{"collection":"Hinduism","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/hin/sbe32/sbe3229.htm","path":"hin/sbe32/sbe3229.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/hin/sbe32/sbe3229.htm","text":"Vedic Hymns, Part I (SBE32), by Max M\u00fcller, [1891]\n1. 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;\n2. 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,\n3. Those Maruts, like Soma-drops 1, which squeezed from ripe stems dwell, when drunk, in the hearts of the worshipper\u2014see how on their shoulders there clings as if a clinging wife; in their hands the quoit is held and the sword.\n4. 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.\n5. 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.\n6. 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!\n7. 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.\n8. 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).\n9. 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.\n10. May this praise, O Maruts, this song of M\u00e2nd\u00e2rya, the son of M\u00e2na, the poet, ask you with food for offspring for ourselves! May we have an invigorating autumn, with quickening rain!\nThis hymn is ascribed to Agastya. Verses 1-7, Gagat\u00ee; 8-10, Trishtubh. No verse of this hymn occurs in the SV., VS., TS., AS.\nThere can be little doubt that the text of the first line is corrupt. Ludwig admits this, but both he and Grassmann translate the verse.\nGrassmann: Durch stetes Opfer m\u00f6cht ich euch gewinnen recht, Gebet, das zu euch G\u00f6ttern drengt, empfangt ihr gern.\nLudwig: Bei jedem opfer ist zusammen mit euch der siegreich th\u00e4tige, in jedem lied hat der fromme an euch gedacht.\nLudwig proposes to read \u00e2d\u00eedhiye or devay\u00e2d \u00e2 d\u00eedhiye, but even then the construction remains difficult.\nNote 1. Yag\u00f1\u00e2\u00b4-yag\u00f1\u00e2\u00b4, an adverbial expression, much the same as yag\u00f1e yag\u00f1e (I, 136, 1); it occurs once more in VI, 48, 1.\nNote 2. Tuturv\u00e1nih does occur here only, but is formed like gugurv\u00e1ni, I, 142, 8, and susukv\u00e1ni, VIII, 23, 5. Possibly tuturvanih might stand for the host of the Maruts in the singular, 'you hasten together to every sacrifice.' As to dadhidhve, used in a similar sense, see IV, 34, 3; 37, 1.\nAs a conjecture, though no more, I propose to read evay\u00e2h u.\n\u00c9va, in the sense of going, quick, is used of the horses of the Maruts, I, 166, 4. More frequently it has the sense of going, moving, than of manner (mos), and as an adverb eva and evam mean in this way (K. Z. II, 235). From this is derived evay\u00e2h, in the sense of quickly moving, an epithet applied to Vishnu, I, 156, 1, and to the Maruts, V, 41, 16: kath\u00e2\u00b4 d\u00e2sema n\u00e1mas\u00e2 su-d\u00e2\u00b4n\u00fbn eva-y\u00e2\u00b4 mar\u00fatah akkha-ukthaih, How shall we worship with praise and invocations the liberal quick-moving Maruts? I read, with Roth, eva-y\u00e2\u00b4h; otherwise we should have to take evay\u00e2 as\nan adverbial instrumental, like \u00e2say\u00e2\u00b4 from \u00e2s\u00e2; see Grassmann, s. v. \u00e2say\u00e2.\nIn one hymn (V, 87) Evay\u00e2-marut, as one word, has become an invocation, reminding us of \u1f24\u03b9\u03b5 \u03a6\u03bf\u1fd6\u03b2\u03b5, or Evoe Bacche, and similar forms. Possibly \u1f24\u03b9\u03b1 may be viatica, though the vowels do not correspond regularly (see yayi, I, 87, 2, note 1).\nFrom eva we have also eva-y\u00e2van (fem. evay\u00e2\u00b4var\u00ee, VI. 48, 12), which Benfey proposed to divide into evay\u00e2-van, quick, again an epithet of Vishnu and the Maruts. If then we read evay\u00e2h u, without the accent on the last syllable, we should have a proper invocation of the Maruts, 'You, quick Maruts, accept prayer after prayer.'\nNote 1. \u00cdsham sv\u00e2\u00b4r are joined again in VII, 66, 9. sah\u00e1 \u00edsham sv\u00e2\u00b4h ka dh\u00eemahi. It seems to mean food and light, or water and light, water being considered as invigorating and supporting. Abhig\u00e2yanta governs the accusative.\nNote 2. The meaning of spring was first assigned to vavra by Grassmann.\nNote 3. Though I cannot find g\u00e2\u00b4vah and uksh\u00e1nah again, used in apposition to each other, I have little doubt that Grassmann is right in taking both as one word, like \u03c4\u03b1\u1fe6\u03c1\u03bf\u03c2 \u03b2\u03bf\u1fe6\u03c2 in Greek.\nNote 1. The first line of this verse is extremely difficult. Grassmann translates:\nLudwig: Die wie Soma, das gepresst aus saftvollen stengel, aufgenommen ins innere freundlich weilen.