train of thought in the Vedic hymns can fail to see that tyágas in most passages means attack, onslaught; it may be even the instrument of an attack, a weapon. How it should come to take this meaning is indeed difficult to explain, and I do not wonder that Professor Roth in his Dictionary simply renders the word by forlornness, need, danger, or by estrangement, unkindness, malignity. But let us look at the passages. and we shall see that these abstract conceptions are quite out of place:

VIII, 47, 7. ná tám tigmám kaná tyágah ná drâsad abhí tám gurú.

No sharp blow, no heavy one, shall come near him whom you protect.

Here the two adjectives tigmá, sharp, and gurú, heavy, point to something tangible, and I feel much inclined, to take tyágas in this passage as a weapon, as something that is let off with violence, rather than in the more abstract sense of onslaught.

I, 169, 1. maháh kit asi tyágasah varûtâ´.

Thou art the shielder from a great attack.

IV, 43, 4. káh vâm maháh kit tyágasah abhî´ke urushyátam mâdhvî dasrâ nah ûtî´.

Who is against your great attack? Protect us with your help, O Asvins, ye strong ones.

Here Professor Roth seems to join maháh kit tyágasah abhî´ke urushyátam, but in that case it would be impossible to construe the first words, káh vâm.

I, 119, 8. ágakkhatam krípamânam parâ-váti pitúh svásya tyágasâ ní-bâdhitam.

You went from afar to the suppliant, who had been struck down by the violence of his own father.

According to Professor Roth tyágas would here mean forlornness, need, or danger. But níbâdhita is a strong verb, as we may see in

VIII, 64, 2. padâ´ panî´n arâdhásah ní bâdhasva mahâ´n asi.

Strike the useless Panis down with thy foot, for thou art great.

X, 18, 11. út svañkasva prithivi mâ´ ní bâdhathâh.

Open, O earth, do not press on him (i. e. the dead, who is

to be buried; cf. M. M., Über Todtenbestattung, Zeitschrift der D. M. G., vol. ix, p. xv).

VII, 83, 6. yátra râ´ga-bhih dasá-bhih ní-bâdhitam prá su-dâ´sam â´vatam trítsu-bhih sahá.

Where you protected Sudâs with the Tritsus, when he was pressed or set upon by the ten kings.

Another passage in which tyágas occurs is,

VI, 62, 10. sánutyena tyágasâ mártyasya vanushyatâ´m ápi sîrshâ´ vavriktam.

By your covert attack turn back the heads of those even who harass the mortal.

Though this passage may seem less decisive, yet it is difficult to see how tyágasâ could here, according to Professor Roth, be rendered by forlornness or danger. Something is required by which enemies can be turned back. Nor can it be doubtful that sîrshâ´ is governed by vavriktam, meaning turn back their heads, for the same expression occurs again in I, 33, 5. párâ kit sîrshâ´ vavriguh té indra áyagvânah yágva-bhih spárdhamânâh.