V, 54. To the Maruts (the Storm-gods)

Vedic Hymns, Part I (SBE32), by Max Müller, [1891], at sacred-texts.com

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MANDALA V, HYMN 54.

ASHTAKA IV, ADHYÂYA 3, VARGA 14-16.

To the Maruts (the Storm-gods).

1. You have fashioned 1 this speech for the brilliant Marut-host which shakes the mountains: celebrate then the great manhood in honour of that host who praises the warm milk (of the sacrifice), and sacrifices on the height of heaven 2, whose glory is brilliant.

2. O Maruts, your powerful men (came) forth searching for water, invigorating, harnessing their horses, swarming around. When they aim with the lightning, Trita shouts, and the waters murmur, running around on their course.

3. These Maruts are men brilliant with lightning, they shoot with thunderbolts, they blaze with the wind, they shake the mountains, and suddenly, when wishing to give water 1, they whirl the hail; they have thundering strength, they are robust, they are ever-powerful.

4. When you drive forth 1 the nights, O Rudras, the days, O powerful men, the sky, the mists, ye shakers, the plains, like ships, and the strongholds, O Maruts, you suffer nowhere.

5. That strength of yours, O Maruts, that greatness extended far as the sun extends its daily course, when you, like your deer on their march, went down to the (western) mountain with untouched splendour 1

6. Your host, O Maruts, shone forth when, O sages, you strip, like a caterpillar, the waving tree 1

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[paragraph continues] Conduct then, O friends, our service 2 to a good end, as the eye conducts the man in walking.

7. That man, O Maruts, is not overpowered, he is not killed, he does not fail, he does not shake, he does not drop, his goods do not perish, nor his protections, if you lead him rightly, whether he be a seer or a king.

8. The men with their steeds, like conquerors of clans, like Aryaman (Mitra and Varuna) 1, the Maruts, carrying waterskins 2, fill the well; when the strong ones roar, they moisten the earth with the juice of sweetness 3.

9. When the Maruts come forth this earth bows, the heaven bows, the paths in the sky bow, and the cloud-mountains with their quickening rain.

10. When you rejoice at sunrise, O Maruts, toiling together 1, men of Svar (sun-light), men of Dyu (heaven), your horses never tire in running, and you quickly reach the end of your journey.

11. On your shoulders are the spears, on your feet rings, on your chests golden chains, O Maruts, on your chariot gems; fiery lightnings in your fists, and golden headbands tied round your heads 1.

12. O Maruts, you shake the red apple 1 from the firmament, whose splendour no enemy 2 can touch; the hamlets bowed when the Maruts blazed, and the pious people (the Maruts) intoned their far-reaching shout.

13. O wise Maruts, let us carry off 1 the wealth of food which you have bestowed on us; give us 2, O Maruts, such thousandfold wealth as never fails 3, like the star Tishya 4 from heaven!

14. O Maruts, you protect our wealth of excellent men, and the seer, clever in song; you give to

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[paragraph continues] Bharata (the warrior) 1 a strong horse 2, you make the king to be obeyed 3.

15. O you who are quickly ready to help, I implore you for wealth whereby we may overshadow all men, like the sky. O Maruts, be pleased with this word of mine, and let us speed by its speed over a hundred winters!

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NOTES.

The same poet, Syâvâsva Âtreya. Metre, 1-13, 15 Gagatî; 14 Trishtubh. None of the verses of this hymn occurs in SV., VS., AV., TS., TB., MS.

Verse 1.

Note 1. Anaga, explained as a 2nd pers. plur. perf., referring to the same people who are addressed by arkata. It may be also the first person of the imperative; see Benfey, Über die Entstehung der mit r anlautenden Personalendungen, p. 5, note.

Note 2. Possibly the second line of this verse may refer to ceremonial technicalities. Gharma means heat and summer, but also the sacrificial vessel (formus) in which the milk is heated, and the warm milk itself. Yagvan can only mean sacrificing, and divah prishtha is the back of heaven, the highest roof of heaven; see triprishtha. Thus we read, I, 115, 3. harítah … diváh â´ prishthám asthuh. See also I, 164, 10; 166, 5; III, 2, 12; IX, 36, 6; 66, 5; 69, 5; 83, 2; 86, 27. It would seem therefore as if the Maruts themselves were here represented as performing sacrificial acts in the highest heaven, praising the milk, that is, the rain, which they pour down from heaven to earth. Possibly the text is corrupt. If yagyu could have the same meaning as prayagyu, I should like to conjecture, diváh â´ prishthám yágyave. In IX, 61, 12. índrâya yágyave seems to mean 'to the chasing Indra.' See also âyagi (erjagend), obtaining. Might we conjecture divá â´ prikshayâ´vane? Prikshayâma occurs as a name; see also II, 34, 3.

Verse 3.

Note 1. Abdâ, wish to give water, is very doubtful. Both abda and abdi, in abdimat, mean cloud. The text seems corrupt.

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Verse 4.

Note 1. The meaning of vyag is doubtful. It may simply mean to make visible.

Verse 5.

Note 1. The last words ánasvadâm yát ní áyâtana girím are difficult, Sâyana has an explanation ready, viz. when you throw down the cloud or the mountain which gives no water or which 'does not give up the horses carried off by the Panis. Grassmann too is ready with an explanation: 'Als ihr unnahbar glänzend, Hirschen gleich, den Berg auf eurer Fahrt durchranntet, den kein Ross erreicht.' Ludwig: 'Als ihr nider gehn machtet den nicht vergängliches gebenden (d. i. die waszer; oder: die rosse verweigernden?) berg.'

