०१३

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सायण-भाष्यम्

‘युजे वाम्’ इति पञ्चर्चं त्रयोदशं सूक्तमदितेः पुत्रस्य विवस्वत आर्षम् । हविर्धानाख्ये ये द्वे शकटे तद्देवत्यमिदम् । अन्त्या जगती शिष्टास्त्रिष्टुभः । तथा चानुक्रान्तं— युजे पञ्च विवस्वानादित्यो हाविर्धानं जगत्यन्तम्’ इति । गतः सूक्तविनियोगः । हविर्धानप्रवर्तने ‘युजे वाम्’ इत्येका। सूत्रितं च— अन्तरा वर्त्म पादयोर्युजे वां ब्रह्म पूर्व्यं नमोभिः’ (आश्व. श्रौ. ४. ९) इति ॥

Jamison Brereton

13 (839)
The Soma Carts
Havirdhāna Āṅgi or Vivasvant Āditya
5 verses: triṣṭubh, except jagatī 5
According to the Anukramaṇī, this hymn is addressed to the two havirdhāna carts, the carts on which the soma is brought to the place of sacrifice. Although the carts are not explicitly mentioned in the hymn, this assignment is undoubtedly correct and confirmed by the recitation of the first two verses in the later canonical rit
ual when the carts are pushed into place. The first four verses are also found in

