All the mss. agree in the accent of drā́pi (RV. always drāpí). As is their habit, they give of the refrain only the single word tásya except in vss. 1 and 25; and there they set the avasāna not before tásya, but after devásya: in our edition this perversion of the natural division is corrected. The refrain, if we contract yá evám to yāí ’vám, is a regular triṣṭubh; its addition to a preceding verse makes this hymn one of especially long meters; the first verse, 8 pādas of 11 syllables each, is an exact ākṛti. The verse ⌊or the hymn: see introduction⌋ is (though v. 12. 9 has the same pratīka) doubtless the one quoted in Kāuç. 49. 19, with xiii. 1. 28 and xvi. 6. 1, to accompany the laying on of fetters; and Bloomfield suggests that the whole hymn (or anuvāka) is intended also in 63. 21, one does not see why.
2. From whom the winds in their season go purifying (pū), out of whom the oceans flow forth—against that god etc. etc.
With b compare 1. 42 d. The verse (10 + 11: 44 = 65) has one more syllable than a regular aṣṭi, as the Anukr. notices. ⌊The longer grammatical equivalent of vā́tās would improve the rhythm.⌋
3. Who causes to die [and] causes to breathe; from whom all existences breathe—against that god etc. etc.
An exact aṣṭi (9 + 11: 44 = 64).
4. Who gratifies heaven-and-earth with breath; who fills the belly of the ocean with respiration—against that god etc. etc.
The meter is correctly enough described by the Anukr. The omission of either apānena or samudrasya would rectify the meter of b.
5. In whom is set (çritá) Virāj, the most exalted one, Prajāpati, Agni Vāiçvānara with the series (pan̄ktí); who took to himself the breath of the lofty one, the brilliancy of the loftiest one—against that god etc. etc.
We had nearly the same combination of divine personages above in viii. 5. 10 c, d; and the pan̄kti here perhaps corresponds to the 'all the seers' there. The verse, of very irregular meter (12 + 12: 15: 44 = 83), is very nearly a prakṛti (84 syll.).
6. Upon whom are set (çritá) the six wide [spaces], the five quarters, the four waters, the three syllables (? akṣára) of the sacrifice; who, angered, looked with his eye between the two firmaments (ródaṣī)—against that god etc. etc.
All our mss. read at end of b akṣárā (not -rāḥ), doubtless under the influence of the ordinary use of akṣára as neuter. The omission in c of cākṣuṣā would better both sense and meter. The verse as best read (12 + 12: 14: 44 = 82) lacks two syllables of a full prakṛti, but could easily be filled up by resolution. ⌊For the transition -t after yásmin, cf. Prāt. ii. 9 note.⌋ ⌊Caland, p. 173, understands this vs. and the following to be intended at Kāuç. 49. 24, 25, for use in the ceremony of the "water-thunderbolts": cf. introd. to x. 5.⌋
7. Who became food-eater, lord of food, and also Brahmaṇaspati (lord of worship); who is and shall be lord of existence—against that god etc. etc.
