________________
278
VEDIC HYMNS.
Verse 1. Note 1. It is rather strange that Agni is compared with the two parents. Generally it is the two Asvins, or Heaven and Earth, or the pair of Indra and Varuna, &c., who are compared with father and mother (see Hirzel, Gleichnisse und Metaphern im Rigveda, 71 seq.). No doubt in our verse the dual was chosen on account of the metre.— I do not think that Bollensen (Orient und Occident, II, 473) and Kirste (Bezzenberger's Beiträge, XVI, 297) are right in believing that a dative of pitri is found here, and in translating: 'as a good (son) to his father.'
Verse . Note 1. The meaning of ayásah is doubtful; comp. Brugmann in Kuhn's Zeitschrift, XXIV, 24 seq. ; M. M., vol. xxxii, p. 371 (VI, 66, 5); von Bradke, Festgruss an Roth, 124.
Verse 5. Note 1. On sriprá, see I, 96, 3, note 3. Karásna must mean something like 'arm,' though the exact meaning is doubtful. In VIII, 32, 10 the compound sriprákarasna occurs. Prof. Max Müller writes : “Thou hast brightly assumed a body with soft arms or with stretched-out arms, if we do not read sriprakarasna.'
Digitized by Google
