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Ix, 1. COMMENTARY.
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433, has collected a sufficient number of passages in which the Asvins set the waters in motion, and cause the heavenly rivers to flow : madhukasă may therefore amount simply to the honey (the water) that lashes.'
In the Atharvan ritual the hymn is known as the madhusûktam, 'honey-hymn. Under this designation it is employed while mixing honey with milk in the course of the agnishtoma (Vait. SQ. 16, 12). In the Kausika and the subsidiary texts the hymn is simply a varkasyam (sc. suktam),
designed to bestow lustre' (cf. sts. 11-14, 16, 17); see Kaus. 10, 24 ; 12, 15; 13, 6, and the second varkasyagana. of the Ganamalâ, Ath. Paris. 32, 27 (Kaus. 12, 10, note).
Stanza 4 d. The great embryo which is mentioned here, and which figures in the sequel, is apparently described in st. 21 as a part of the honey-lash; in st. 5 the embryo is said to come from the honey-lash. The embryo suggests the lightning (fire', which seems therefore to be viewed here as a child of the waters, represented by the honey-lash, coinciding thus with the conception of the apám nápât (cf. Oldenberg, 1.c., pp. 99, 118 ff.). But the intolerable mysticism of sts. 5 ff. leaves everything in doubt.
Stanza 6. In Påda b kalásah may be thrown out as a gloss which disturbs the metre i gagatî). Cf. with Pâda c the statement of the use of the madhugraha, 'portion of honey,' which is given to the Brahmans, Katy. Sr. XI, 4, 17. 18; see Hillebrandt, Soma, p. 242.
Stanza 7. By a characteristic leap of fancy the fluid-yielding lash is now regarded as a milch-cow, and the rhetorical properties usually connected with her ecstatic praise are exploited. For Pada d, cf. XII, 1, 45; RV. IV, 42, 10; VI, 48, 11; VIII, 69, 10.
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nection with the moisture of the clouds, and suggests the morning dew.
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