The Arctic Home in the Vedas c13.18

c13.18

It is stated above that a whole hymn (78) of nine verses in the 5th Maṇḍala of the Ṛig-Veda is ascribed to Atri Saptavadhri. The deities addressed in this hymn are the Ashvins whom the poet invokes for assistance in his miserable plight. The first six verses of the hymn are simple and intelligible. In the first three, the Ashvins are invoked to come to the sacrifice like two swans; and in the fourth, Atri, thrown into a pit, is said to have called on them, like a wailing woman, for assistance. The 5th and the 6th verses narrate the story of Saptavadhri, shut up in a tree or a wooden case, whose sides are asked to tear asunder like the side of her who bringeth forth a child. After these six verses come the last three (the hymn containing only nine verses), which describe the delivery of a child that was in the womb for 10 months; and Vedic scholars have not as yet been able to explain what rational connection these three verses could possibly have with the preceding six verses of the hymn.¹ According to Sâyaṇa, these three verses constitute what is called the Garbhasrâviṇî-upaniṣad or the liturgy of child-birth; while Ludwig tries to explain the concluding stanzas as referring to the delivery of a child, a subject suggested by the simile of a wailing woman in the 4th verse, or by the comparison of the side of the tree with the side of a parturient woman. It seems, however, extraordinary, if not worse, that a subject, not relevant except as a simile or by way of comparison, should be described at such length at the close of the hymn. We must, therefore, try to find some other explanation, or hold with Sâyaṇa that an irrelevant matter, viz., the liturgy of child-birth, is here inserted with no other object but to make up the number of verses in the hymn. These verses may be literally translated as follows:—