Bring thou hither, O Agni, the gods, that you may sacrifice to-day to the divine host.

Or i. 139, I. a nú tát sárdhah divyám vrinîmahe.

We chose for us now that divine host.

As in these last, so in many other passages, sárdhas is used as a neuter in the accusative.

For instance,

i. 106, 1; ii. II, 14. marutam sárdhah.

ii. 3, 3; vi. 3, 8. sárdhah marútâm.

The vocative occurs,

v. 46, 2. ágne índra váruna mítra dévâh sárdhah prá yanta maruta utá vishno (íti).

Agni, Indra, Varuna, Mitra, gods, host of the Maruts, come forth, and Vishnu !

Yet

We see how throughout all these passages those in which sárdha and sárdhas are applied to the Maruts, or to some other company of gods, preponderate most decidedly. passages occur in the Rig-veda where both sárdha and sárdhas are applied to other hosts or companies. Thus v. 53, 10, sárdha refers to chariots, while in i. 133, 3, sárdhas is applied to evil spirits.

If the passages hitherto examined were all that occur in the Rig-veda, we might still feel startled at the construction of our verse, where sárdhas is not only followed by masculine adjectives in the singular, but, in the next verse, by a pronoun in the plural. But if we take the last irregularity first, we find the same construction, viz. sárdhas followed by yé, in iii. 32, 4:

índrasya sárdhah marútah yé asan.

The host of Indra, that was the Maruts.

As to the change of genders, we find adjectives in the masculine after sárdhas, in

v. 52, 8. sárdhah mấrutam út samsa satyá-savasam ríbh

vasam.

Celebrate the host of the Maruts, the truly vigorous, the brilliant.

Here, too, the poet afterwards continues in the plural, though as he uses the demonstrative, and not, as in our passage, the relative pronoun, we cannot quote this in support of the irregularity which has here to be explained. Anyhow the construction of our verse, though bold and

On the

unusual, is not so unusual as to force us to adopt conjectural remedies, and in v. 58, 2, we find yé after ganáh. Umbrian Çerfo Martio, as possibly the same as sárdha-s maruta-s, see Grassman, Kuhn's Zeitschrift, vol. xvi. p. 190.

Verse 2, note 1. The spotted deer (príshatî) are the recognized animals of the Maruts, and were originally, as it would seem, intended for the rain-clouds. Sâyana is perfectly aware of the original meaning of príshatî, as clouds. The legendary school, he says, takes them for deer with white spots, the etymological school for the manycoloured lines of clouds: (Rv. Bh. i. 64, 8.) This passage shows that although príshatî, as Roth observes, may mean a spotted cow or a spotted horse, the Maruts, in fact, are called sometimes prishat-asvâh, having piebald horses, vii. 40, 3,—yet the later tradition in India had distinctly declared in favour of spotted deer. The Vedic poets, however, admitted both ideas, and they speak in the same hymn, nay, in the same verse, of the fallow deer and of the horses of the Maruts. Thus v. 58, I, the Maruts are called âsú-asvâh, possessed of quick horses; and in v. 58, 6, we read yát prá áyâsishta príshatîbhih ásvaih-ráthebhih, where the gender of príshatîbhih would hardly allow us to join it with ásvaih, but where we must translate: When you come with the deer, the horses, the chariots.

Verse 2, note 2. The spears and daggers of the Maruts are meant for the thunderbolts, and the glittering ornaments for the lightning. Sâyana takes vasî in this passage for war-cries on the authority of the Nirukta, where vasî is given among the names of the voice. From other passages, however, it becomes clear that vasî is a weapon of the Maruts; and Sâyana, too, explains it sometimes in that sense: cf. v. 53, 4; 57, 2. Thus i. 88, 3, the vasîs are spoken of as being on the bodies of the Maruts. In V. 53, 4, the Maruts are said to shine in their ornaments and their vâsîs. Here Sâyana, too, translates vấsî rightly by weapon; and in his remarks on i. 88, 3, he says that vasî was a weapon commonly called ârâ, which is a shoemaker's awl. This reminds one of framea which at one time

Bring thou hither, O Agni, the gods, that you may sacrifice to-day to the divine host.

Or i. 139, 1. a nú tát sárdhah divyám vrinîmahe.

We chose for us now that divine host.

As in these last, so in many other passages, sárdhas is used as a neuter in the accusative.

For instance,

i. 106, 1; ii. 11, 14. marutam sárdhah.

ii. 3, 3; vi. 3, 8. sárdhah marútâm.

The vocative occurs,

v. 46, 2. ágne índra váruna mítra dévâh sárdhah prá yanta maruta utá vishno (íti).

Agni, Indra, Varuna, Mitra, gods, host of the Maruts, come forth, and Vishnu !

We see how throughout all these passages those in which sárdha and sárdhas are applied to the Maruts, or to some other company of gods, preponderate most decidedly. Yet passages occur in the Rig-veda where both sárdha and sárdhas are applied to other hosts or companies. Thus v. 53, 10, sárdha refers to chariots, while in i. 133, 3, sárdhas is applied to evil spirits.

