Page:The Hymns of the Rigveda Vol 1.djvu/246

t + HYMN 164.] THE RIGVEDA. 227 Three kept in close concealment cause no motion; of speech, men speak only the fourth division. 46 They call him Indra, Mitra, Varuna, Agni, and he is heavenly nobly-winged Garutmân. To what is One, sages give many a title: they call it Agni, Yama, Mâtarişvan. 47 Dark the descent: the birds are golden-coloured; up to the heaven they fly robed in the waters. Again descend they from the seat of Order, and all the earth is moistened with their fatness. 48 Twelve are the fellies, and the wheel is single; three are the naves. What man hath understood it? Therein are set together spokes three hundred and sixty, which in nowise can be loosened. 49 That breast of thine exhaustless, spring of pleasure, where- with thou feedest all things that are choicest, Wealth-giver, treasure-finder, free bestower,-bring that, Sara- svatî, that we may drain it. 50 By means of sacrifice the Gods accomplished their sacrifice : these were the earliest ordinances. These Mighty Ones attained the height of heaven, there where the Sâdhyas, Gods of old, are dwelling. 51 Uniform, with the passing days, this water mounts and falls again. The tempest-clouds give life to earth, and fires re-animate the heaven. 45 Three kept in close concealment: the three might mean the three Vedas; but this interpretation does not suit the rest of the half-line. The fourth division: ordinary language. See Wilson for Sâyaṇa's elaborate explanation of this stanza, and Muir, O. S. Texts, II. 155. 46 Garutman: the Celestial Bird, the Sun. All these names, says the poet, are names of one and the same Divine Being, the One Supreme Spirit under various manifestations. • 47 Dark the descent: the rays of light descend into the darkness of the earth when wrapped in night, and rise again to heaven with the moisture which they have absorbed to descend again in the form of fertilizing rain. ' 48 The single wheel is the year; the twelve spokes are the months; the three naves are the three seasons of four months each; and the spokes are the days of the luni-solar year. The stanza is out of place here. 49 Sarasvati: see I. 3. 10. .. " 50 The Sidhyas: said by Yâska to be 'the Gods whose dwelling place is the sky.' They are named among the minor divinities in and, as Wilson observes, 'it would seem that in Sâyaṇa's day the purport of the designation had become uncertain.' 51 Fires re-animate the heaven: the oblations offered in sacrificial fires delight and strengthen the Gods.