{"collection":"Hinduism","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/hin/sbe46/sbe46016.htm","path":"hin/sbe46/sbe46016.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/hin/sbe46/sbe46016.htm","text":"Vedic Hymns, Part II (SBE46), by Hermann Oldenberg [1897]\n1. Like unto excellent wealth, like unto the shine of the sun, like unto living breath, like unto one's own 1 son\u2014\n2. Like unto a quick takvan 1 he (Agni) holds the wood, like milk, like a milch cow 2, bright and shining.\n3. He holds safety, pleasant like a homestead, like ripe barley, a conqueror of men,\n4. Like a Rishi uttering (sacred) shouts, praised among the clans; like a well-cared-for race-horse 1, Agni bestows vigour.\n5. He to whose flame men do not grow accustomed 1, who is like one's own mind 2, like a wife on a couch, enough for all (happiness).\n6. When the bright (Agni) has shone forth, he is like a white (horse [?]) 1 among people, like a chariot with golden ornaments, impetuous in fights.\n7. Like an army which is sent forward he shows his vehemence, like an archer's shaft with sharp point.\n8. He who is born is one twin; he who will be born 1 is the other twin\u2014the lover of maidens, the husband of wives 2.\n9 1. As cows go to their stalls, all that moves and we, for the sake of a dwelling, reach him who has been kindled.\n10. Like the flood of the Sindhu 1 he has driven forward the downwards-flowing (waters) 2. The cows lowed at the sight of the sun 3.\nThe same Rishi and metre.\nNote 1. Comp. I, 166, 2; 185, 2; X, 39, 14. The second passage (n\u00edtyam n\u00e1 s\u00fbn\u00fam pitr\u00f3h up\u00e1sthe dy\u00e2\u00b4v\u00e2 r\u00e1kshatam prithiv\u00ee nah \u00e1bhv\u00e2t) would be sufficient to show that we cannot translate 'wie ein \u00fcberlebender sohn' (Ludwig).\nNote 1. We do not know what animal the takvan is. Comp. I, 134, 5 with M. M.\u2019s note.\nNote 2. See Bergaigne, M\u00e9l. Renier, 101; Gaedicke, 253.\nNote 1. Comp. X, 101, 7. pr\u00een\u00eet\u00e1 \u00e1sv\u00e2n hit\u00e1m gay\u00e2tha.\nNote 1. Comp. VII, 4, 3. dur\u00f3kam agn\u00edh \u00e2y\u00e1ve susoka.\nNote 2. Prof. Max M\u00fcller believes that kratu here means, 'like kartri, a sacrificer, so that kratuh na nityah sounds like s\u00fbnuh na nityah, one's own sacrificing son. But all this is very obscure.'\nNote 1. The second P\u00e2da is translated by Grassmann: 'wie Licht in H\u00e4usern;' by Ludwig: 'fast weiss, bei den menschenst\u00e4mmen.' I think that there can be no doubt that the words svet\u00e1h n\u00e1 contain a comparison like all the other comparisons of which these hymns are full; this comparison is unduly effaced in Ludwig's translation. Nor is Grassmann right in translating svet\u00e1h bei 'Licht;' the word is an adjective meaning 'white' and nothing else. We must supply here, as in many passages, a substantive, and I do not see any reason why this should not be that\nsubstantive with which sveta is most frequently combined in the Rig-veda, namely asva; comp. I, 116, 6; 118, 9 [119, 10]; VII, 77, 3; X, 39, 10. In V, 1, 4 it is said of Agni: svet\u00e1h v\u00e2g\u00ee\u00b4 g\u00e2yate \u00e1gre \u00e1hn\u00e2m, 'the white racer is born in the beginning of the days.'\nNote 1. The traditional text is yam\u00e1h ha g\u00e2t\u00e1h yam\u00e1h g\u00e1nitvam. Ludwig translates 'bew\u00e4ltiger des gebornen, bew\u00e4ltiger auch des, was erst geboren wird.' It will scarcely be necessary to state the reasons which make against this translation. Yam\u00e1h \u2026 yam\u00e1h evidently means: 'the one twin \u2026 the other twin.' Now if we leave the text unchanged, we cannot but translate: 'the one twin is he who has been born, the other twin is that which will be born'\u2014which sounds very strange. In I, 89, to we have \u00e1ditih g\u00e2t\u00e1m \u00e1ditih g\u00e1nitvam; IV, 18, 4. ant\u00e1h g\u00e2t\u00e9shu ut\u00e1 y\u00e9 g\u00e1nitv\u00e2h; X, 45, 10. \u00fat g\u00e2t\u00e9na bhin\u00e1dat \u00fat g\u00e1nitvaih. In all these cases g\u00e2t\u00e1 and g\u00e1nitva stand parallel; there is no such difference as in our passage, according to the traditional text, between him (masc.) who is \u2026 and that (neuter) which will be \u2026 Thus I propose to read g\u00e1nitvah, of which conjecture Ludwig has thought also (see his note, IV, 259): that present Agni who has been born, and that future Agni who will be born, are twins.\u2014Prof. Max M\u00fcller has discussed this passage in his Science of Language, II, 630 seqq. He interprets the twin who has been born as Agni representing the morning; the twin who will be born as the evening.\nNote 2. The maidens very probably are the dawns (comp. Prof. Max M\u00fcller's discussion quoted in the last note). Are the wives the sacrificial ladles which approach Agni, or the offerings of ghee, or the prayers? See Bergaigne, Rel. V\u00e9dique, II, 9 seqq.\nNote 1. This verse is very obscure, and I am quite aware of the merely tentative character of the translation which\n[paragraph continues] I propose. I leave vah untranslated (comp. Delbr\u00fcck, Altindische Syntax, 206), which must be done in most of the numerous verses beginning with the words t\u00e1m vah. I then read karath\u00e2 (comp. 68, 1; 70, 3. 7). Vasaty\u00e2\u00b4 seems to be either a dative similar to the newly-discovered datives in -\u00e2 of a-stems, or we possibly should read vasatya\u00ed (vasaty\u00e2\u00b4 in the Samhit\u00e2-p\u00e2tha).\u2014Prof. Max M\u00fcller thinks of a correction kar\u00e2mah and would translate: 'To him (whom you know\u2014vah) when lighted we go for our dwelling, as the cows reach their home.'\nNote 1. Comp. above, 65, 6.\nNote 2. Or the downwards-streaming libations of Ghrita and the like? Comp. below, I, 72, 10 with note 4.\nNote 3. Comp. below, 69, 10.","title":"Vedic Hymns, Part II (SBE46): I, 66","type":"page"}