ALL the hymns of the Rig Veda are ritual hymns in some sense, since all were sung as part
of the Vedic ceremony, but some are self-consciously devoted to the meaning of the
ritual.1 Even here, pride of place is given to the verbal rather than to the physical aspect
of the sacrifice, the origins of sacred speech (10.71) and the powers of sacred speech
(10.125). The personal concerns of the priests also inspire considerable interest in the
authors of the hymns (priests themselves): the priest whose patron is the king (10.173)
laments the loss of his royal friend (10.33) and praises faith and generosity (10.151 and
(10.117), while other priests, more securely employed, express their happiness in a hymn
that is lively to the point of bawdiness (10.101; cf. 7.103 and 9.112). The meaning of the
sacrifice is explored in a hymn that unites all of these themes and expresses them in the
form of a series of riddles about the meaning of life (1.164).
This hymn speaks of the origins of the sacred word, speech or language (goddess), and of its ritual recreation through the verbal contests of the Vedic sacrifice.
The social nature of speech is emphasized, the birth of speech in friendship and its use by
all of the assembly (v. 10) and by the four priests with their individual functions (v. 11).
The enemy of true speech is represented as the rival of the author of this hymn (vv. 4-6,
9).
A paean of self-praise to and by Speech, in a more personified form than in 10.71 but
implicit in various forms of speech: sacri cial (vv. 2-3, 5), agonistic (v. 6), and cosmic (v.
the latter enabling Speech to become identified with the creator (v. 7) and the absolute
godhead, encompassing all gods (vv. 1, 8). Speech is never mentioned by name in the
hymn, never actually spoken herself.
1 I move with the Rudras, with the Vasus, with the Adityas and all the gods. I carry both
Mitra and Varuna, both Indra and Agni, and both of the Asvins.
2 I carry the swelling Soma, and Tvastr, and Pusan and Bhaga. I bestow wealth on the
pious sacrificer who presses the Soma and offers the oblation.
3 I am the queen, the confluence of riches, the skilful one who is first among those
worthy of sacrifice. The gods divided me up into various parts, for I dwell in many
places and enter into many forms.
4 The one who eats food, who truly sees, who breathes, who hears what is said, does so
through me. Though they do not realize it, they dwell in me. Listen, you whom they
have heard1: what I tell you should be heeded.
5 I am the one who says, by myself, what gives joy to gods and men. Whom I love I make
awesome; I make him a sage, a wise man, a Brahmin.
6. I stretch the bow for Rudra so that his arrow will strike down the hater of prayer. I
incite the contest2 among the people. I have pervaded sky and earth.
7. I gave birth to the father on the head of this world. My womb is in the waters, within
the ocean. From there I spread out over all creatures and touch the very sky with the
crown of my head.
8. I am the one who blows like the wind, embracing all creatures. Beyond the sky,
beyond this earth, so much have I become in my greatness.
NOTES
1. Literally, one who is heard or who is famous; a triple pun on the root ‘hear’ in ‘listen’,
‘they have heard’, and ‘heeded’. Cf. the Greek kluein, akluein.
2. Perhaps a verbal contest rather than an actual battle, though the first part of the
verse makes the second meaning possible also.
10.173 Royal Consecration
This hymn establishes the king upon his throne and makes his future reign secure, playing
upon the word dhruvam (‘firm’ or ‘steadfast’), which recurs like the refrain in a magic
spell. The hymn, part of an elaborate royal consecration ritual (rajasuya), would be
accompanied by an oblation of Soma and perhaps by certain magic rituals. The same
verses in the Atharva Veda are used as an imprecation against earthquakes.
1 I have brought you here; remain among us. Stay stead fast and unwavering. Let all the
people want you, and let the kingship never fall away from you.
2 Stay right here – do not slip away, but stay unwavering, like a mountain. Stand
steadfast here, like Indra, and here uphold the kingdom.
3 Indra has supported him firmly with a firm oblation. Let Soma – and Brahmanaspati
also – speak up for him.
4 Firm is the sky and firm the earth, and firm are these mountains. Firm is all this world,
and firm is this king of all the people.
5 Steadfast let King Varuna, steadfast the god Brihaspati, steadfast let Indra and Agni
maintain your steadfast kingship.
6 With a firm oblation we touch the firm Soma. Thus let Indra make all the people who
bring tribute yours alone.
10.33 Lament of the Aged Priest
A bard has lost his patron, King Kurusravana, whose son, Upamasravas, has succeeded to
the throne and no longer employs the old man. The bard invokes Indra (the quintessential
generous patron), tries to arouse the young king’s pity, and even employs veiled threats to
avenge the (perhaps untimely?) death of the old king (vv. I, 8). Finally, he is resigned to
his fate (v. 9).