\nIt may be that the Maruts are likened to Somas, because they refresh and strengthen. So we read VIII, 48, 9:\ntv\u00e1m h\u00ed nah tanv\u00e3h Soma gop\u00e2\u00b4h g\u00e2\u00b4tre-g\u00e2tre ni-sas\u00e1ttha.\nFor thou, O Soma, has sat down as a guardian in every member of our body.\nIt is possible, therefore, though I shall say no more, that the poet wished to say that the Maruts, bringing rain and\ncooling the air, are like Somas in their refreshing and invigorating power, when stirring the hearts of men. In X, 78, 2, the Maruts are once more compared with Somas, su-s\u00e1rm\u00e2nah n\u00e1 s\u00f3m\u00e2h rit\u00e1m yat\u00e9. Should there be a dative hidden in \u00e2\u00b4sate?\nRambhin\u00ee I now take with S\u00e2yana in the sense of a wife clinging to the shoulders of her husband, though what is meant is the spear, or some other weapon, slung over the shoulders; see I, 167, 3.\nNote 1. H\u00e1nv\u00e2-iva gihv\u00e1y\u00e2 gives no sense, if we take hanv\u00e2 as an instrum. sing. Hanu is generally used in the dual, in the Rig-veda always, meaning the two jaws or the two lips. Thus Ait. Br. VII, 11. han\u00fb sagihve; AV. X, 2, 7. hanvor hi gihv\u00e2m adadh\u00e2h, he placed the tongue in the jaws. I should therefore prefer to read han\u00fb iva, which would improve the metre also, or take hanv\u00e2 for a dual, as S\u00e2yana does.\nOne might also translate, 'Who amongst you, O Maruts, moves by himself, as the jaws by the tongue,' but the simile would not be so perfect. The meaning is the same as in the preceding verse, viz. that the Maruts are self-born, self-determined, and that they move along without horses and chariots. In. X, 78, 2, the Maruts are called svayug, like the winds.\nNote 2. I feel doubtful about dhanvaky\u00fat, and feel inclined towards S\u00e2yana's explanation, who takes dhanvan for antariksha. It would then correspond to parvata-ky\u00fat, dhruva-ky\u00fat, &c.\nNote 3. Purupraisha may also be, You who have the command of many.\nNote 4. As to ahany\u00e2\u00b4h n\u00e1 \u00e9tasah, see V, 1, 4. svet\u00e1h v\u00e2g\u00ee\u00b4 g\u00e2yate \u00e1gre \u00e1hn\u00e2m.\nVithura translated before, I, 87, 3, by broken, means also breakable or brittle. S\u00e2yana explains it by grass, which may be true, though I see no authority for it. Grassmann translates it by leaves. It is derived from vyath.\nS\u00e2t\u00ed and r\u00e2t\u00ed 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 prithugr\u00e1y\u00ee asury\u1ebdva g\u00e1\u00f1gat\u00ee. Here asury\u00e2 reminds us of the asury\u00e2 in the preceding hymn, where it occurred as an epithet of Rodas\u00ee, the lightning. Prithugr\u00e1y\u00ee, wide-spreading, seems to apply best to the rain, that is, the r\u00e2ti, though it might also apply to the lightning. However, the r\u00e2ti is the storm with rain and lightning, and I therefore propose to read g\u00e1gghat\u00ee for g\u00e1\u00f1gat\u00ee. Ga\u00f1g 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 Y\u00e2ska 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 akkh\u00e2 for aksh\u00e2, and into gh and ggh, in P\u00e2li and Prakrit, e. g. gh\u00e2 for ksh\u00e2. The original form gaksh, to laugh, occurs I, 33, 7. tv\u00e1m et\u00e2\u00b4n rudat\u00e1h g\u00e1kshatah ka \u00e1yodhayah, thou foughtest them, the crying and the laughing.\nThat the lightning is often represented as laughing we see from the very next verse, \u00e1va smayanta vidy\u00fatah, 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. hask\u00e2r\u00e2\u00b4t vidy\u00fatah p\u00e1ri \u00e1tah g\u00e2t\u00e2\u00b4h avantu nah mar\u00fatah mrilayantu nah.\nIn the only other passage where ga\u00f1g occurs, VIII, 43, 8, ark\u00edsh\u00e2 ga\u00f1gan\u00e2bh\u00e1van, applied to Agni, admits of the same correction, gagghan\u00e2bh\u00e1van, and of the same translation, 'laughing with splendour.'\nBenfey's objection to the spelling of gaghgh with two\naspirates 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.\nNote 1. Prisni, the mother of the Maruts, who are often called Prisni-m\u00e2tarah, g\u00f3-m\u00e2tarah, and s\u00edndhu-m\u00e2tarah.\nNote 2. As to svadh\u00e2 in the sense of food, see before, I, 6, 4, note 2, and X, 157, 5.\nNote 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 Ungeth\u00fcm. Such words are simply untranslatable.\n284:a G\u00f6tt. Nachr., 1876, No. 13, s. 324.","title":"Vedic Hymns, Part I (SBE32): Vedic Hymns: I, 168. To the Maruts (the Storm-gods)","type":"page"}