Untitled

LITERATURE OF THE EAST 27
2. They come gloriously on their red, or, it may be, on
horses which hasten their chariots. He who
their tawny
holds the axe is brilliant like gold with the tire of the chariot
;
they
have struck the earth.
3. On your bodies there are daggers for beauty ; may they
stir up our minds as they stir up the forests. For yourselves,
O well-born Maruts, the vigorous among you shake
the stone for distilling Soma.
4. Days went round you and came back, O hawks, back to
this prayer, and to this sacred rite; the Gotamas making
prayer with songs, pushed up the lid of the well (the cloud)
for to drink.
5. No such hymn was ever known as this which Gotama
sounded for you, O Maruts, when he saw you on golden
wheels, wild boars rushing about with iron tusks.
6. This comforting speech rushes sounding toward you,
like the speech of a suppliant:
it rushed freely from our
hands as our speeches are wont to do.
The sacrificer
BOOK L HYMN 165
To THE MARUTS AND INDBA 10
speaks:
The Prologue
1. To what splendor do the Maruts all equally cling, they
who are of the same age, and dwell in the same nest With
10 It would seem as if the ten verses, from 3 to 12, formed an independent
poem, which was intended to show the divine power of the
Maruts. That their divine power was sometimes denied, and that
Indra's occasional contempt of them was well known to the Vedic poets,
will become evident from other hymns. This dialogue seems, therefore,
to have been distinctly intended to show that, in spite of occasional
misunderstandings between the Maruts and the all-powerful Indra,
Indra himself had fully recognized their power and accepted their friendship.
If we suppose that this dialogue was repeated at sacrifices in
honor of the Maruts, or that possibly it was acted by two parties, one
representing Indra, the other the Maruts and their followers, then the
two verses in the beginning and the three at the end ought to be
placed in the mouth of the actual sacrificer, whoever he was. He begins