PRAPATHAKA V The Offerings to Rudra

iv. 5. 1.

a Homage to thy wrath, O Rudra,
To thine arrow homage also;
Homage to thy bow,
And homage to thine arms.
b With thy most kindly arrow,
And kindly bow,
With thy kindly missile,
Be gentle to us, O Rudra.
c That body of thine, O Rudra, which is kindly,
Not dread, with auspicious look,
With that body, most potent to heal,
O haunter of the mountains, do thou look on us.
d The arrow which, O haunter of mountains,
In thy hand [1] thou bearest to shoot,
That make thou kindly, O guardian of mountains;
Harm not the world of men.
e With kindly utterance thee
We address, O liver on the mountains,
That all our folk
Be free from sickness and of good cheer.
f The advocate hath spoken in advocacy,
The first divine leech,
Confounding all the serpents
And all sorceries.
g The dusky, the ruddy,
The brown, the auspicious,
And the Rudras which in thousands
Lie around this (earth) in the quarters [2],
Their wrath do we deprecate.
h He who creepeth away,
Blue-necked and ruddy,
Him the cowherds have seen,
Have seen the bearers of water
And him all creatures;
May be, seen, be gentle unto us.
i Homage to the blue-necked,
Thousand-eyed one, the bountiful
And to those that are his warriors
I have paid my homage.
k Unfasten from the two notches
Of thy bow the bowstring,
And cast thou down
The arrows in thy hand [3].
1 Unstringing thy bow,
Do thou of a thousand eyes and a hundred quivers,
Destroying the points of thine arrows,
Be gentle and kindly to us.
m Unstrung is the bow of him of the braided hair
And arrowless his quiver;
His arrows have departed,
Empty is his quiver.
n O most bountiful one, the missile
That is in thy hand, thy bow,
With it on all sides do thou guard us,
Free from sickness.
o Homage to thy weapon,
Unstrung, dread;
And homage to thy two hands,
To thy bow.
p May the missile from thy bow
Avoid us on every side,
And do thou lay far from us
This quiver that is thine.