Giri may be the cloud, and nothing could be more appropriate than that the Maruts should come down upon the cloud or go over it, in order to make it give up the rain. But asvadâ means 'giving horses,' and though rain-clouds may be compared to horses, it does not follow that asva by itself could mean rain. Asvadâ is used of the dawn, I, 113, 18, possibly as giving horses, that is, wealth, but possibly also, as bringing the horses to the morning sun. These horses start with the dawn or the sun in the morning, and they rest in the evening. The legend that Agni hid himself in an Asvattha tree (Sâyana, RV. I, 65, 1) may owe its origin to asvattha, i. e. horse-stable, having been a name of the West (K. Z. I, 467); cf. tishthadgu, at sunset. In X, 8, 3, the Dawns are called ásvabudhnâh, which may mean that they had their resting-place among the horses. The Maruts, more particularly, are said to dwell in the Asvattha tree, when Indra called them to his help against Vritra; cf. Sat. Brâhm. IV, 3, 3, 6; Pâr. Grihy. II, 15, 4. Possibly therefore, though I say no more, possibly the Dawn or the East might have been called asvadâ, the West anasvadâ, and in that case it might be said that the Maruts are of unsullied splendour, when they

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go down to the western mountain. M. Bergaigne explains, 'La montagne qui ne donne pas, qui retient le cheval, le cheval mythique, soleil ou éclair.' My own impression, however, is that anasvadâm is an old mistake, though I cannot accept Ludwig's conjecture a-nasva-dâm. Why not ánu svadhâ´m, or anasva-yâh, moving without horses? cf. V, 42, 10.

Verse 6.

Note 1. This is, no doubt, a bold simile, but a very true one. In one night caterpillars will eat off the whole foliage of a tree, and in the same way a violent storm in the autumn will strip every leaf. Arnasám as an adjective, with the accent on the last syllable, does not occur again, but it can hardly mean anything but waving. If it will stand for the sea, we might translate, 'When you clear the waving sea (or air), as the caterpillar a tree.'

Note 2. Arámati seems here to mean service or obedience, not a person who is willing to serve.

Verse 8.

Note 1. To translate aryamánah by friends is unsatisfactory. Bergaigne takes it for Aryaman, Mitra, and Varuna, the three Aryamans, as we say the two Mitras, and points out that these three gods do send rain, in I, 79, 3; VII, 40, 4.

Note 2. It ought to be kavandhínah as much as kávandha, V, 85, 3.

Note 3. Mádhvah ándhasâ; Grassmann, 'mit des Honigs Seim.'

Verse 10.

Note 1. Sabharas is evidently a recognised epithet of the Maruts, see VS. XVII, 81 and 84, but its meaning is doubtful. We have visvábharasam, IV, I, 19, as an epithet of Agni, which does not help us much. If bharas means burden, sabharas may mean those who work together, companions, friends.

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Verse 11.

Note 1. See Muir, S. T. V, p. 149. On síprâh &c., see II, 34, 3, note.

Verse 12.

Note 1. The red apple to be shaken from the firmament can only be the lightning. Vi-dhû is construed with two accusatives, as in III, 45, 4; V, 57, 3. Gaedicke, Accusativ, p. 266.

Note 2. Aryáh cannot be a vocative, on account of the accent, nor a nominative on account of the context. There remains nothing but to take it as a genitive, and connect it with agribhîta, though such a construction has few parallels, except perhaps in such sentences as hávyah karshanînâ´m, VI, 22, 1, &c. Possibly it may be intended as an epithet of the Maruts. Bergaigne (Journ. As. 1884, p. 190), 'au profit du pauvre.' Geldner (Ved. Stud. I, p. 148) proposes a very bold translation: 'The sacrificial nets are being contracted, when the Maruts rush on. The priests (ritâyu) roar their (as catching-net) extended shouting.' The sense is said to be that when the Maruts appear, all priests try to catch them by shouting. See, however, Oldenberg in Gött. Gel. Anzeigen, 1890, p. 414.

Verse 13.

Note 1. For rathyãh, see II, 24, 1, 5. râyáh syâma rathyãh vayasvatah; VI, 48, 9.

Note 2. Râranta, 2nd pers. plur. imp. intens., but Pada has raranta. Why not rarâta?

Note 3. Yukkhati has been compared by Kuhn (K. Z. III, 328) with δύσκει; but see Brugmann, Grundriss, I, pp. 110, 118.

Note 4. Tishya must be the name of a star, hardly, as Sâyana suggests, of the sun. It ought to be a star which does not set. See Weber, Über alte iranische Sternnamen, p. 14. Ludwig quotes from TS. II, 2, 10, 1 seq., an identification of Tishya with Rudra.

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Verse 14.

Note 1. Grassmann marks this verse as late, Ludwig defends it. We must know what is meant by late before we decide. Bharata may mean simply a warrior, or a Bharata; see Ludwig, III, 175-176; Oldenberg, Buddha (1st edition), p. 413.

Note 2. Árvantam vâ´gam, a horse, his strength. See Bergaigne, Rel. Véd. II, 405; Pischel, Ved. Stud. p. 46.

Note 3. Could srushtimat here mean obedient?