Varga VI.

3. INDRA and SOMA, chastise the malignant (Rákshasas), having plunged them in surrounding and inextricable* darkness, so that not one of them may again issue from it: so may your wrathful might be triumphant over them.

4. INDRA and SOMA, display from heaven your fatal (weapon), the extirpator from earth of the malignant (Rakshasas): put forth from the clouds the consuming (thunderbolt), wherewith you slay the increasing Rakshas race.

5. INDRA and SOMA, Scatter around (your weapons) from the sky, pierce their sides with fiery scorching † adamantine (weapons), so that they may depart without a sound.

6. May this praise invest you, INDRA and SOMA, who are mighty, on every side, as a girth (encompasses) a horse,—that praise which I offer to you both with pure devotion: do you, like two kings, accept this my homage.

7. Come with rapid steeds, slay the oppressive mischievous Rakshasas: let there be no happiness, INDRA and SOMA, to the malignant, who harasses us with his oppression.

8. May he who with false calumnies maligns me behaving with a pure heart, may such a speaker of

* Perhaps rather bottomless, álambana-rahita. Compare Milton's description of Satan falling in chaos.

+ The text, after "scorching," adds another epithet, ajarebhiḥ, ageless, undecaying.

falsehood, INDRA, cease to be, like water held in the hand.

9. May Soma give to the serpent, or toss upon the lap of NIRRITI, those who with designing (accusations) persecute me, a speaker of sincerity, and those who by spiteful (calumnies) vilify all that is good in me.*

10. May he, AGNI, who strives to destroy the essence of our food, of our horses, of our cattle, of our bodies—the adversary, the thief, the robber-go to destruction, and be deprived both of person and of progeny.

11. May he be deprived of bodily (existence) and Varga VII. of posterity; may he be cast down below all the three worlds; may his reputation, Gods, be blighted who seeks our destruction by day or by night.

12. To the understanding man1 there is perfect discrimination, the words of truth and falsehood are

1 The preceding verses are considered to be a malediction upon the Rakshasas by the Rishi. To account for the change of tone, Sáyana gives an unusual version of the legend told in the Mahábhárata of king Kalmáshapáda being transformed to a Rákshasa, and devouring the 100 sons of Vasishtha: here it is said that a Rákshasa, having devoured the Rishi's sons, assumed his shape, and said to him, "I am Vasishtḥa, thou art the Rákshasa;" to which Vasishtha replied by repeating this verse, declaratory of his discriminating between truth and falsehood.

* Rather, "those who with violence vilify me, acting uprightly."

+ Literally, "may he exist after his body and progeny," i.e. continue severed from them.

Varga VIII,

mutually at variance ;* of these two, SOMA verily cherishes that which is true and right: he destroys the false.

13. SOMA instigates not the wicked; he instigates not the strong man dealing in falsehood: he destroys the Rakshasa, he destroys the speaker of untruth; and both remain in the bondage of INDRA.

14. If I am one following false gods, if I approach the gods in vain, then AGNI (punish me). If (we be not such, then) why, JÁTAVEDAS, art thou angry with us? let the utterers of falsehood incur thy chastise

ment.

15. May I this day die if I am a spirit of ill, or if I have ever injured the life of any man: mayest thou be deprived (Rákshasa) of thy ten sons, who hast falsely called me by such an appellation.

16. May INDRA slay with his mighty weapon him who calls me the Yatudhána, which I am not,-the Rakshasa, who says (of himself,) I am pure: may he, the vilest of all beings, perish.

17. May the cruel female fiend who, throwing off the concealment of her person, wanders about at night like an owl, fall headlong down into the unbounded caverns: may the stones that grind the Soma destroy the Rakshasas by their noise.

*Literally, "to the understanding man truth and falsehood are easily discriminated, their words are mutually at variance."

18. Stay, MARUTS, amongst the people, desirous* (of protecting them); seize the Rákshasas, grind them to pieces: whether they fly about like birds by night, or whether they have offered obstruction to the sacred sacrifice.

19. Hurl, INDRA, thy thunderbolt from heaven; sanctify, MAGHAVAN, (the worshipper) sharpened by the Soma beverage: slay with the thunderbolt the Rakshasas, on the east, on the west, on the south, on the north.

20. They advance, accompanied by dogs: desirous to destroy him, they assail the indomitable INDRA: SAKRA whets his thunderbolt for the miscreants; quickly let him hurl the bolt upon the fiends.

21. INDRA has ever been the discomfiter of the Varga IX. evil spirits coming to obstruct (the rites of) the offerers of oblations: SAKRA advances, crushing the present Rakshasas, as a hatchet cuts down (the trees of) a forest, as (a mallet smashes) the earthen vessels.

22. Destroy the evil spirit, whether in the form of an owl, or of an owlet, of a dog, or of a duck,† of a hawk, or of a vulture; slay the Rakshasas, INDRA, (with the thunderbolt) as with a stone.

23. Let not the Rakshasas do us harm: let the dawn drive away the pairs of evil spirits, exclaiming, "What now is this?" May the earth protect us from

1 Kimídiná. See note, p. 205.

* Rather, "be pleased (to destroy the Rákshasas).”
+ Literally, "a ruddy goose," chakraváka.

terrestrial, the firmament protect us from celestial wickedness.

24. Slay, INDRA, the Yátudhána,* whether in the form of a man, or of a woman doing mischief by her deceptions: may those who sport in murder perish decapitated; let them not behold the rising sun.

25. SOMA, do thou and INDRA severally watch (the Rakshasas), be wary, be vigilant; hurl the thunderbolt at the malignant Rakshasas.

MANDALA VIII.

ANUVÁKA I.

ASHTAKA V. CONTINUED.

ADHYAYA VII. CONTINUED.

SÚKTA I. (I.)

The deity is INDRA, except in the thirtieth and three following verses, in which the donation of ÁSANGA Rája is the devatá, and the last, where it is the Rája.

The Rishis are two, MEDHÁTITHI and MEDHYÁTITHI, of the

race of KANWA, with some exceptions; thus, of the two first verses the Rishi is GHAURA, the son of GHORA, who became the son of his own brother KANWA, and was called KANWA PRAGÁTHA. The Rishi of the thirtieth and three following stanzas is ÁSANGA, the son of PLAYOGA, who, having been changed to a woman by the imprecation of the gods, recovered his manhood by repentance and the favour of MEDHÁTITHI

*I.e. Rákshasa.