Devalok
Legend · 2 tellings · Pan-India

Shyavashva sees the Maruts

Who is in it

Texts: Rigveda

The story, beat by beat

  1. King Rathaviti chooses Archananas as priest; his son Shyavashva comes too.
  2. Father and son wish for the king's daughter.
  3. The queen refuses: a son-in-law must be a seer.
  4. On the way home Taranta, Purumilha and Queen Shashiyasi give gifts.
  5. In the forest the Maruts appear, alike and of one age, gold on their chests.
  6. Shyavashva asks who they are, then praises them.
  7. The Maruts give him the gold from their chests.
  8. Now a seer, he sends Night with a message to Rathaviti.
  9. Rathaviti brings his daughter and asks pardon.

vision courtship worthiness hymn

How it is told, place by place

Base telling · Primary text (translation)

Brihaddevata 5.50-81

Pan-India All traditions

Rathaviti Darbhya chooses Atri's son Archananas as priest. Archananas and his son Shyavashva both wish for the king's daughter, but the queen, born of royal seers, insists on a seer as son-in-law, and the king refuses. On the way home Taranta, Purumilha and Taranta's queen Shashiyasi honour them with livestock. Brooding in the forest that he has seen no hymn, Shyavashva finds the Maruts beside him, alike in form and age, gold on their breasts. He asks who they are, recognises them, and praises them; they give him their gold. A seer at once, he sends Night with two verses to Rathaviti on a ridge of the Himalaya. The king comes with his daughter, clasps Archananas's feet, asks forgiveness, and gives a hundred white horses.

The Brhad-devata attributed to Saunaka, ed. and tr. A. A. Macdonell (Harvard Oriental Series 6) § 5.50-81

Primary text (translation)

Rigveda 5.61

Pan-India All traditions

The hymn opens by asking splendid men who have come from far who they are and where their horses and reins are. It praises a generous woman, better than a godless man, who showed the way to Shyava; recalls red horses, Purumilha and a gift of a hundred cows; praises the ever-young Maruts on bright chariots; and ends by asking Night to carry the hymn to Darbhya and tell Rathaviti, who lives far off among the mountains, that the singer's wish has not gone away. The old index assigns verses 5-8 to Shashiyasi, 9 to Purumilha, 10 to Taranta and 17-19 to Rathaviti.

What is different here:

No refusal, queen, princess or wedding; the wish is not named; Max Muller notes the hymn is composite.

Hymns of the Rigveda, tr. R. T. H. Griffith (1896), hymns read for the Vedic layer § 5.61; Vedic Hymns, Part I: Hymns to the Maruts, Rudra, Vayu and Vata, tr. F. Max Muller (Sacred Books of the East 32) § 5.61

Sources: The Brhad-devata attributed to Saunaka, ed. and tr. A. A. Macdonell (Harvard Oriental Series 6); Hymns of the Rigveda, tr. R. T. H. Griffith (1896), hymns read for the Vedic layer; Vedic Hymns, Part I: Hymns to the Maruts, Rudra, Vayu and Vata, tr. F. Max Muller (Sacred Books of the East 32)

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