{"collection":"Hinduism","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/hin/sbe46/sbe46082.htm","path":"hin/sbe46/sbe46082.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/hin/sbe46/sbe46082.htm","text":"Vedic Hymns, Part II (SBE46), by Hermann Oldenberg [1897]\n1. This is that Agni with whom the desiring Indra took the pressed Soma into his body. Having obtained thousandfold strength like a horse, a racer 1, thou art praised, O G\u00e2tavedas!\n2 1. Thy splendour, O Agni, which dwells in heaven and on earth, in the plants, O worshipful one, and in the waters, wherewith thou hast spread through the wide air\u2014that light of thine is fierce, waving 2, man-beholding.\n3. Agni, thou goest to the floods of heaven. Thou hast spoken to the gods who are liberal (?) 1. (Thou goest) to the waters which (dwell) on high in the ether of the sun, and to those which approach below.\n4. May the fires of the soil united with those on the hill-sides 1, without guile graciously accept our sacrifice and plentiful food free from all plague.\n5 = III, 1, 23.\nThe same Rishi. The metre is Trishtubh, except in verse 4 which is Anushtubh.\u2014A conjecture on the ritual use for which the hymn has been composed, see in the note on verse 4.\u2014Verses 1\u20135 = VS. XII, 47\u201351; TS. IV, 2, 4, 2. 3; MS. II, 7, 11.\u2014A sort of commentary on this hymn is found in the Satapatha Br\u00e2hmana VII, 1, 1, 22 seq.\nNote 1. In the traditional text the words, 'a horse, a racer,' are accusatives. But it is the \u00e1tya who attains\n[paragraph continues] (san) the v\u00e2\u00b4ga and who is called v\u00e2g\u00edn (comp. M. M., vol. xxxii, pp. 116, 442, and on s\u00e1pti, ibid. p. 102): see I, 130, 6; III, 2, 7; 38, 1 (V, 30, 14; IX, 93, 1; 96, 15, &c.); VII, 24, 5; IX, 43, 5; 82, 2; 85, 5; 86, 3; 96, 20; X, 96, 10 (I, 52, 1, and III, 2, 3 do not contradict this). Pischel (Vedische Studien, I, 105) believes that \u00e1tyam n\u00e1 stands for \u00e1tyah n\u00e1, which seems impossible to me. But I think that we should correct the text and read \u00e1tyah n\u00e1 s\u00e1ptih. The preceding accusatives have caused the blunder.\nNote 1. Comp. Grassmann, Kuhn's Zeitschrift, XVI, 165.\nNote 2. Comp. ket\u00fah arnav\u00e1h s\u00fb\u00b4ryasya, VII, 63, 2.\nNote 1. In the translation of dh\u00edshnya I have followed Pischel, Vedische Studien, II, 87, though this translation is quite uncertain. Should the meaning be: 'the gods who dwell on the dhishnya altars'?\nNote 1. Agni pur\u00eeshya, i. e. the fire dwelling in the soil (comp. Roth in Kuhn's Zeitschrift, XXVI, 64), is mentioned very frequently in the Mantras belonging to the Agnikayana, i. e. to the construction of the brick altar. Agni is considered as residing in the soil used at that rite. Now in the Yagus texts the whole of our hymn occurs among the texts to be recited at the Agnikayana (Taitt. Samh. IV, 2, 4, 2, &c.; comp. also \u00c2sval\u00e2yana Srautas\u00fbtra IV, 8, 20). Perhaps we may conjecture, therefore, that the Agnikayana rite in its simplest form was known already in the Rig-veda period, and that our hymn was destined for it.\u2014The pr\u00e2vana fires (fires dwelling on the hill-sides) may be the fires dwelling in the rivers which run down the pravanas or descents.","title":"Vedic Hymns, Part II (SBE46): III, 22","type":"page"}