Atharvaveda (Śaunaka) XVIII.38–41 (in slightly different order) in a large collec tion of funeral verses, while verse 5 is paralleled by Atharvaveda VII.57.2. The hymn presents a number of difficulties, and the conceptual relationship among the verses is not always clear. Nonetheless, for various reasons (to be sketched below) it seems likely that the R̥gvedic hymn forms a unity.
The first two verses are the clearest and have the clearest ritual content: the two soma carts are hitched up, the signal for the sacrifice is given, and the carts are brought to the sacrificial ground.
After these two verses of relative clarity, we are plunged into the numerological obscurity of verse 3—not surprisingly the middle verse with the typical form of an omphalos verse. (Oldenberg refers to its “vague mysticism” [vage Mystik] and sug gests resignation as a proper response for the interpreter [1913: 135 = 1967: 822].) It does not help that the first, scene-setting pāda contains the impossible word rúp, which arouses the same bewilderment in its other occurrence, IV.5.7. Nonetheless, we can sketch some parameters for the interpretation of the verse, though our inter pretation is quite insecure in detail. First, it seems to continue the ritual scenario of the first two verses, and the 1st-person speaker, with his four 1st-person verbs, matches the speaker of the first pāda of the hymn. In the first pāda of this verse we suggest (following an offhand suggestion of Oldenberg’s [1913: 136 = 1967: 823]) that the “five steps” (páñca padā́ni) of the rúp (here translated “mount”) are the five verses of this very hymn. The “four-footed” (cátuṣpadī) entity in the next verse must be feminine in gender, and various suggestions have been made for what noun to supply. We believe that its reference is deliberately ambiguous: it may refer to the four pādas of a verse (ŕ̥c fem.), thus continuing the (possible) theme of 3a. It has also been suggested that the noun is vartaní “course, track” (also feminine), and the speaker is literally following the track of the two soma carts, each with two wheels, thus four wheel-ruts altogether. The only other R̥gvedic occurrence of the adjective “four-footed” is in I.164.41, where it modifies the noun gaurī́ “buffalo cow” refer
ring to Speech, which is regularly said to consist of four parts. Thus in our view this pāda refers both to ritual action (following the four wheel-ruts of the carts) and ritual speech (the four-pāda verse), and ritual speech in particular calls to mind Speech in general. In the next pāda (3c) the poet seems to make explicit the equiva
lence of his particular ritual speech and Speech in general by claiming to make a single syllable the equivalent of Speech herself. This mystical treatment of the ritual ends with a purification (3d).
Verse 4 veers off in a different direction and alludes obliquely to what we might call the Felix Culpa (“fortunate fall”) of Yama, who, though born immortal (at least according to I.83.5 and possibly X.17.1), chose death over immortality in order to sacrifice to the gods (pāda a) and produce offspring (pādas b and d), whereas the gods constituted their sacrifice through Br̥haspati and avoided death but also do not reproduce. (So, roughly, Geldner.) This fleeting reference to Yama’s choice seems to answer the question left hanging at the end of X.10—will Yama yield to Yamī’s frenzied entreaties for sex or will he maintain his ascetic distance? On the basis of the offspring mentioned here, he seems to have yielded, though in the present verse the role of Yamī has been elided and the agency rests with Yama—he “chose.” But why, one may well ask, is this bit of Yama’s history found in a hymn dedi cated to the soma carts? It is probably more productive to ask why a hymn to the soma carts is found in this Yama cycle (X.10–19), positioned right before the funeral hymns, especially X.14 dedicated to Yama. First, remember that the Atharvaveda repetitions of the first four verses of this hymn are found in the collection of funeral verses, so to the compilers of the Atharvaveda they must have seemed appropriate to a funeral context. Note, moreover, that the carts themselves are called “twins” (yamé) in verse 2, paired with verse 4 around the omphalos verse 3; “twins” of course calls to mind the twin couple Yama and Yamī. The pairing of the two carts also reminds us of the two divergent paths, one leading to the gods (devayā́na), one to the ancestors or forefathers (pitr̥yā́na); the latter is the one that the dead follow to the world where Yama presides. This journey is a particular preoccupation of the funeral hymns, and the conflation of the twin (yamé) soma carts with the twin paths, one of which leads to Yama, may explain how the soma carts ended up in the Yama collection.
The final verse brings the hymn full circle, but with a series of tricks embedded in it. On the surface the last half of the verse returns to the ritual situation and the soma carts, which take their places (yatete) with the same phraseology as verse 2 (yátamāne). They rule over and thrive on “it” of both kinds, most likely a reference to both pure and mixed soma (cf., e.g., VIII.101.10). But the lack of explicit refer
ents for any of the forms of “both,” combined with the first half of the verse, which has nothing obvious to do with the carts, invites us to look further. The first half of the verse seems to draw the same contrast as in verse 4 between gods and mortals. While the referent in pāda a is fairly clearly Indra (the epithet “accompanied by the Maruts” being a strong clue), we are inclined to see Yama as the referent in pāda b; he who surrendered his immortality for the sake of offspring is identified as a father in conjunction with sons, in fact the mortals whom he sired after he chose death. We, the poets and sacrificers, are among these sons, and have learned our verbal craft (“have made truth [our] familiar”) and produced this poem.
If we are correct in our identification of Yama as the father in 5b, there are several further implications for the structure and contents of this hymn. On the one hand, the father and sons of 5b both recall and contrast with “all the sons of the immortal one” in 1c, for those were the gods. So we have another element of a formal ring structure, but with a different referent. The contrastive pairs Indra/Yama and gods/mortals may also underlie the insistent “both/both kinds” of the second half of verse 5, where (despite the neuter [or feminine] gender of the repeated subject ubhé “both”) Indra and Yama may be credited with joint ruler ship (note that Yama is called “king” in the first verse of the next hymn, X.14.1d) and prosperity.
To sum up and indeed to go further, this hymn, and the hymn cycle within which it is embedded, are a reflection of and a reflection on the dualities that define

human existence: mortal and immortal, male and female, heaven and earth, sacred and profane, as we pointed out in the introduction to the Yama cycle as a whole. These dualities are neatly conceptually symbolized in the notion of twins, the pri mal twins Yama and Yamī, and in this hymn also ritually symbolized by the twin soma carts, appropriate both to the sacrifice and to the divergent paths that lead to the gods and the ancestors respectively, thus providing a proper preface to the funeral hymns that follow.

