The third pāda is wholly corrupt. All the mss. read parvatāyāsatvam (p. párvatāya: sáḥ: tvám), with some differences of accent (-yāsátvam, or -yāsátvám, or -yā́sátvám); and the comm. and SPP. (in saṁhitā) follow them (SPP. -yāsátvam; but in p., by emendation, -tāya: asátvam, since the comm. so understands). Our text emends to párvaṇy ā́saktam 'what has fastened on the joint,' which seems extremely unsatisfactory. The translation above is perhaps hardly better, but it implies a text much closer to the mss.—párvata (i.e. -te, hence -tay) ā́ sattvám; and so it may pass for what it is worth; it is by no means proposed as a definite solution of the difficulty. Ppp. has padvad āsunvan, which gives no help. Ppp. also reads yadi kim three times.
4. Do thou protect behind, thou in front, thou from above and from below; do thou guard us, O shining one; here we are, thy praisers.
5. They who follow (anu-sthā) the night, and who watch over beings, who defend all cattle—they watch over our selves (ātmán), they watch over our cattle.
The mss. accent jā́grati* in d and e, and in d the accent might well enough be retained, on the principle of antithesis; SPP. gives jāgrati, like us. Emendation to jāgratu would be decidedly welcome in both pādas. Ppp. has considerable variations: for b, yeṣu bhūteṣu jāgrabhi,† and, for d, e, tenā tvam asi jāgratu te naṣ paçubhir jāgratu: corrupt, but supporting our proposed jāgratu. *⌊It is very reasonable to suppose that in jā́grati at end of d and e we have two cases of assimilation of an original jāgratu to the jā́grati which stands correctly at the end of b (cf. note to xix. 43. 7), each case being doubly faulty, in respect, namely, of accent and of ending.⌋ †⌊In Roth's Collation there is a note which perhaps means that Ppp. reads jāgrati for rákṣanti at end of c; but I am not at all sure.⌋
6. Verily I know thy name, O night; thou art "ghee-dripping" (ghṛtā́cī) by name; as such Bharadvāja knows thee; do thou watch over our property.
In b, Ppp. combines vā ’si; in c and d it reads, with our edition, tvā and jāgṛhi, while SPP. gives tvā́m and jāgrati, the latter for jā́grati, as all the mss. ⌊save one⌋ read; our emendation was a perfectly obvious one, and should have been followed by SPP. The comm., to be sure, reads -rati, but, by the simple application of his general rule, that any verb-form can be used for any other, he is able to declare it = jāgartu—which SPP. has too much knowledge and conscience to do. The pada-mss. have tvā́m, tvām, and tvám; our tvā was an emendation, called for after tā́m. More than half of the mss. accent bharadvājás. In our text, the accent-sign printed over jā in d should be shifted to over dhi: it is a misprint.
49. Praise and prayer to night.
This hymn and the following occur together also in Pāipp. xiv. Their viniyoga is the same with that of the two preceding hymns (see under hymn 47). They are translated together (but in reversed order) by Ludwig.
Translated: Ludwig, p. 466; Griffith, ii. 306.
