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Dhammapada · narration sample

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Rig Veda · 88 of 1027

Mandala 1: HYMN LXXXVIII. Maruts.

1.COME hither, Maruts, on your lightning laden cars, sounding with sweet songs, armed with lances, winged with steeds. Fly unto us with noblest food, like birds, O ye of mighty power.

2.With their red-hued or, haply, tawny coursers which speed their chariots on, they come for glory. Brilliant like gold is he who holds the thunder. Earth have they smitten with the chariot’s felly.

3.For beauty ye have swords upon your bodies. As they stir woods so may they stir our spirits. For your sake, O ye Maruts very mighty and well-born, have they set the stone, in motion.

4.The days went round you and came back O yearners, back, to this prayer and to this solemn worship. The Gotamas making their prayer with singing have pushed the well’s lid up to drink the water.

5.No hymn way ever known like this aforetime which Gotama sang forth for you, O Maruts, What time upon your golden wheels he saw you, wild boars rushing about with tusks of iron.

6.To you this freshening draught of Soma rusheth, O Maruts, like the voice of one who prayeth. It rusheth freely from our hands as these libations wont to flow.

Asked of Guide

Why do the worshippers call the Maruts 'like birds' and 'with swords upon your bodies'?

The hymn portrays the Maruts as violent, swift storm-gods whose nature shows both aerial speed and martial power: “winged with steeds” and “swords upon your bodies” fuse the imagery of flight and weaponry to make their ferocity visible. The similes—“like birds” for swiftness and the metallike “swords” or “tusks of iron” for sharpness—translate storm-sound and lightning into familiar, animate forms the community can address.

Gotama’s visionary moment anchors these images; he ‘‘saw you, wild boars rushing about with tusks of iron,’’ which aligns with Vedic habit of naming natural force with animal and metal metaphors. This hymn follows the same poetic technique found elsewhere in the Rig Veda, where gods appear as charioteers or animals to make cosmic power immediate and actionable in ritual speech.

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