Note 3. Sâyana explains: 'They moisten the whole earth like a hide,' a hide representing a small surface which is watered without great effort. Wilson: 'They moisten the earth, like a hide, with water.' Langlois: 'Alors les gouttes d’eau, perçant comme la peau de ce (nuage) bienfaisant viennent inonder la terre.' Benfey: 'Dann stû´rzen reichlich aus der rothen (Gewitterwolke) Tropfen, mit Fluth wie eine Haut die Erde netzend. (Dass die Erde so durchnässt wird, wie durchregnetes Leder.)' If the poet had intended to compare the earth, before it is moistened by rain, to a hide, he might have had in his mind the dryness of a tanned skin, or, as Professor Benfey says, of leather. If, on the contrary, the simile refers to the streams of water, then kárma-iva, like a skin, might either be taken in the technical acceptation of the skin through which, at the preparation of the Soma, the streams (dhârâh) of that beverage are squeezed and distilled, or we may take the word in the more general sense of water-skin. In that case the comparison, though not very pointedly expressed, as it would have been by later Sanskrit poets, would still be complete. The streams of the red-(horse), i. e. of the cloud, rush forth, and they, whether the streams liberated by the Maruts, or the Maruts themselves, moisten the earth with water, like a skin, i. e. like a skin in which water is kept and from which it is poured out. The cloud itself being called a skin by Vedic poets (I, 129, 3) makes the comparison still more natural.

One other explanation might suggest itself, if the singular of kárma should be considered objectionable on account of the plural of the verb. Vedic poets speak of the skin of the earth. Thus:

X, 68, 4. bhû´myâh udnâ´-iva vi tvákam bibheda.

He (Brihaspati) having driven the cows from the cave, cut the skin of the earth, as it were, with water, i. e. saturated it with rain.

The construction, however, if we took kárma in the sense of surface, would be very irregular, and we should have to translate: They moisten the earth with water like a skin, i. e. skin-deep.

We ought to scan kārmḗvōdắbhīh vĭ́ ūndā́ntĭ bhû̄́mā for kārmēvă ŭdăbhīh vyūndāntĭ bhû̄mā would give an unusual cæsura.

Verse 6.