I still take yâsîshta for the 3 p. sing. of the precative Âtmanepada, like ganishîshta and vanishîshta. With the preposition áva, yâsisîshthâh in IV, 1, 4, means to turn away. With the preposition â´ therefore yâsîshta may well mean to turn towards, to bring. If we took yâsîshta as a 2 p. plur. in the sense of come, we could not account for the long î, nor for the accusative vayâm. We thus get the meaning, 'May this your hymn of praise bring vayâ´m,' i. e. a branch, an offshoot or offspring, tanvẽ, for ourselves, ishâ´, together with food. We then begin a new sentence: 'May we find an invigorating autumn with quickening rain.' It is true that ishá, as a name of an autumn month, does not occur again in the Rig-veda, but it is found in the Satapatha-brâhmana. Vrigána, possibly in the sense of people or enemies, we have in VII, 32, 27, ágñâtâh vrigánâh, where Roth reads wrongly ágñâtâ vrigánâ; V, 44, 1 (?); VI, 35, 5. Gîrádânu also would be an appropriate epithet to ishá.

Professor Oldenberg has sent me the following notes on this difficult hymn. He thinks it is what he calls an Âkhyâna-hymn, consisting of verses which originally formed part of a story in prose. He has treated of this class of hymns in the Zeitschrift der D. M. G. XXXIX, 60 seq. He would prefer to ascribe verses 1 and 2 to Indra, who addresses the Maruts when he meets them as they return from a sacrifice. In this case, however, we should have to accept rîramâma as a pluralis majestaticus; and I doubt whether Indra ever speaks of himself in the plural, except it may be in using the pronoun nah.

In verse 4 Professor Oldenberg prefers to take prábhrito

me ádrih in the sense of 'the stone for pressing the Soma has been brought forth,' and he adds that me need not mean 'my stone,' but 'brought forward for me.' He would prefer to read súshmam iyarti, as in IV, 17, 12; X, 75, 3, though he does not consider this alteration of the text necessary.

Professor Oldenberg would ascribe vv. 13 and 14 to Indra. The 14th verse would then mean, 'After Mânya has brought us (the gods) hither, turn, O Maruts, towards the sage.' Of this interpretation I should like to adopt at all events the last sentence, taking varta for vart-ta, the 2 p. plur. imperat. of vrit, after the Ad class.

The text of the Maitrâyanî Samhitâ, lately published by Dr. L. von Schrœder, yields a few interesting various readings: v. 5, ekam instead of etân̐; v. 12, sravâ instead of srava; and v. 15, vayâmsi as a variant for vayâm, which looks like a conjectural emendation.