Page:Atharva-Veda samhita volume 2.djvu/366

xviii. 1- 30. A god, encompassing the gods with right, carry thou first our offering, understanding [it]; smoke-bannered by the fuel, light-beaming, a pleasant, constant hótṛ, skilled sacrificer with speech.

31. I praise (arc) your (du.) work unto increase, ye ghee-surfaced ones; O heaven-and-earth, hear me, ye two firmaments (ródasī); when days, O gods, went to the other life (ásunīti), let the two parents (pitárā) sharpen us here with honey.

32. If the god's immortality (amṛ́ta) is easy to appropriate for the cow, thence those who are born maintain themselves on the broad [earth]; all the gods go after that sacrificial formula of thine, when the hind yields (duh) the ghee, heavenly liquor (vā́r).

33. Why forsooth hath the king seized (grah) us? what have we done in transgression of (áti) his ordinance (vratá)? who discerns [it]? for even Mitra, swerving the gods, like a song of praise (çlóka), is the might also of them that go.

The verse is RV. x. 12. 5, without variant. The second half-verse, especially the last pāda, is bafflingly obscure. The accent of ásti, as well as the absence of other construction for mitrás, strongly indicates that the whole of the second half-verse forms one sentence; in which case vā́jas is perhaps most probably a corruption. The comm. understands rā́jā in a as Yama, and jagṛhe as signifying his "acceptance" of offerings—which is very ill guessed; doubtless it is Varuṇa (so Ludwig; the RV. comm. makes it