Vasishtha pleads with Varuna

A hymn portrait: the seer Vasishtha, ill and estranged, asks Varuna what his sin was and recalls the day the god took him out in his boat.

The story, beat by beat

1. Vasishtha asks himself how he can be close to Varuna again and what gift the god would accept without anger.
2. The wise men he questions all answer that Varuna is angry with him.
3. He asks Varuna what his chief wrong was that the god would strike a friend who praises him.
4. He pleads that not his own will but wine, anger, dice and thoughtlessness led him astray, and asks release from his fathers' sins too.
5. He asks to be loosed like a calf from a rope.
6. He remembers boarding a boat with Varuna, riding the waves as on a swing, and being made a seer by him.
7. He asks where their old friendship has gone, recalling that he entered Varuna's house of a thousand doors.
8. He says a friend who has sinned is still the friend Varuna loved.
9. Trembling like a wind-blown skin and thirsty amid water, he begs not to go yet to the house of clay.
10. The hymns end in prayer; no answer from Varuna is reported.

forgiveness friendship confession illness omniscience