010-019 ...{Loading}...
Jamison Brereton

The next ten hymns (X.10–19) form a Yama cycle, though the subject matter found in the individual hymns is quite various. Yama, the son of Vivasvant, is king of the land of the dead because he was the first mortal to die. Yet he was apparently born immortal (see esp. I.83.5) and chose to become mortal, subject to death, “for the sake of the gods…and for the sake of offspring” (X.13.4). The opening hymn in the cycle, the dialogue of Yama and his twin sister Yamī, on the fraught topic of embarking on incestuous sex in order to produce offspring, addresses Yama’s change of status and his choice, but in a deliberately oblique and misleading fashion, as Yama spurns the sexual advances of his sister, and at the end of their bitter argument there seems little likelihood of children. The last six hymns in this cycle (X.14–19) are collectively known as funeral hymns. The first, X.14, is devoted especially to Yama in his role as king of the realm of the dead, while the others, especially 15–18, concern various aspects of death and the treatment of the dead—for example, the forefathers who preceded us to Yama’s realm in X.15, the cremation fire in X.16, the funeral itself in X.

The intermediate hymns, X.11–13, have less superficially clear connections to the Yama saga, but both X.12 (vss. 6–7) and X.13 (vss. 4–5) make important comments on Yama and on Yama’s choice.

There is also an underlying unifying theme, that of duality and twinned-ness: the absolute disjunction between and the ultimate complementarity and unity of the mortal and the immortal, life and death, men and gods, men and women, heaven and earth, sacred and profane. It is appropriate that the cycle should begin with the dialogue between the primal twins, Yama and Yamī, whose very names mean “twin” and who bridge the gap between mortal and immortal.

01 युजे वाम् - त्रिष्टुप्

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युजे᳓ वाम् ब्र᳓ह्म पूर्वियं᳓ न᳓मोभिर्
वि᳓ श्लो᳓क एतु पथि᳓येव सूरेः᳓
शृण्व᳓न्तु वि᳓श्वे अमृ᳓तस्य पुत्रा᳓
आ᳓ ये᳓ धा᳓मानि दिविया᳓नि तस्थुः᳓

02 यमे इव - त्रिष्टुप्

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+++(सहोत्पत्त्या)+++ यमे᳓ इव य᳓तमाने य᳓दै᳓तं
प्र᳓ वाम् भरन् मा᳓नुषा देवय᳓न्तः ।
आ᳓सीदतँ स्व᳓म् उ लोक᳓व्ँ वि᳓दाने
स्व्-आस-स्थे᳓ भवतम् इ᳓न्दवे नः ।

03 पञ्च पदानि - त्रिष्टुप्

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प᳓ञ्च पदा᳓नि रुपो᳓ अ᳓न्व् अरोहं
च᳓तुष्पदीम् अ᳓नु एमि व्रते᳓न
अक्ष᳓रेण · प्र᳓ति मिम एता᳓म्
ऋत᳓स्य ना᳓भाव् अ᳓धि स᳓म् पुनामि

04 देवेभ्यः कमवृणीत - त्रिष्टुप्

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देवे᳓भियः क᳓म् अवृणीत मृत्यु᳓म्
प्रजा᳓यै क᳓म् अमृ᳓तं ना᳓वृणीत
बृ᳓हस्प᳓तिं यज्ञ᳓म् अकृण्वत᳓ ऋ᳓षिम्
प्रियां᳓ यम᳓स् तनु᳓वम् प्रा᳓रिरेचीत्

05 सप्त क्षरन्ति - जगती

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सप्त᳓ क्षरन्ति शि᳓शवे मरु᳓त्वते
पित्रे᳓ पुत्रा᳓सो अ᳓प्य् अवीवतन्न् ऋत᳓म्
उभे᳓ इ᳓द् अस्य उभ᳓यस्य राजत
उभे᳓ यतेते उभ᳓यस्य पुष्यतः