1 The harnessers of the people1 have harnessed me; I carry Pusan along the way2. All the
gods protected me. Then a cry arose: ‘An evil taskmaster is coming!’
2 My ribs encircle me with pain like rival wives; poverty, nakedness, weakness bind me.
My mind utters here and there like a bird.
3 As rats gnaw at their tails, cares gnaw at me, your singer of praises, O lord of a hundred
powers3. Have mercy on us once more, generous Indra, and be like a father to us.
4 As a sage I chose as my king Kurusravana the descendant of Trasadasyu, most generous
to those who offer prayer,
5 whose three bays carry me in this chariot toward better times4. I will praise him who
gave a thousand cows to the priests5,
6. Upamasravas’s father, whose words were sweet as a field is a delight to the one who
lives on it.
7 Upamasravas, his son, and grandson of Miträtithi6 – remember I am the one who sang
the praises of your father.
8 If I had power over the immortals or over mortals, my generous patron would be alive.
9 No one lives beyond the decree of the gods, not even if he has a hundred souls7. So I
am parted from my companion.
NOTES
1. Perhaps the gods are meant, as they are said to have protected the singer.
2. The singer, who imagines himself as the horse harnessed to the king’s chariot, further
imagines Pusan, the charioteer of the gods, riding in it.
3. An epithet of Indra.
4. Now that the tables are turned (the old king being dead), the singer is himself in the
chariot, pulled by he king’s horses that are all he has left of his patronage.
5. Perhaps a subtle hint to Upamasravas to do the same.
6. Perhaps another name for Trasadasyu, the ancestor of Kurusravana. The name,
meaning ‘guest of a friend’, has significance for the poet.
7. Atman is the soul or the breath of life, as we might say that a cat has nine lives.
10.101 The Sacrificial Priests
This hymn is a kind of work-song for priests, likening their ritual work to the work of the
farmers in the field, as well as to other occupations (such as weaving, v. 2, and chariot
racing, v. 7) and pastimes (such as sexual play, vv. 11-12).
1 Wake up with one mind, my friends, and kindle the fire, you many who share the same
nest.1 I call Dadhikra and Agni and the goddess Dawn, all joined with Indra, to help
you.
2 Make your thoughts harmonious; stretch them on the loom; make a ship2 whose oars
will carry us across; make the weapons ready and set them in place3; drive the sacrifice
forward4, my friends.
3 Harness the plough and stretch the yoke on it; sow the seed in the prepared womb. And
if the hearing of our song is weighty enough5, then the ripe crop will come nearer to the
scythes.
4 The inspired poets who know how harness the plough and stretch the yokes on either
side to win favour among the gods.
5 Make the buckets ready and fasten the straps well. We want to draw water from the
fountain that is easy to draw water from, owing freely, inexhaustible6.
6 I draw water from the fountain whose buckets are in place, with good straps, easy to
draw water from, freely flowing and inexhaustible.
7 Keep the horses happy and you will win the stake. Make your chariot into the vehicle
of good fortune. Drink at the fountain that has Soma-vats for buckets, a pressing- stone
for its wheel, a consecrated goblet for its casing; this is the fountain where men drink.
8 Make an enclosure7, for this is a drink for men. Stitch the breast-plates thick and broad.
Make iron forts that cannot be breached; make your goblet strong so that nothing will
flow out.
9 I turn toward our cause here your sacrificial attention, gods, your divine thought that is
disposed toward sacrifice and worthy of sacrifice. Let the great cow 8 give us milk in
thousands of streams of milk, as if she were walking in a meadow.
10 Pour the tawny one9 into the lap of wood; carve it with knives made of stone.
Embrace it all around with ten girths; yoke the draught animal to the two shafts10.
11 The draught animal is pressed tight between the two shafts, like a man in bed with
two women. Stand the tree up in the wood; sink the well deep without digging11.
12 The penis, men, take the penis and move it and stick it in to win the prize12. Inspire
Indra, Nistigri’s son13, to come here to help us, to come eagerly to drink Soma.
NOTES
1. This term denotes companions in general, but here may literally indicate a group of
priests who live together. Cf. 10.5.2.
2. The ship that carries the worshipper ‘to the other shore’ is a common metaphor; here
there may be a pun between ship and shuttle (‘little ship’, in Sanskrit), from the first
part of the verse.
3. The weapons are the instruments of the ritual; here the priest’s work is likened to
that of a warrior, as in verse 8.
