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XI, 4. COMMENTARY.
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death, and consequently annuls all distinctions of time. There can be no doubt that the former is the correct interpretation. The stanza contains a blend of two personifications of the sun. As hamsá the sun figures at AV. X, 8, 17; XIII, 3, 14; Tait. År. II, 15, 8; Tait. Br. III, 10, 9, 11'; cf. the words hamsa and paramahamsa in Jacob's Concordance to the principal Upanishads. The second conception of the sun underlies Pada a; it is that of the aga ekapad, or ekapada, for which see Roth, Yâska's Nirukta, Erläuterungen, p. 165; Bergaigne, La Religion Védique, III, p. 20 ff.; Henry, Les Hymnes Rohitas, p. 25. We would refer any one that doubts that aga ekapad is the sun to Tait. Br. III, 1, 2, 8, 'Aga Ekapad has risen in the east, delighting all beings. At his urging (prasavam) all the gods go,' &c.
Stanza 22. Såyana again suggests that the human body, with breath as the dominating force, is the subject of the stanza. The human body, consisting of skin, blood, and six other elements, is eight-wheeled, and held in position by one felloe, breath. Doubtless, the sun is again presented mystically. At AV. X, 8, 7 (cf. Muir, 1.c., I, 9; Ludwig, Der Rigveda, III, 395) the stanza occurs with the variant ékakakram for ashtákakram. In this form it is obviously a continuation of st. 21: we are at a loss to explain the mystic thought which underlies the change of eka to ashtà ; cf. ash tấkakra in AV. X, 2, 31. The stanza posits a theosophic riddle (brahmodya ; cf. Journ. Amer. Or. Soc. XV, 172 ff.); the second hemistich recurs in a different connection at AV. X, 8, 13.
Stanzas 24-26. The last three stanzas impart to the hymn the character of a conjuration, in accordance with its employment in the Kausika. See the introduction. In the last stanza apám gárbha is 'fire' (cf. RV. I, 164, 52; Tait. S. IV, 2, 3, 3), either the fire in the body, or, perhaps more probably, the fire of which the Brahman disciple takes care. See Sankh. [42]
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