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Hymns of the Atharva Veda, by Ralph T.H. Griffith, [1895], at sacred-texts.com
1The Bull supports the wide-spread earth and heaven, the Bull
supports the spacious air between them.
The Bull supports the sky's six spacious regions: the universal
world hath he pervaded.
2The Bull is Indra o'er the beasts he watches. He, Sakra
measures out three several pathways.
He, milking out the worlds, the past, the future, discharges all
the Gods' eternal duties.
3Being produced among mankind as Indra, the Caldron works
heated and brightly glowing.
Let him not, with good sons, pass off in vapour who hath not
eaten of the Ox with knowledge.
4The Ox pours milk out in the world of virtue: in earliest time,
he, Pavam5na, swells it.
Parjanya is the stream, Maruts his udder, sacrifice is the milk,
the meed his milking.
5That which not sacrifice nor sacrificer, not giver nor receiver
rules and governs,
All-winning, all-supporting, all-effecting,—which of all quadru-
peds, tell us! is the Caldron?
6May we, fame-seekers, reach the world of virtue by service of
the Gharma and through fervour,
Whereby the Gods went up to heaven, the centre of life eternal,
having left the body.
7Prajāpati, supreme and sovran ruler, Indra by form and by his
shoulder Agni,
Came to Visvānara, came to all men's Bullock: he firmly forti-
fied and held securely. p. a117
8The middle of the Bullock's neck, there where the shoulder-bar
is placed,
Extends as far to east of him as that is settled to the west.
9He whosoever knows the seven exhaustless pourings of the Ox,
Wins himself offspring and the world: the great Seven Rishis
know this well.
10With feet subduing weariness, with legs extracting freshening
draughts,
Through toil the plougher and the Ox approach the honeyed
beverage.
11Assigned are these twelve nights, they say, as holy to Prajāpati:
Whoever knows their proper prayer performs the service of the
Ox.
12At evening he is milked, is milked at early morn, is milked at
noon.
We know that streams of milk that flow from him are in-
exhaustible.