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NOTES. I, 167, 3.
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several passages the iti which stands after duals, has been wrongly inserted after Rodass in the singular. It is so in our hymn, verse 4, where we must read rodasím instead of rodasî íti, and again in X, 92, 11.
Besides the lightning, however, the thunder also may be said to be in the company of the Maruts, to be their friend or their wife, and it is this double relationship which seems to be hinted at in our hymn.
The thunder is called Våk, voice, the voice of heaven, also called by the author of the Anukramani, Âmbhrini. It was natural to identify this ambhrina with Greek ößpluos, terrible, particularly as it is used of the thunder, oßpluov dBpóvtnoe, Hes. Th. 839, and is applied to Athene as oppquoTárpn. But there are difficulties pointed out by Curtius, Grundzüge, p. 532, which have not yet been removed. This Vâk says of herself (X, 125, 12) that she stretched the bow for Rudra, the father of the Maruts, that her birth-place is in the waters (clouds), and that she fills heaven and earth. See also X, 114, 8.
In I, 173, 3. 'antáh dotáh na rodasi karat vák.
The voice (thunder) moved between heaven and earth, like a messenger
In VIII, 100, 10 and 11, after it has been said that the thunderbolt lies hidden in the water, the poet says: yát vák vádanti avi-ketanáni ráshtrî devănâm ni-sasáda mandra, when the voice, the queen of the gods, the delightful, uttering incomprehensible sounds, sat down. If, in our verse, we take Våk in the sense of thunder, but as a feminine, it seems to me that the poet, speaking of the lightning and thunder as the two companions of the Maruts, represents the first, Rodasi, or the lightning, as the recognised wife, hiding herself in the house, while the other, the loud thunder, is represented as a more public companion of the Maruts, distinctly called vidatheshu pagrå (verse 6), a good speaker at assemblies. This contrast, if it is really what the poet intended, throws a curious light on the social character of the Vedic times, as it presupposes two classes of wives, not necessarily simultaneous, however,-a house-wife, who stays at home and is not much seen, and a wife who appears in
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| SR No. | 007673 |
| Book Title | Zend Avesta Part 03 |
| Original Sutra Author | N/A |
| Author | L H Mills |
| Publisher | Oxford |
| Publication Year | 1887 |
| Total Pages | 2618 |
| Language | English |
| Classification | Book_English |
| File Size | 49 MB |