NOTES.
The hymn is ascribed to Madhukkhandas Vaisvâmitra, and may possibly belong to an author of the Visvâmitra family. See my Prolegomena, p. 261. Metre, Gâyatrî. The hymn has been translated and commented upon by M. M., Physical Religion, pp. 170–173.
Verse 1 = TS. IV, 3, 13, 3; MS. IV, 10, 5. Verse 3 = TS. III, 1, 11, 1; IV, 3, 13, 5; MS. IV, 10, 4 (IV, 14, 16). Verse 4 = TS. IV, 1, 11, 1; MS. IV, 10, 3. Verse 7 = SV. I, 14. Verses 7–9 = VS. III, 22–24; TS. I, 5, 6, 2; MS. I, 5, 3. Verse 1.
Note 1. This verse being the first verse of the Rig-veda as we now possess it, seems already to have occupied the same position in the time of the author of the hymns X, 20–26. For, after a short benediction, the opening words of this collection of hymns are also agním île, 'I magnify Agni.' Comp. my Prolegomena, p. 231.
Note 2. The verb which I translate by 'magnify'—being well aware that it is impossible to do full justice to its meaning by such a translation—is îd. There seems to me no doubt that this verb is etymologically connected with the substantives ísh, 'food,' íd, ídâ, írâ (not with the root yag of which Brugmann, Indogermanische Forschungen I, 171, thinks). We need not ask here whether the connection between îd and ísh is effected by a 'Wurzeldeterminativ' (root-determinative) d—in this case we should have here îd for izhd, comp. nîda for nizhda, pîd for pizhd, &c.; see Brugmann's Grundriss, vol. i, 591—or whether îd is a reduplicated present of id (of the type described by Brugmann, Grundriss, vol. ii, p. 854; comp. î´rte, &c.). The original meaning of î´de at all events seems to be 'I give sap or nourishment.' Now in the Vedic poetry and ritual, the idea of sap or nourishment is especially connected with the different products coming from the cow, milk and