4. The sacrifice as a chariot, as in verse 7; cf. .1.164, 10.135, etc.
5. That is, if the patrons pay well enough for it, the sacrifice will yield a harvest as rich
as a grain harvest in which the plants bend to the scythe.
6. The fountain of inspiration and the well of Soma.
7. That is, a walled fortress or a cow-pen, to protect Soma the bull. A series of martial
metaphors follows in this verse.
8. The cow as a symbol of the inspiration implicit in the thought of the gods.
9. Soma, here imagined as a sacrificial animal. The knives of stone are the pressing
stones. Cf. 10.94.3.
10. The two shafts are the two hands that hold the Soma; the ten girths are the ten
fingers.
11. A triple entendre: the tree in the wood (forest) is the Soma plant in the wooden bowl
and the penis in the womb, the latter simile extended in the last quarter of the verse,
that further echoes the imagery of verses 3, 5, 6, and the final verse.
12 A sexual metaphor for Soma pressed in the mortar and pestle.
13. Indra is the son of Aditi, who may be called Nistigri (‘swal- lower of the rival wife’)
as she overcomes her rival, Diti. Cf. 10.145.
10.117 In Praise of Generosity
This hymn, which seems constructed at least in part out of aphorisms, exhorts the
worshipper to be generous, both to the gods (through sacrifice) and to the poet (through
patronage), as well as to mankind in general. There is also a self-serving level to the
advice: fortune is sickle, and the man to whom you give now may have given to you in the
past, and may do so again.
1 The gods surely did not ordain hunger alone for slaughter1; various deaths reach the
man who is well-fed. The riches of the man who gives fully do not run out,
but the miser finds no one with sympathy.
2 The man with food who hardens his heart against the poor man who comes to him
suffering and searching for nourishment – though in the past he had made use of him 2–
he surely finds no one with sympathy.
3 The man who is truly generous gives to the beggar who approaches him thin and in
search of food. He puts himself at the service of the man who calls to him from the
road, and makes him a friend for times to come.
4 That man is no friend who does not give of his own nourishment to his friend, the
companion at his side. Let the friend turn away from him; this is not his dwelling-place.
Let him find another man who gives freely, even if he be a stranger.
5 Let the stronger man give to the man whose need is greater; let him gaze upon the
lengthening path3. For riches roll like the wheels of a chariot, turning from one to
another.
6 The man without foresight gets food in vain; I speak the truth: it will be his death4. He
cultivates neither a patron nor a friend. The man who eats alone brings troubles upon
himself alone5.
7 The plough that works the soil makes a man well-fed; the legs that walk put the road
behind them. The priest who speaks is better than the one who does not speak. The
friend who gives freely surpasses the one who does not.
8 One-foot surpasses Two-foot; and Two-foot leaves Three-foot behind. Four-foot comes
at the call of Two-foot, watching over his herds and serving him6.
9 The two hands, though the same, do not do the same thing. Two cows from the same
mother do not give the same amount of milk. The powers of two twins are not the
same. Two kinsmen do not give with the same generosity.
NOTES
1. The meaning is that hunger does not always kill, and that there are other ways to die
; that though the poor are hungry, the rich man should not forget that he too will die,
and so he should share his food with the poor and with the gods.
2. The implication is that the man who is now poor was once powerful, and was
flattered and used by the man now rich; the next verse emphasizes the need to foresee
future reversals of this kind.
3. The path of life still to come, in which many upsets are possible.
4. A return to the theme of the first verse : by hoarding food one not only does not
avoid death, but brings upon oneself the loss of one’s future happiness.
5. By committing the sin of greed, he brings upon himself evils such as poverty and
hunger.
6. In the Greek riddle of the sphinx, man walks first on four feet (the crawling baby),
then on two feet (the mature man), and nally on three feet (the old man with a cane).
In this Indian variant of the riddle, One-foot is the sun (an enigmatic but widespread
Vedic theme), Two-foot the human, Three-foot the old man with a cane and Four-foot a
dog. In later tradition, the four Ages of man are characterized by the fact that Dharma
walks on four, three, two feet, and one foot, as time degenerates.
10.151 Faith
1 With faith the fire is kindled; with faith the oblation is offered up. With speech I testify
to faith upon the head of happiness.
2 Faith, make this that I have said dear to the man who gives, dear to the man who
wishes to give, dear, O faith, among lavish sacrificers.
3 As the gods established faith among the formidable Asuras,1 so establish what we have
said among lavish sacrificers.
4 The gods who sacrifice and are guarded by Vayu honour faith; with heartfelt intent
they honour faith. And with faith they find wealth.
