudra, could be said to bring clouds without wind. Langlois, it is true, translates without any misgivings: 'Ces dieux peuvent sur un sol desséché faire tomber la pluie sans l’accompagner de vent.' Wilson: 'They send down rain without wind upon the desert.' Benfey saw the incongruous character of the epithet, and explained it away by saying that the winds bring rain, and after they have brought it, they moderate their violence in order not to drive it away again; hence rain without wind. Yet even

this explanation, though ingenious, and, as I am told, particularly truthful in an eastern climate, is somewhat too artificial. If we changed the accent, ávâtâm, unchecked, unconquered, would be better than avâtâ´m, windless. But ávâta, unconquered, does not occur in the Rig-veda, except as applied to persons. It occurs most frequently in the phrase vanván ávâtah, which Sâyana explains well by himsan ahimsitah, hurting, but not hurt: (VI, 16, 20; 18, 1; IX, 89, 7.) In IX, 96, 8, we read prit-sú vanván ávâtah, in battles attacking, but not attacked, which renders the meaning of ávâta perfectly clear. In VI, 64, 5, where it is applied to Ushas, it may be translated by unconquerable, intact.

There are several passages, however, where avâta occurs with the accent on the last syllable, and where it is accordingly explained as a Bahuvrîhi, meaning either windless or motionless, from vâta, wind, or from vâta, going. (I, 62, 10). In some of these passages we can hardly doubt that the accent ought to be changed, and that we ought to read ávâta. Thus in VI, 64, 4, avâte is clearly a vocative applied to Ushas, who is called ávâtâ, unconquerable, in the verse immediately following. In I, 52, 4, the Maruts are called avâtâh, which can only be ávâtâh, unconquerable; nor can we hesitate in VIII, 79, 7, to change avâtáh into ávâtah, as an epithet applied to Soma, and preceded by ádriptakratuh, of unimpaired strength, unconquerable.

But even then we find no evidence that ávâta, unconquered, could be applied to rain or to a cloud, and I therefore propose another explanation, though equally founded on the supposition that the accent of avâtâm in our passage should be on the first syllable.

I take vâta as a Vedic form instead of the later vâna, the past participle of vai, to wither. Similarly we find in the Veda gîta, instead of gîna, the latter form being sanctioned by Pânini. Vâ means to get dry, to flag, to get exhausted; ávâta therefore, as applied to a cloud, would mean not dry, not withered, as applied to rain, not dried up, but remaining on the ground. It is important to remark that in one passage, VI, 67, 7, Sâyana, too, explains ávâta, as applied to rivers, by asushka, not dry; and the same meaning would