I therefore take yúdh in our passage also in the sense of weapon or sword, and, in accordance with this, I assign to aídh the meaning of torch. Whether aídh comes from idh with the preposition â, which, after all, would only give edh, or whether we have in the Sanskrit aídh the same peculiar strengthening which this very root shows in Greek and Latin a, would be difficult to decide. The torch of the Maruts is the lightning, the weapon the thunderbolt, and by both they manifest their strength; ferro et igne, as Ludwig remarks.

Wilson: We proclaim eagerly, Maruts, your ancient greatness, for (the sake of inducing) your prompt appearance, as the indication of (the approach of) the showerer (of benefits). Loud-roaring and mighty Maruts, you exert your vigorous energies for the advance (to the sacrifice), as if it was to battle.

Verse 2.

Note 1. That úpa can be construed with the accusative is clear from many passages:

III, 35, 2. úpa imám yagñám â´ vahâtah índram.

Bring Indra to this sacrifice!

I, 25, 4. váyah ná vasatî´h úpa.

As birds (fly) to their nests.

Note 2. Nítya, from ni + tya a, means originally what is inside, internus, then what is one's own; and is opposed to níshtya, from nis + tya, what is outside, strange, or hostile. Nítya has been well compared with nigá, literally eingeboren, then, like nítya, one's own. What is inside, or in a thing or place, is its own, is peculiar to it, does not move or change, and hence the secondary meanings of nítya, one's own, unchanging, eternal. Thus we find nítya used in the sense of internal or domestic:

I, 73, 4. tám tvâ nárah dáme â´ nítyam iddhám ágne sákanta kshitíshu dhruvâ´su.

Our men worshipped thee, O Agni, lighted within the house in safe places.

This I believe to be a more appropriate rendering than if we take nítya in the sense of always, continuously lighted, or, as some propose, in the sense of eternal, everlasting.

VII, 1, 2. dakshâ´yyah yáh dáme â´sa nítyah.

Agni who is to be pleased within the house, i. e. as belonging to the house, and, in that sense, who is to be pleased always. Cf. I, 140, 7; 141, 2; X, 12, 2, and III, 25, 5, where nítyah, however, may have been intended as an adjective belonging to the vocative sûno.

Most frequently nítya occurs with sûnú, I, 66, 1; 185, 2; tánaya, III, 15, 2; X, 39, 14; toká, II, 2, 11; âpí, VII, 88, 6; páti, I, 71, 1, and has always the meaning of one's own, very much like the later Sanskrit niga, which never occurs in the Rig-veda, though it makes its appearance in the Âtharvana.

Níshtya, extraneus, occurs three times in the Rig-veda:

VI, 75, 19. yáh nah sváh áranah yáh ka níshtyah gíghâmsati.

Whoever wishes to hurt us, our own friend or a stranger from without.

X, 133, 5. yáh nah indra abhi-dâ´sati sá-nâbhih yáh ka níshtyah.

He who infests us, O Indra, whether a relative or a stranger.