5 We call to faith at morning, to faith near midday, to faith when the sun sinks down.
Faith, establish faith in us.2
NOTES
1. The Asuras are the enemies of the gods, the ancient gods, though perhaps not yet the
demons they are in later parts of the Vedas. For the way in which the gods establish
faith (in the gods) in the demons, see 10.124.
2. An almost certainly intended ambiguity: make us have faith, and make others (the
generous worshippers) have faith in us (in the priests).
1.164 The Riddle of the Sacrifice (Asya Vamasyd)
This long and complex hymn has inspired many elaborate, detailed glosses and still
remains largely obscure. The language, however, is not particularly difficult, and certain
major themes emerge with sufficient clarity to encourage the translator to present the
hymn in a relatively raw state of exegesis, rather than burden the reader with a critical
apparatus out of proportion to the poem itself. Those who seek enlightenment on the
many points left unglossed are encouraged to pursue the books and articles listed in the
bibliography.
One reason for the great scholarly attention paid to this hymn is that it is traditionally
regarded as a riddle – a tradition that waves a red flag before the eyes of Vedic .exegetes.
And there are solid grounds for this tradition, for many questions are asked outright in the
hymn, and others are hidden in a symbolism that seems deliberately labyrinthine. Yet it
seems that the poet thought he knew the answers to some of his questions and posed
others merely rhetorically, as questions no one would dream of trying to answer. The
reader is thus encouraged to solve those that can be solved and to leave the others
unanswered.
The hymn demonstrates a unity on two distinct but intersecting levels, explicit and
implicit. That is, certain tropes emerge repeatedly to express different ideas, and certain
ideas emerge repeatedly to be expressed by different tropes. For example, the hymn
mentions cows and birds in several verses; the cow may stand for the Dawn (who is not
explicitly named) or the goddess of Speech (who is), and the birds for the sun or the
mortal (both explicitly named), while the Dawn may also be represented in verses
ostensibly about a woman, and the sun in verses about a horse. I will here try to
summarize the recurrent tropes and ideas, and devote the notes to particular
idiosyncrasies of the individual verses.
A central theme on the explicit level is the poet’s uncertainty about his knowledge and
his joy in experiencing an enlightening vision (v. 37; cf. 6.9). Several verses are questions,
some never explicitly answered (vv. 4, 6, 17, 18, 48) and perhaps regarded as
unanswerable, an expression of the ine ability of the mystic vision; others are posed and
answered immediately, almost as a catechism (vv. 34-5). The poet speaks often of the
contrast between those who know and those who do not know the answers (4-7, 10, 16,
20-23, 39) or those who say one thing and those who say another (12, 16, 19, 38, 46);
elsewhere he merely expresses his scepticism or grateful acceptance of what ‘they say’
(15, 25). The hymn refers often to things that are hidden or secret (3, 5, 7, 14, 32, 37-8,
45).
Another aspect of the riddle content on the explicit level is the use of deliberate
circumlocutions, particularly in association with numbers. Many things come in threes:
brothers (1), naves of the wheel (2, 48), stages of the journey (9), mothers and fathers
(10), metres (23-5), kindling-sticks (25), longhaired ones (44), hidden parts of speech
(45). Closely related to these are the pairs of threes, or sixes : realms of space (6), spokes
of the wheel (12), sets of twins (15); and these in turn are doubled to produce twelves :
spokes of the wheel (11), shapes of the father (12), twins (15), fellies (48). By further
multiplication, we obtain 360 (48) and 720 as a doublet of 360 (11). Other things come in
fives – feet (12) and spokes (13) – or tens – horses (14). Seven is a great favourite: sons
(1), horses and horses’ names (2-3), wheels (3, 12), riders, sisters, and names of cows (3),
threads (5), half-embryos (36). A few other numbers occur once: eight, nine, and a
thousand (41). Four appears only once (as an addition to three, rather than a doublet of
two, in verse 45), a remarkably rare occurrence in a hymn about four-footed animals and
four-footed verses. Sometimes several different numbers are applied to the same things
(spokes being five or six or twelve, horses being seven or ten, and so forth). This should
warn us that it is not possible to make a direct connection between a number and what it
symbolizes, though a certain amount of speculation along these lines is possible, as we
will see when we consider implicit levels of symbolism in the hymn.
