A History of Indian Literature v1.c8.s2.239

v1.c8.s2.239

⁴ This is very well explained by A. Ludwig (Der Rigveda V, 561): "We do not interfere with the rule of the gods by giving nourishment to one who is nearly dying of starvation; this is said with bitter irony against the hypocrites who sought to justify their hardness of heart by saying that the fate of the needy ones was determined by the gods. The irony or sarcasm becomes unquestionable through what follows; the poet concludes further that, if the poor were predestined by the gods to death by starvation, then the wealthy who had plenty of food, must live for ever." [^1): The translation is hardly questionable, so much the more, then, the sense. It has been conjectured that by the "one-foot," the "one-footed ram," a storm-god, is meant, or, by others, the sun, and that the "three-footed" is the old man supported on a stick, and the "quadruped" the dog. This is by no means certain.