{"collection":"Hinduism","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/hin/sbe32/sbe3235.htm","path":"hin/sbe32/sbe3235.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/hin/sbe32/sbe3235.htm","text":"Vedic Hymns, Part I (SBE32), by Max M\u00fcller, [1891]\n1. Who knows their birth? or who was of yore in the favour of the Maruts, when they harnessed the spotted deer 1?\n2. Who has heard them when they had mounted their chariots, how they went forth? For the sake of what liberal giver (Sud\u00e2s) did they run, and their comrades followed 1, (as) streams of rain (filled) with food?\n3. They themselves said to me when day by day 1 they came to the feast with their birds 2: they (the Maruts) are manly youths and blameless; seeing them, praise them thus;\n4. They who shine by themselves in their ornaments 1, their daggers, their garlands, their golden chains, their rings, going 2 on their chariots and on dry land.\n5. O Maruts, givers of quickening rain, I am made to rejoice, following after your chariots, as after days 1 going with rain.\n6. The bucket which the bounteous heroes shook down from heaven for their worshipper, that cloud they send 1 along heaven and earth, and showers follow on the dry land.\n7. The rivers having pierced 1 the air with a rush of water, went forth like milk-cows; when your spotted deer roll about 2 like horses that have hasted to the resting-place on their road.\n8. Come hither, O Maruts, from heaven, from the sky, even from near 1; do not go far away!\n9. Let not the Ras\u00e2, the Anitabh\u00e2, the Kubh\u00e2, the Krumu, let not the Sindhu delay you! Let not the marshy Sarayu prevent you! May your favour be with us alone!\n10. The showers come forth after the host of your chariots, after the terrible Marut-host of the ever-youthful heroes 1.\n11. Let us then follow with our praises and our prayers each host of yours, each troop, each company 1.\n12. To what well-born generous worshipper have the Maruts gone to-day on that march,\n13. On which you bring to kith and kin the never-failing seed of corn? Give us that for which we ask you, wealth and everlasting happiness!\n14. Let us safely pass through our revilers, leaving behind the unspeakable and the enemies. Let us be with you when in the morning 1 you shower down health, wealth 2, water, and medicine, O Maruts!\n15. That mortal, O men, O Maruts, whom you protect, may well be always beloved by the gods, and rich in valiant offspring. May we be such!\n16. Praise the liberal Maruts, and may they delight on the path of this man here who praises them, like cows in fodder. When they go, call after them as for old friends, praise them who love you, with your song!\nAscribed to Sy\u00e2v\u00e2sva \u00c2treya. Metre, 1, 5, 10, 11, 15 Kakubh; 2 Brihat\u00ee; 3 Anushtubh; 4 Pura-ushnih; 6, 7, 9, 13, 14, 16 Satobrihat\u00ee; 8, 12 G\u00e2yatr\u00ee. No verse of this hymn occurs in SV., VS., AV.; the sixth verse is found in TS. II, 4, 8, 1; MS. II, 4, 7; K\u00e2thaka XI, 9.\nNote 1. Kil\u00e2s\u00ee, as fem. of kil\u00e2sa, does not occur again. It seems to have meant spotted or marked with pocks, and would be intended for the pr\u00edshat\u00ees. Does Kail\u00e2sa come from the same source?\nNote 1. K\u00e1smai sasruh is much the same as k\u00e1smai ady\u00e1 s\u00fag\u00e2t\u00e2ya \u2026 pr\u00e1 yayuh, in verse 12. We must then begin a new sentence, \u00e1nu \u00e2p\u00e1yah, their comrades after, namely sasruh. Thus we read in verse 10 t\u00e1m yah s\u00e1rdham \u2026 \u00e1nu pr\u00e1 yanti vrisht\u00e1yah, where the streams of rain are represented as the followers of the Maruts. We might also translate in our sentence: For what liberal giver did their comrades, the streams of rain with food follow after (the Maruts).\nNote 1. \u00dapa dy\u00fabhih occurs again VIII, 40, 8, and seems to mean from day to day.\nNote 2. The birds of the Maruts, probably of the same character as the birds of the Asvins.\nNote 1. I translate a\u00f1gi by ornament in general, not by paint or ointment,. though that may have been its original meaning.\nNote 2. On sr\u00e2ya, see P\u00e2n. III, 3, 24. Dh\u00e1nvasu may possibly have been intended as governed by sv\u00e1bh\u00e2navah, and not by sr\u00e2y\u00e2\u00b4h; see, however, VIII, 33, 6. sm\u00e1srushu srit\u00e1h.\nNote 1. On dy\u00e2\u00b4vah, nom. plur., and r\u00e1th\u00e2n, acc. plur., compare Bergaigne, M\u00e9langes Renier, p. 88. The text is doubtful, and may be a corruption of vrisht\u00ee\u00b4h dy\u00e2\u00b4vah yat\u00ee\u00b4h iva.\nNote 1. The Taittir\u00eeyas, TS. II, 4, 8, 1, read parg\u00e1ny\u00e2h; the Maitreyas, pr\u00e1 parg\u00e1nyah srigat\u00e2m and yantu.\nNote 1. Tatrid\u00e2n\u00e1, as trid occurs in the Veda in the Parasmaipada only, may be intended for a passive, bored, dug out, tapped. One would, however, expect in that case an instrumental, marudbhih, by whom they were brought forth.