Most important of all the numbers are one and two. The One as the Absolute appears
several times (6, 10, 15, 46), and both it, explicitly, (46) and other things, implicitly, are
said to be many as well as one: the horse (2), the wheel (14, 48), and the foot of the cow
(41). Twos form basic oppositions on the explicit level. We have noted the contrast
between the wise and the foolish; another, related to this, is the contrast between the
mortal and the immortal (30, 38), supported by recurrent references to one or the other
side of the pair: that which is ageless or undying or unbreaking (2, 10-11, 13-15) and that
which ages and dies (29, 32). Further contrasts between that with bones and that without
bones (4), the near and far sides of the sky (12, 17), up and down (17, 43), two bowls
(33), male and female (16), and past and future (19) enrich the dialectic structure of the
hymn.
The most explicit and developed contrast is between the two birds (20-22), who occur
in other forms as well, as an individual bird (7, 46, 52) and a group of birds (21, 47).
Related to the birds, as we shall see, are horses (2, 3, 34, 35), which are in turn related to
the chariot (2-3, 9, 12-14, 31, 48); the ‘naves’ of the chariot pun on the ‘navel’ of the
universe (33-5, nabhi referring to both terms). By far the most important animal in the
hymn is the cow (7, 9, 17, 26-9, 40-44) with her calf (5, 7, 17, 27-8) and bull (43). The
cow is closely related to the images of human procreation: father (12, 18, 22), mother and
father (8, 10, 33) (referred to as earth and sky explicitly in 33 and implicitly in others
such as 51), mother and son (4, 9), father and son (16), brothers (1), sisters (3), and twins
(15, 36). Two Vedic myths lie behind several verses: the mother bears her son and then
abandons him (9, 17, 32) and the father incestuously procreates with his own daughter
(8).
A final explicit image is closely related to the problem of the inspired solution of the
riddle; this is the image of the sacrfice. The hymn begins with a priest (1) and poets who
are inspired priests (5, 6); it speaks of the priest’s cow (9). There are several references to
the goddess of sacred speech (10, 37, 45, 49), to hymns (23-5) and syllables (24, 39, 41-
2), ritual laws (43) and the Order which underlies them (11, 37, 47), and nally to the
sacrifice itself (15, 35, 50).
How do these interwoven images express meaning in the hymn? On one level, it is
clear that the hymn is about the things it is talking about – about riddles and numbers and
wisdom and immortality and birds and chariots and horses and cows and speech and the
sacrifice, all of which are described in vividly naturalistic detail. But they are also
described in terms that make no sense on a naturalistic level (what chariot could have a
single wheel, or five spokes at the same time as seven spokes?), and it appears that these
distortions arise through the identification of several of the images with abstract ideas,
particularly the chariot and birds identified with the sun or year or yearly sacrifice or
immortal soul, and the cow or the mother identified with Dawn or Speech. Qualities
appropriate to these ‘signified’ concepts are then redirected back upon the ‘signifiers’ to
stretch the naturalistic image into the realm of pure imagination.
That the bird in the hymn is the sun or fire is a conjecture supported by many explicit
references to the sun-bird in the Rig Veda (cf. 10.123, 10.177) and by references to the sun
in this hymn (14, 26). Many of the verses seem to refer to the birth of the
sun/year/sacrifice/sacrificial fire as a calf begotten by his father, the sky, in his mother,
the earth (in the form of a cow), or by the sky in his daughter the dawn cow. So, too, the
verses about the mortal and immortal may refer to the death and rebirth of the sun at the
end of each day or year. The dead one who ‘wanders with the sacrificial drink’ (30, 38; cf.
10.16.5) or ‘enters Destruction’ when he is within the womb (32) is the soul of the mortal
(or of the mortal sun) whose wandering and rebirth are dependent on the enduring
qualities of his nature.
Since the cow that represents the earth or Dawn also stands for the priest’s fee (9) or
for the goddess of Speech, she serves as a pivot for several symbolic layers; moreover,
there is an extended pun throughout the hymn based on the ‘feet’ of the cow (7, 12, 17,
41) and of the sacred verses (23-4), as well as the ‘footprints’ or sacrificial traces of the
gods (5) – all designated by the term pada. Similarly, the word akshara which means both
‘syllable’ and ‘undying’ serves as a link between the sacrifice and the immortal sun/ soul
(24, 39, 42).
