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Dhammapada · narration sample

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Rig Veda · 401 of 1027

Mandala 5: HYMN XLVII. Viśvedevas.

1.URGING to toil and making proclamation, seeking Heaven’s Daughter comes the Mighty Mother: She comes, the youthful Hymn, unto the Fathers, inviting to her home and loudly calling.

2.Swift in their motion, hasting to their duty, reaching the central point of life immortal, On every side about the earth and heaven go forth the spacious paths without a limit.

3.Steer, Sea, Red Bird with strong wings, he hath entered the dwelling-place of the Primeval Father. A gay-hued Stone set in the midst of heaven, he hath gone forth and guards mid-air’s two limits.

4.Four bear him up and give him rest and quiet, and ten invigorate the Babe for travel. His kine most excellent, of threefold nature, pass swiftly round the boundaries of heaven.

5.Wondrous, O people, is the mystic knowledge that while the waters stand the streams are flowing: That, separate from his Mother, Two support him, closely-united, twins, here made apparent.

6.For him they lenghten prayers and acts of worship: the Mothers weave garments for him their offspring. Rejoicing, for the Steer’s impregning contact, his Spouses move on paths or heaven to meet him.

7.Be this our praise, O Varuṇa and Mitra may this be health and force to us, O Agni. May we obtain firm ground and room for resting: Glory to Heaven, the lofty habitation!

Asked of Guide

Why does the hymn call a youthful 'Mighty Mother' the 'Heaven's Daughter' who invites the Fathers?

The hymn personifies a cosmic renewal: the ‘‘Mighty Mother’’ appears as a youthful Hymn and ‘‘Heaven’s Daughter’’ to present the rite itself as a living, inviting presence that restores the Fathers. Verse 1 makes the ritual and its vocal power into a progeny that seeks union with ancestral forces, so the ceremony becomes both offspring and mediator between heaven and the Fathers.

The language links fertility, movement, and cosmic order—stones, birds, kine, twins—so the Daughter is an active agent of continuity and boundary-keeping. This matches themes in the Hymns where ritual speech generates and maintains the world, similar to how the Vedic sacrificial texts treat Agni as the priestly intermediary who carries offerings to the gods.

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