Sâtí and râtí are used on purpose, the former meaning the acquisition or conquest of good things, the latter the giving away of them. The onslaught of the Maruts is first described as violent and crushing; their liberality in giving away what they have conquered, chiefly rain, is represented as delightful, like the gifts of a liberal worshipper. Then follows prithugráyî asuryẽva gáñgatî. Here asuryâ reminds us of the asuryâ in the preceding hymn, where it occurred as an epithet of Rodasî, the lightning. Prithugráyî, wide-spreading, seems to apply best to the rain, that is, the râti, though it might also apply to the lightning. However, the râti is the storm with rain and lightning, and I therefore propose to read gágghatî for gáñgatî. Gañg is a root which occurs here only, and gaggh too is a root which is unknown to most students of Sanskrit. Benfey a, to whom we owe so much, was the first to point out that gaggh, which Yâska explains by to make a noise and applies to murmuring waters, is a popular form of gaksh, to laugh, a reduplicated form of has. He shows that ksh is changed into kkh in akkhâ for akshâ, and into gh and ggh, in Pâli and Prakrit, e. g. ghâ for kshâ. The original form gaksh, to laugh, occurs I, 33, 7. tvám etâ´n rudatáh gákshatah ka áyodhayah, thou foughtest them, the crying and the laughing.

That the lightning is often represented as laughing we see from the very next verse, áva smayanta vidyútah, the lightnings laughed down; and the very fact that this idea occurs in the next verse confirms me in the view that it was in the poet's mind in the preceding one. See also I, 23, 12. haskârâ´t vidyútah pári átah gâtâ´h avantu nah marútah mrilayantu nah.

In the only other passage where gañg occurs, VIII, 43, 8, arkíshâ gañganâbhávan, applied to Agni, admits of the same correction, gagghanâbhávan, and of the same translation, 'laughing with splendour.'

Benfey's objection to the spelling of gaghgh with two

aspirates is just with regard to pronunciation, but this would hardly justify our changing the style of our MSS., which, in this and in other cases, write the two aspirates, though intending them for non-aspirate and aspirate.

Verse 9.

Note 1. Prisni, the mother of the Maruts, who are often called Prisni-mâtarah, gó-mâtarah, and síndhu-mâtarah.

Note 2. As to svadhâ in the sense of food, see before, I, 6, 4, note 2, and X, 157, 5.

Note 3. Abhva is more than dark clouds, it is the dark gathering of clouds before a storm, ein Unwetter, or, if conceived as a masculine, as in I, 39, 8, ein Ungethüm. Such words are simply untranslatable.

Footnotes

284:a Gött. Nachr., 1876, No. 13, s. 324.

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