Working with these implicit and explicit patterns, it is possible to explain more of the
hymn. The sun is often identified with Agni, who is mentioned in the hymn at several
points: he is explicitly identified with the One (46); he appears in three forms (1) ; and he
has flames that are like long hair (44). Agni lurks behind other images: he is, like the sun,
the first-born child of Order (11, 37, 47) or Truth (cf. 10.5.7) and is born of the waters
(52). The interaction of the sun and the waters makes sense of a number of obscure
references to a Vedic theory of the rain cycle: the rays of the sun (cows) drink up earthly
waters with the lowest point of the ray (the foot) and then give back rain (milk) from
their top (head) after they carry the moisture back up to the sun (7, 47, 51, 52). The sun
is thus clothed in the waters (7, 31). The relationship between the sun and the sacrifice
(through the concept of the yearly solar renewal and yearly sacrifice) is present in the
number symbolism linking the chariot (of the sun) with the sacrifice (as in the extended
metaphor of 10.135, the opening verse of which is echoed in verse 22 of the present
hymn). The seven horses or sons or embryos are seven priests or offerings, the three or six
or five naves or spokes are seasons (variously enumerated in different sacrificial
reckonings), the twelve are the months, the 360 the days of the years (the 720 the days
and nights in pairs), and so forth.
Many particular obscurities remain, of course, and many verses mean several things at
once, but when viewed in this overarching framework the hymn reveals a number of
consistent questions and answers expressed through a careful network of highly charged
symbols.
1 This beloved grey priest has a middle brother who is hungry and a third brother with
butter on his back.1 In him I saw the Lord of All Tribes with his seven sons.
2 Seven yoke the one-wheeled chariot drawn by one horse’ with seven names. All these
creatures rest on the age less and unstoppable wheel with three naves.2
3 Seven horses draw the seven who ride on this seven-wheeled chariot. Seven sisters call
out to the place where the seven names of the cows are hidden.
4 Who saw the newborn one, the one with bones who was brought forth by the boneless
one?3 Where was the breath and blood and soul of the earth? Who can go to ask this
from someone who knows?
5 An ignorant fool, I ask in my mind about the hidden footprints4 of the gods. Over the
young calf the poets stretched out seven threads to weave.
6 Unknowing, ignorant, I ask for knowledge about it from the poets who know: What is
the One who in the form of the unborn propped apart these six realms of space?
7 Let him who really knows proclaim here the hidden place of that beloved bird. The
cows give milk from his head; wearing a cloak, they drank water with their feet.
8 The mother5 gave the father a share in accordance with the Order, for at the beginning
she embraced him with mind and heart. Recoiling, she was pierced and owed with the
seed of the embryo. The reverent came to praise.
9 The mother was harnessed to the chariot pole of the priest’s cow; the embryo remained
within the cow-pens. The calf lowed and looked for the many-coloured cow on the three
stages of the journey.6
10 The One has risen up, holding up three mothers7 and three fathers, who never wear
him down. On the back of the distant sky they speak of Speech, who knows all but does
not move all.
11 The twelve-spoked wheel of Order rolls around and around the sky and never ages.
Seven hundred and twenty sons in pairs rest on it, O Agni.
12 Some say that the father with his five feet and twelve shapes dwells in his fullness in
the farther half of the sky. But others here say that the far-seeing one in the seven-
wheeled, six-spoked chariot moves in he near half.8
13 All the worlds rest on this five-spoked wheel that rolls around and around. Though
heavy-laden, its axle does not get hot, nor has it ever broken in its naves.
14 The unageing wheel rolls out on its rim; the ten yoked horses draw it up the
outstretched path. All the worlds are kept in motion on the eye of the sun, that moves
on though shrouded in dark space.
15 They say that besides those born in pairs there is a seventh born alone,9 while the six’
sets of twins are the sages born from the gods. The sacrifices for them are firmly set, but
they change their forms and waver as he stands firm.
16 They are female, but people tell me they are male.10 He who has eyes sees this, but
the blind one does not understand. The poet who is his son has understood this well;
the one who knows it would be his father’s father.
17 Beneath what is above, and above what is beneath, the cow went upward, holding her
calf by the foot.11 In what direction and to what half of the sky has she gone away?
Where did she give birth? Not within the herd.
18 Whoever here knows his father12 beneath what is above and above what is beneath –
who with such mystical insight can here proclaim the source from which the mind of
god was born?
19 Those that are in the future they say are in the past; those that are in the past they say
are in the future.13 The things that you and Indra did, Soma, still pull the axle pole of
space as though yoked to it.
20 Two birds, friends joined together, clutch the same tree. One of them eats the sweet
fruit; the other looks on without eating.14
21 Where the birds sing unblinkingly about their share of immortality among the wise,
there the mighty herdsman15 of the whole world, the wise one, entered me, the fool.
22 The birds that eat honey nest and brood on that tree on whose tip, they say, is the
sweet fruit. No one who does not know the father12 eats that.
23 Only those gain immortality who know that the Gayatrï foot is based on the Gayatri
hymn, or that the Tristubh foot is made from the Tristubh hymn, or that the Jagat foot
is based on the Jagat hymn.
