{"collection":"Hinduism","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/hin/sbe46/sbe46015.htm","path":"hin/sbe46/sbe46015.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/hin/sbe46/sbe46015.htm","text":"Vedic Hymns, Part II (SBE46), by Hermann Oldenberg [1897]\n1 1. Thee who hidest thyself in secret like a thief with an animal 2 (which he has stolen)\u2014who hadst harnessed 3 adoration and carriedst adoration\u2014\n2. The wise unanimously followed by thy foot-marks 1. All (gods) deserving worship (reverentially) sat down near thee.\n3. The gods followed the laws of Rita. There was an encompassing as the heaven (encompasses) the earth 1.\n4. In the lap, in the womb of Rita, the waters nourish the fine child with praise, him who is well born.\n5. Like good fortune, like a broad abode, like the fertile hill 1, like the refreshing stream,\n6. Like a racer urged forward in the race, like the rapids of the Sindhu 1\u2014who can hold him back?\n7. (He is) the kinsman of the rivers, as a brother of his sisters. He eats the forests as a king (eats, i. e. takes the wealth of) the rich 1.\n8. When he has spread through the forests, driven by the wind, Agni shears the hair of the earth.\n9. Sitting in the waters he hisses like a swan. (He is) most famous by his power of mind, he who belongs to the clans, awakening at dawn\u2014\n10. A performer of worship like Soma, the god born from Rita, like a young (?) 1 beast, far-extending, far-shining.\nThe authorship of the whole collection, I, 65\u201373, is ascribed to Par\u00e2sara S\u00e2ktya. These hymns are addressed exclusively to Agni. The greater part of them (65\u201370) is composed in the Vir\u00e2g metre; comp. on this metre my Prolegomena, 95 seq. I have given there my reasons for considering that each verse consists of twenty, not of forty syllables.\nThis section ascribed to Par\u00e2sara has been treated of by Bollensen, Zeitschrift der D. Morg. Gesellschaft, XXII, 569 seq. No verse of these hymns composed in the metre Dvipad\u00e2 Vir\u00e2g (I, 65\u201370) occurs in the other Samhit\u00e2s.\nNote 1. Professor Max M\u00fcller proposes the following translation for verses 1 and 2: The wise (gods) together followed thee (Agni) when in hiding, by means of footsteps, as one follows a thief by the animal; they followed thee who accepts and carries adoration (to the gods). All the worshipful gods sat down (reverentially) near thee.\nNote 2. There is no reason for reading with Bartholomae (Studien zur indogermanischen Sprachgeschichte, I, 48) pasv\u00e2\u00b4n (gen. plur.) n\u00e1 t\u00e2y\u00fam.\nNote 3. Ludwig proposes yuv\u00e2n\u00e1m, which is quite unnecessary.\u2014See also Gaedicke, 173.\nNote 1. We have here the well-known myth of the hidden Agni discovered by the gods. The 'wise ones,' (dh\u00ee\u00b4r\u00e2h) are no doubt the searching gods, the same who are called y\u00e1gatr\u00e2h in the last P\u00e2da, and who are expressly designated as dev\u00e2\u00b4h in verse 3. Comp. Bergaigne, I, 110.\nNote 1. Regarding the construction, see Gaedicke, 192.\u2014Professor Max M\u00fcller's opinion on this phrase differs from\nmine. He writes: 'I should prefer par\u00eeshti. But parishti seems to mean a running about, reconnoitring, searching. \"There was searching on earth as in heaven,\" lit. earth, like heaven, was reconnoitring-ground.'\nNote 1. Comp. VIII, 50, 2. gir\u00edh n\u00e1 bhugm\u00e2\u00b4. I believe that Boehtlingk-Roth, Bollensen, and Grassmann are right in correcting our passage accordingly; ranv\u00e2\u00b4, prithv\u00ee\u00b4, sambh\u00fa follow the gender of the corresponding substantives, and the same may be expected here. Comp. Lanman, 530. The meaning is that Agni yields nourishment to all beings as a mountain fertilises the country by the waters which come down from it; comp. VIII, 49, 2. gir\u00e9h iva pr\u00e1 r\u00e1s\u00e2h asya pinvire d\u00e1tr\u00e2ni puruba\u00f3gasah.\nNote 1. Regarding the construction, comp. Gaedicke, 252 seq.; Bergaigne, M\u00e9langes Renier, 95. Joh. Schmidt (Die Pluralbildungen der indogerm. Neutra, 305) and Ludwig (V, 524) are wrong in taking ksh\u00f3dah as a locative or as an instrumental respectively.\nNote 1. Comp. Pischel-Geldner, Vedische Studien, I, p. xvi.\nNote 1. Can s\u00edsv\u00e2 be the nominative of a stem s\u00edsvan which stands by the side of s\u00edsu as r\u00edbhvan of ribh\u00fa? Prof. Max M\u00fcller proposes: 'Large like a cow with young, like a pregnant cow.'","title":"Vedic Hymns, Part II (SBE46): I, 65","type":"page"}