edition as well as ours properly emends to viḑḑhí. ⌊My copy of the printed text reads viḑhḑhí; but Whitney's Index Verborum and his Roots, Verb-forms, etc. have viḑḑhí, under viṣ.⌋ The comm. reads vṛḑḑhi, explaining it by vardhaya! The second half-verse is rather more altered in its AV. version; in AÇS. (as vs. 4), with the interpolations, it runs thus: çrudhī havaṁ na indro na giro juṣasva vajrī na: indra sayugbhir didyun na matsvā madāya mahe raṇāya. Ppp. has only this half-verse (without the interpolations), reading thus: çruti hava me kiro juṣasya indrasya gubhir matsa madāya mahe raṇāya. The Anukr. would doubtless have us divide 10 + 13: 10 + 13 = 46 syllables. ⌊As to viḑhḑhí, see notes to Prāt. i. 94. Accent of mátsva, Gram. §628.⌋
We may conjecture that the hymn originally ended here, as one of five verses; the appended three verses that follow are of a wholly other character. AÇS. adds one more verse, which is RV. i. 70. 11, with similar interpolations after each of its four five-syllabled pādas.
5. Now will I proclaim the heroisms of Indra, which first he of the thunderbolt (vajrín) did; he slew the dragon (áhi); he penetrated to the waters; he split ⌊forth⌋ the bellies (vakṣáṇā) of the mountains.
Verses 5-7 are RV. 1. 32. 1-3; and found also in TB. (11. 5. 41-2); vss. 5 and 6 further in MS. iv. 14. 13, and vs. 5 in SV. (i. 613): in these texts without any variant from the RV. reading; they all have in 5 a prá, and put vīryā̀ṇi before it. Ppp. also offers no variants from our text. SPP. reads prā́ in a, with all the mss. ⌊except our O.⌋, and our text should have done the same. The comm. renders ánu in c by tadanantaram, and tatarda by jihiṅsa! also vakṣáṇās in d by nadyas.
6. He slew the dragon that had resorted (çri) to the mountain; Tvashṭar fashioned for him the whizzing (?) thunderbolt; like lowing kine, flowing (syand), at once the waters went down to the ocean.
The text is precisely the same as in the other passages. The comm. explains svaryà as suṣṭhu preraṇīya (from su + root ṛ), and tatakṣa as tikṣṇaṁ cakāra!
7. Acting like a bull, he chose the soma; he drank of the pressed [draught] in the tríkadrukas; the bounteous one (maghávan) took his missile thunderbolt; he slew that first-born of dragons.
RV. (and TB.) combines in a -ṇo ‘vṛṇīta, and some of the mss. (including our O.) do the same. The comm. understands the trikadrukas as the three abhiplava days. ⌊For d, rather, 'smote him, the first-born of dragons.' The difference is, to be sure, only a rhetorical one.⌋
In the first anuvaka, ending here, are included 5 hymns, of 29 verses; the old Anukr. says: pañcarcādye (i.e. 'in the first division of the 5-verse book') viṅçateḥ syur navo ”rdhvam.
6. Praise and prayer to Agni.
[Çāunaka (sampatkāmaḥ).—āgneyam. trāiṣṭubham: 4. 4-p. ārṣī pan̄kti; 5. virāṭprastārapan̄kti.]