24 With the Gayatrï foot they fashion a hymn; with the hymn, a chant; with the Tristubh
foot a strophe; with the strophe of two feet or four feet they fashion a speech. With the
syllable they fashion the seven tones.
25 With the Jagat he fixed the stream in the sky.16 In the Rathantara chant he discovered
the sun. They say the Gayatrï has three kindling-sticks, and so its power and
magnificence excels.
26 I call to the cow who is easy to milk, so that the milker with clever hands may milk
her. Let Savitr17 inspire us with the finest vigour. The pot of milk is set on the fire – this
is what I would happily proclaim.
27 The mistress of riches has come, snuffling and longing in her heart for her calf. Let
this cow give milk for the Asvins and grow greater for good fortune.
28 The cow has lowed at her blinking calf, snuffling at his head to make him low.
Longing for his warm mouth, she lows and swells with milk.
29 The one that encloses the cow hums; she that is set over the spluttering flame lows.
With her hissing she has put down the mortal; becoming lightning, she has thrown off
the cloak.
30 Life that breathes now lies still and yet moves fast, rushing but firmly fixed in the
midst of the resting places.18 The life of the dead one wanders as his nature wills. The
immortal comes from the same womb as the mortal.
31 I have seen the cowherd who never tires, moving to and fro along the paths. Clothing
himself in those that move toward the same centre but spread apart, he rolls on and on
inside the worlds.
32 He who made him knows nothing of him.19 He who saw him – he vanishes from him.
Enclosed within the mother’s womb, yet full of progeny, he entered Destruction.
33 The sky is my father; here is the navel that gave me birth. This great earth is my
mother, my close kin. The womb for me was between the two bowls20 stretched apart;
here the father placed the embryo in the daughter.
34 I ask you about the farthest end of the earth; I ask you about the navel of the universe.
I ask you about the semen of the stallion bursting with seed; I ask you about the final
abode of Speech.
35 This altar is the farthest end of the earth; this sacrifice is the navel of the universe.
This Soma is the semen of the stallion bursting with seed; this Brahmin priest is the
final abode of Speech.
36 The seven half-embryos portion out the semen of the world at Visnu’s command. Wise
in their thoughts and their heart, themselves surrounded, they surround it on all sides.21
37 I do not know just what it is that I am like. I wander about concealed and wrapped in
(th)ought. When the first born of Order came to me, I won a share of this Speech.
38 The one who is compelled as his own nature wills goes away and comes back; the
immortal came from the same womb as the mortal.22 The two constantly move in
opposite directions ; when people perceive the one, they do not perceive the other.
39 The undying syllable of the song is the final abode where all the gods have taken their
seat. What can one who does not know this do with the song? Only those who know it
sit together here.
40 Be happy eating good fodder, and then we will be happy too.23 O inviolable cow, eat
grass and drink pure water as you graze for ever.
41 The buffalo-cow lowed as she fashioned the flowing waters; she who has a thousand
syllables in the final abode became one-footed, two-footed, eight-footed, nine-footed.
42 The quarters of the sky live on the oceans that flow out of her in all directions. The
whole universe exists through the undying syllable that flows from her.
43 In the distance I saw the cowdung smoke midway between what is above and what is
below. The heroes roasted the dappled bull.24 These were the first ritual laws.
44 The three long-haired ones25 reveal themselves at the right moment. During the year,
one of them shaves; one looks upon everything with his powers; of one the onrush is
visible, but the form is not.
45 Speech was divided into four parts that the inspired priests know. Three parts, hidden
in deep secret, humans do not stir into action; the fourth part of Speech is what men
speak.26
46 They call it Indra, Mitra, Varuna, Agni, and it is the heavenly bird that flies. The wise
speak of what is One in many ways ; they call it Agni, Yama, Matarisvan.
47 The yellow birds clothed in waters fly up to the sky on the dark path. They have now
returned from the home of Order, and at once the earth was drenched with butter.
48 Twelve fellies, one wheel, three naves – who has under stood this? Three hundred and
sixty are set on it like poles that do not loosen.
49 Your inexhaustible breast, Sarasvati,27 that flows with the food of life, that you use to
nourish all that one could wish for, freely giving treasure and wealth and beautiful gifts
– bring that here for us to suck.
50 The gods sacrificed to the sacrifice with the sacrifice. These became the first ritual
laws. These great powers went to the dome of heaven where dwell the Sadhyas, the
ancient gods.28
51 The same water travels up and down day after day. While the rain-clouds enliven the
earth, the flames enliven the sky.29
52 The great heavenly bird with wonderful wings, the beautiful embryo of the waters and
the plants, that delights us with rains over flowing – I call to him for help.
