sambhavanti: tāir ārujantī ’ti çaphārujaḥ: i.e. 'breaking things with their hoofs.' The irregularity of meter allows us to suspect the tradition of the word. The comm. also strangely explains rebhe as çabdaṁ kurvate rakṣase! ⌊Root ribh: cf. note to vs. 7.⌋ Ppp. reads in d atiti for acitam.
The verse is RV. vs. 12, where it is decidedly better in place.
22. Thee the devout, O Agni, powerful one, would we fain put about us [as] a stronghold, [thee] of daring color, day by day, slayer of the destructive one.
We have had this verse above, as vii. 71. 1; for its different correspondences and variants, see the note at that place; ⌊but Ppp. here ends with bhan̄gurāvatām⌋. The comm., though he notes it as 'explained above,' goes on to give a new explanation, curiously accordant with and yet not a little different from the other; the most important point of difference is that, in explaining pari dhīmahi, he there gave us our choice between parito dhārayāmaḥ and paridhiṁ kurmaḥ, while here he gives us our choice between the latter and dhyāyemahi. The real reason of the repetition probably is that he this time reads at the end bhan̄gurāvatām, with RV. ⌊and Ppp.⌋, while before he had no variant from our AV. text. ⌊Here and in vs. 23, W. queries his version of bhan̄g- as he did at vii. 71, which see.⌋
23. With poison smite thou back the destructive ones, the demoniacs, O Agni, with keen brightness (çocís), with heat-pointed flames (arcí).
RV. in b lingualizes the particle to ṣma, and reads daha for jahi; and it ends d with ṛṣṭíbhis instead of the anomalous arcíbhis. Ppp. has in c çukrena instead of tigména.
The RV. hymn ends with four anuṣṭubh verses, of which only the first two find place thus in our text.
24. With great light Agni shineth out; he maketh all things manifest by his greatness; he forceth away the ill-conditioned ungodly wiles; he sharpeneth his two horns to gore the demons.
All the authorities read at the end viníkṣve, and even the comm. is with them, calling the v a Vedic accretion (vakāropajanaç chāndasaḥ). RV., in the corresponding verse (v. 2. 9: repeated without variant in TS. i. 2. 147), has viníkṣe, which our edition reads by emendation, SPP. retaining the totally inadmissible v, which seems to have blundered into the word out of ví nikṣva in the following verse. RV. (and TS.) has before it rákṣase (sing.).
25. The two horns that thou hast, O Jātavedas, unaging, of keen thrust, sharpened by devotion (bráhman)—with them do thou gore, O Jātavedas, the attacking enemy (durhā́rd), the advancing kimīdín with thy flame (arcís).
