Vedic Hymns, Part I (SBE32): Vedic Hymns: I, 168. To the ... | Internet Sacred Text Archive

MANDALA I, HYMN 168.

ASHTAKA I, ADHYÂYA 4, VARGA 6-7.

To the Maruts (the Storm-gods).

1. To every sacrifice 1 you hasten together 2, you accept prayer after prayer, O quick Maruts! Let me therefore bring you hither by my prayers from heaven and earth, for our welfare, and for our great protection;

2. The shakers who were born to bring food and light 1, self-born and self-supported, like springs 2, like thousandfold waves of water, aye, visibly like unto excellent bulls 3,

3. Those Maruts, like Soma-drops 1, which squeezed from ripe stems dwell, when drunk, in the hearts of the worshipper—see how on their shoulders there clings as if a clinging wife; in their hands the quoit is held and the sword.

4. Lightly they have come down from heaven of their own accord: Immortals, stir yourselves with the whip! The mighty Maruts on dustless paths, armed with brilliant spears, have shaken down even the strong places.

5. O ye Maruts, who are armed with lightning-spears, who stirs you from within by himself, as the jaws are stirred by the tongue 1? You shake the sky 2, as if on the search for food; you are invoked by many 3, like the (solar) horse of the day 4.

6. Where, O Maruts, is the top, where the bottom of the mighty sky where you came? When you throw down with the thunderbolt what is strong, like brittle things, you fly across the terrible sea!

7. As your conquest is violent, splendid, terrible, full and crushing, so, O Maruts, is your gift delightful, like the largess of a liberal worshipper, wide-spreading, laughing like heavenly lightning.

8. From the tires of their chariot-wheels streams gush forth, when they send out the voice of the clouds; the lightnings smiled upon the earth, when the Maruts shower down fatness (fertile rain).

9. Prisni 1 brought forth for the great fight the terrible train of the untiring Maruts: when fed they produced the dark cloud 3, and then looked about for invigorating food 2.

10. May this praise, O Maruts, this song of Mândârya, the son of Mâna, the poet, ask you with food for offspring for ourselves! May we have an invigorating autumn, with quickening rain!

NOTES.

This hymn is ascribed to Agastya. Verses 1-7, Gagatî; 8-10, Trishtubh. No verse of this hymn occurs in the SV., VS., TS., AS.

Verse 1.

There can be little doubt that the text of the first line is corrupt. Ludwig admits this, but both he and Grassmann translate the verse.

Grassmann: Durch stetes Opfer möcht ich euch gewinnen recht, Gebet, das zu euch Göttern drengt, empfangt ihr gern.

Ludwig: Bei jedem opfer ist zusammen mit euch der siegreich thätige, in jedem lied hat der fromme an euch gedacht.

Ludwig proposes to read âdîdhiye or devayâd â dîdhiye, but even then the construction remains difficult.