NOTES
1. The first brother is the oblation fire with his grey beard of smoke; the second is the
southern fire, hungry because it seldom receives the oblation; the third is the domestic
fire that is ‘fed’ the butter oblation. Agni is the Lord of All Tribes, and his sons are the
priests.
2. For the magic powers of the three naves, cf. the curing of Apala (8.91.7).
3. The newborn sun or fire has bones (the male element) though it is born from the
boneless one (the female, who gives soft things – blood, breath, spirit), the earth.
4. The footprints of the gods may be the sacrificial laws, which are ‘woven’ when the
gods as poet-priests perform the sacrifice, by weaving their words.
5. The mother of the sun is Dawn, who is pierced by her father as well as the sun’s
father, the Sky; recoiling from incest, she nevertheless does what must be done (the
‘Order’) and is praised for this.
6. The calf searches for the mother who has abandoned him, as the mothers of Indra
and Vivasvan (another form of the sun) abandon them in Vedic mythology. The three
stages of the journey are one-tenth of the thirty-stage journey that the sun traverses
every twenty-four hours; or they are the three-day journey of the dead man (cf.
10.14.16).
7. The three mothers and fathers are the three earths and three skies as parents of the
sun, here identified with the Absolute. Speech does not inspire every priest, though she
is present in them all.
8. The sun is imagined either as supreme in heaven, or as ruling only the lower half, the
upper being the abode of Speech.
9. In Vedic mythology, Aditi gives birth to the immortal Adityas in pairs, while she
rejects the sun, Vivasvan, born alone (cf. 10.72.8-9). In the ritual, there are twelve
paired months and one odd one, the intercalary month which interrupts the sequence
and causes the others to ‘change and waver’.
10. The androgyny of the creators appears, on the ritual level, in the fact that the
months (a masculine term in Sanskrit) are procreative. The second half of the verse
puns upon the father of the sun (the sky) and the father of the poet who competes with
and surpasses his own father. Cf. 6.9.2.
11. The dawn cow, between sky (above) and earth (below), has her calf at her heels as
she kicks him away; she is alone because she has abandoned him.
12. ‘His’ father refers both to the poet who knows his own father and the one who
knows the sun’s father.
13. The rituals of the past become the rituals of the future; the deeds of the gods still
remain effective for us now.
14. On the tree of knowledge and immortality, some eat and some cannot.
15. Agni is the herdsman or the cowherd.
16. These deeds are attributed to Indra or the creator in other hymns. The Gayatri has
three feet, here identified with the kindling-sticks of fire.
17. Savitar, the divine obstetrician and embodiment of twilight (cf. 2.38, 1.35), is called
to assist the Pravargya ritual in giving birth to the sun. The milk hissing in the pot is the
dawn cow snuffling at her calf, the sun; the milk that swells in her udder is the milk
that boils; the pot sings a chant, and the cow (the milk) throws off her cover (the lid),
as the milk boils over.
18. The death and rebirth of the mortal, or of the mortal sun. The resting-places of the
sun or fire are sky, earth, and the waters, or just the waters.
19. The sun who disappears from the sky (his father), or the breath of life that
disappears from the dead body (of the mortal or the mortal sun).
20. The two bowls, literally wooden bowls for Soma, are sky and earth. Cf. 1.160.1.
21. The seven creators or priests fashion the sun from the seed split by the father when
he incestuously embraces his daughter. Or the Adityas fashion the sun from the
misformed embryo; while they themselves are still embryos ‘surrounded’ in the womb,
they ‘surround’, i.e. form into a ball, the semen.
22. The soul that is reborn according to its nature, or the sun. The immortal soul/sun
and the mortal body/dead sun or night are on opposite sides of the earth/mind at any
given time.
23. Here and in the next two verses the cow is Speech.
24. Soma (explicitly mentioned in verse 35) is the bull. The final phrase also appears as
10.90.16.
25. Three forms of Agni with flames for hair, or three ecstatic sages (cf. 10.136.1). The
former interpretation is supported by the second half of the verse: Fire shaves the earth;
the sun watches; the wind’s path is perceived, but the wind itself is invisible. Cf.
10.168.4.
26. This verse closely resembles 10.90.4.
27. Sarasvati as goddess of Speech and as the river in the sky (cf. v. 25) and on earth.
28. This verse appears also as 10.90.16.
29. Rain falls from the sun in the sky in return for flame from the sacrifice on earth.
