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XIII, I. COMMENTARY.
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Stanza 33.
The Virâg is another personification of the shining female heaven (dawn), and the male sun is viewed here as her calf rather than her husband. The 'bull of prayers' again must refer to the sun it seems to mean 'he to whom prayers are chiefly directed,' a conception which is fortified immediately by the epithet sukráprishtha, which I take to be an equivalent of sómaprishtha (st. 12). In Pâda c it would seem natural to read ghriténâktám, 'anointed with ghee,' for ghriténârkám, establishing thus a certain balance between this expression and bráhma sántam in Pâda d. But the construction of abhí ark with two accusatives is secure, e.g. AV. VII, 14, 1; 72, I, and at Tait. Br. II, 8, 8, 9c we have, tám arkaír abhy àrkanti vatsám. Each reading seems equally good under the circumstances.
Stanza 39.
d. The Paippalâda reads vipasyantam for vipaskítam ; the reading is not favoured by the metre, and seems in every way inferior.
Stanza 40.
a. The text as it stands can hardly be sustained. The Paippalâda reads, devo devam arkayasi. Henry, without a knowledge of this, emends to devó devấn arkayasi; cf. our remarks, 1. c., p. 437. We have finally accepted this in our rendering the extant Saunakîya reading must have arisen on the basis of the reading devó devámmarkayasi with anticipatory anusvâra.
Stanza 41.
A cosmic charade (brahmodyam)=AV. IX, 9, 17, and RV. I, 164, 17 (with the variant antáh for asmín in Pâda d). The subject of the riddle is the dawn. Her calf is the sun, as in st. 33. The disappearance of the dawn at sunrise is depicted prettily, though rather mystically in the second hemistich. The meaning of Pâda d is that though a cow she does not beget her calf in this earthly herd: her calf
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