If the passages hitherto examined were all that occur in the Rig-veda, we might still feel startled at the construction of our verse, where sárdhas is not only followed by masculine adjectives in the singular, but, in the next verse, by a pronoun in the plural. But if we take the last irregularity first, we find the same construction, viz. sárdhas followed by yé, in iii. 32, 4:

índrasya sárdhah marútah yé asan.

The host of Indra, that was the Maruts.

As to the change of genders, we find adjectives in the masculine after sárdhas, in

v. 52, 8. sárdhah mấrutam út samsa satyá-savasam ríbh

vasam.

Celebrate the host of the Maruts, the truly vigorous, the brilliant.

Here, too, the poet afterwards continues in the plural, though as he uses the demonstrative, and not, as in our passage, the relative pronoun, we cannot quote this in support of the irregularity which has here to be explained. Anyhow the construction of our verse, though bold and

unusual, is not so unusual as to force us to adopt conjectural remedies, and in v. 58, 2, we find yé after ganáh. On the Umbrian Çerfo Martio, as possibly the same as sárdha-s maruta-s, see Grassman, Kuhn's Zeitschrift, vol. xvi. p. 190.

Verse 2, note. The spotted deer (príshatî) are the recognized animals of the Maruts, and were originally, as it would seem, intended for the rain-clouds. Sâyana is perfectly aware of the original meaning of príshatî, as clouds. The legendary school, he says, takes them for deer with white spots, the etymological school for the manycoloured lines of clouds: (Rv. Bh. i. 64, 8.) This passage shows that although príshatî, as Roth observes, may mean a spotted cow or a spotted horse, the Maruts, in fact, are called sometimes prishat-asvâh, having piebald horses, vii. 40, 3,—yet the later tradition in India had distinctly declared in favour of spotted deer. The Vedic poets, however, admitted both ideas, and they speak in the same hymn, nay, in the same verse, of the fallow deer and of the horses of the Maruts. Thus v. 58, 1, the Maruts are called âsú-asvâh, possessed of quick horses; and in v. 58, 6, we read yát prá áyâsishta príshatîbhih ásvaih—ráthebhih, where the gender of príshatîbhih would hardly allow us to join it with ásvaih, but where we must translate: When you come with the deer, the horses, the chariots.

Verse 2, note 2. The spears and daggers of the Maruts are meant for the thunderbolts, and the glittering ornaments for the lightning. Sâyana takes vasî in this passage for war-cries on the authority of the Nirukta, where vấsî is given among the names of the voice. From other passages, however, it becomes clear that vâsî is a weapon of the Maruts; and Sâyana, too, explains it sometimes in that sense: cf. v. 53, 4; 57, 2. Thus i. 88, 3, the vasîs are spoken of as being on the bodies of the Maruts. V. 53, 4, the Maruts are said to shine in their ornaments and their vasîs. Here Sâyana, too, translates vasî rightly by weapon; and in his remarks on i. 88, 3, he says that vasî was a weapon commonly called ârâ, which is a shoemaker's awl. This reminds one of framea which at one time

In

was supposed to be connected with the German pfrieme. See, however, Grimm (Deutsche Grammatik, vol. i. p. 128) and Leo Meyer (Kuhn's Zeitschrift, vol. vi. p. 424). In viii. 29, 3, the god Tvashtar is said to carry an iron vấsî in his hand. Grassman (Kuhn's Zeitschrift, vol. xvi. p. 163) translates vasî by axe. That angí is to be taken in the sense of ornament, and not in the sense of ointment, is shown by passages like viii. 29, 1, where a golden ornament is mentioned, añgí aǹkte hiranyáyam. Sâkám, together, is used with reference to the birth of the Maruts, i. 64, 4. It should not be connected with vasîbhih.

Verse 3, note1. Eshâm should be pronounced as a creticus; also in verses 9, 13, 15. This is a very common vyûha.

Verse 3, note. I should have taken kitrám as an adverb, like Benfey, if ni ring were not usually construed with an accusative. Ring in the 3rd pers. plur. pres. Âtm. is

treated like a verb of the Ad-class.

Verse 3, note 3. The locative yaman is frequently used of the path on which the gods move and approach the sacrifice; hence it sometimes means, as in our passage, in the sky. Yamam in B. R., s. v. arg, is wrong.

Verse 4, note1. Benfey translates ghríshvi by burrowing, and refers it to the thunderbolt that uproots the earth. He points out that ghríshvi means also, for the same reason, the boar, as proved by Kuhn (Die Herabkunft des Feuers, S. 202). I prefer, however, the general sense assigned to the adjective ghríshu and ghríshvi, exuberant, brisk, wild. See Kuhn in Kuhn's Zeitschrift, vol. xi. p. 385. Wilson, after Sâyana, translates destroyers of foes. On the representation of the clouds as boars, see Nir. v. 4.

Verse 4, note 2. Tveshá-dyumna is difficult to render. Both tveshá and dyumná are derived from roots that mean to shine, to be bright, to glow. Derivatives from tvish express the idea of fieriness, fierceness, and fury. In iv. 17, 2, tvish is used correlatively with manyú, wrath.