21. A hundred, a myriad years, two periods (yugá), three, four, we make for thee; let Indra-and-Agni, let all the gods, approve thee, not showing enmity.
The second half-verse is i. 35. 4 c, d. The 'periods' here are not at all likely to be those of the later chronology, though the comm. naturally thinks them so. ⌊Alternatively, he makes yugé = 'generations.'⌋ Ppp. has santu for kṛṇmas in b, and omits te in c. The pada-mss. read té: ánu instead of te: ánu: compare under i. 35. 4. ⌊We had a "sataḥpan̄kti" at vi. 20. 3.⌋
22. Unto autumn, unto winter, unto spring, unto summer, we commit thee; [be] the rains pleasant to thee, in which the herbs grow.
Ppp. has again dadhmasi in b.
23. Death is master of bipeds; death is master of quadrupeds; from that death, lord of kine, I bear thee up; ⌊so⌋ do thou not be afraid.
Ppp. reads for d ud dharāmi sa mā mṛta ⌊intending mṛthās?⌋.
24. Thou, unharmed one, shalt not die; thou shalt not die, be not afraid; [men] die not there, nor go to lowest darkness.
Ppp. gives in c pra mīyante—a better reading, as rectifying the meter. ⌊Pāda b occurs as vs. 1 a of a khila to RV. i. 191, with the two clauses inverted.⌋
25. Every one, verily, lives there—ox, horse, man, beast—where this charm (bráhman) is performed, a defense (paridhí) unto living.
The verse has a correspondent in TA. (vi. 11. 12), but with a different first pāda: TA. makes it nā vāí tátra prá mīyate (nearly as our 24 c in Ppp.).
26. Let it protect thee from thy fellows, from witchcraft, from thy kinsmen; be thou undying, immortal, surviving; let not thy life-breaths
(ásu) leave thy body.
Ppp. reads sugantubhyas at end of b.
27. The deaths that are a hundred and one, the perditions (nāṣṭrā́) that are to be over-passed—from that let the gods free thee, from Agni Vāiçvānara.
Ppp. reads in b nāṣṭrātta (-tu?) jīvyāḥ. ⌊See note to iii. 11. 5 for "101 deaths."⌋
28. Agni's body art thou, successful (pārayiṣṇú); demon-slayer art thou, rival-slayer, likewise expeller of disease, a remedy pūtúdru by name.