\nNote 2. The words v\u00ed y\u00e1d v\u00e1rtanta eny\u00e3h have received various explanations. Wilson translates: 'When the rivers rush in various directions.' S\u00e2yana admits also another meaning: 'When the rivers grow.' Ludwig translates: 'Sich verteilend gehn die schimmernden auszeinander.' Grassmann, very boldly: 'Wie Hengste tr\u00e4ufelnd, wenn vom Wege heimgekehrt, sie zu den bunten Stuten gehn.' Vi-vrit seems, however, to have a very special meaning, namely, rolling on the ground, and this the spotted deer are here said to have done, like horses at the end of their journey. We read of the sacrificial horse, Sat. Br. XIII, 5, 1, 16. sa yady ava v\u00e2 gighred vi v\u00e2 varteta, samriddho me yag\u00f1a iti ha vidy\u00e2t; cf. XI, 2, 5, 3. In the TS. VII, I, 19, 3, the commentator explains vivartanam by nirgatya bh\u00fbmau vilunthanam, the rolling on the ground. The same meaning is applicable to Mah\u00e2parinibb\u00e2na Sutta, p. 66 (Childers), where the Bhikkhus are said to roll on the ground when they hear of Buddha's death; also to Mah\u00e2bh. III, 11953 (of a wild boar). The meaning therefore in our passage seems to be, when the deer roll on the ground, as horses are wont to do at the end of a journey.\nNote 1. Am\u00e2\u00b4t corresponds here to prithivi in other places. Originally it may have meant from the home.\nThis verse has often been discussed on account of the names of the rivers which it contains. Sy\u00e2v\u00e2sva had mentioned the Yamun\u00e2 in 52, 17, and some interpreters have been inclined to give to parushn\u00ee in 52, 9 a geographical meaning, taking it for the river Ravi, instead of translating it by cloud. The geographical names are certainly interesting, but they have been discussed so often that I need not dwell on them here. (See M. M., India. p. 163.)\nThe Ras\u00e2, known to the Zoroastrians as the Ranh\u00e2, was originally the name of a real river, but when the \u00c2ryas moved away from it into the Punj\u00e2b, it assumed a mythical character, and became a kind of Okeanos, surrounding the extreme limits of the world.\nAnitabh\u00e2 seems to be the name of a new river or part of a river. It can hardly be taken as an epithet of Ras\u00e2, as Ludwig suggests. Anitabh\u00e2, whose splendour has not departed (Ludwig), or, amitabh\u00e2, of endless splendour, would hardly be Vedic formations. (Chips, I, p. 157; Hibbert Lect., p. 207; India, pp. 166, 173, notes.)\nKubh\u00e2 is the \u039a\u03c9\u03c6\u03ae\u03bd or \u039a\u03c9\u03c6\u03ae\u03c2 of the Greeks, the Kabul river. The Krumu I take to be the Kurrum. (India, p. 177, note.)\nThe Sindhu is the Indus, though it is difficult to say which part of it, while the Sarayu has been supposed to be the Saray\u00fb, the affluent of the Ga\u1e45g\u00e2, but may also be a more general name for some more northern river in the Punj\u00e2b. (See Zimmer, Altindisches Leben, pp. 17 f., 45; Muir, S. T. II, p. xxv, note.)\nNote 1. N\u00e1vyas\u00een\u00e2m has been a puzzle to all interpreters. S\u00e2yana seems to me to give the right interpretation, namely, n\u00fbtan\u00e2n\u00e2m. As from a\u00f1gas\u00e2, instr. sing., straightway, a\u00f1gas\u00ee\u00b4na was formed, straightforward; from n\u00e1vyas\u00e2, instr. sing., anew, n\u00e1vyas\u00eena seems to have been formed in the sense of new. N\u00e1vyas\u00een\u00e2m might then be a somewhat\nirregular gen. plur., referring to gan\u00e1m m\u00e2\u00b4rutam, the Marut-host of the young men; see V, 58, 1. Lanman (p. 515) takes it for a gen. plur. fem., but in that case it could not refer to r\u00e1th\u00e2n\u00e2m. Zimmer translates endlos, Bergaigne (II, 400) thinks of new or rejuvenescent mothers.\nNote 1. See III, 26, 6.\nNote 1. Usr\u00ed, in the morning. Lanman (p. 427) proposes to read ush\u00e1ri, but the metre would be better preserved by reading vrishtv\u00ee\u00b4 as trisyllabic. The difficulty is the construction of the gerund vrishtv\u00ee\u00b4, which refers to the Maruts, and sy\u00e2\u00b4ma sah\u00e1, which refers to the sacrificers.\nNote 2. On s\u00e1m y\u00f3h, see I, 165, 4, note 2.\nThe metrical structure of this hymn is interesting. If we represent the foot of eight syllables by a, that of twelve by b, we find the following succession:\n| I | 1 | a b a | II | 3 | a a a a | | | | \n| | 2 | a a b a | | 4 | b a a | | | | \n| III | 5 | a a a | IV | 8 | a a a | | | | \n| | 6 | b a b a | | 9 | b a b a | | | | \n| | 7 | b a b a | VI | 12 | a a a | | | | \n| V | 10 | a b a | | 13 | b a b a | VII | 15 | a b a | \n| | 11 | a b a | | 14 | b a b a | | 16 | b a b a | \nWe find that I contains the question, II the answer, III description of rain, IV prayer and invitation, V praise of the companions, VI prayer, VII conclusion. Comp. Oldenberg's Prolegomena, p. 106 seq.","title":"Vedic Hymns, Part I (SBE32): Vedic Hymns: V, 53. To the Maruts (the Storm-gods)","type":"page"}