Vol. V, No. 10.] Reference to Babylon in the Rigveda. 413 
[NV.S.] 
New hymn, O Indra, has been composed for you. May we 
through your praise be always possessors of chariots and win- 
ners in battles. 11 
From the above it will be seen that all the riks preceding 
the one under discussion refer either to the killing of Ahi 
(Vritra) or to the setting free of rivers. Of the two riks that 
follow, the last or the 11th is simply a prayer for wealth. But 
even here rivers are once mentioned as a simile. The 1 th rik 
expressly mentions that the object of the Hymn was to relate 
truly the ancient exploits of Indra exactly as they happened 
gut aur, and the poet says he knows these. There is a word in 
this rik, namely ewearfa, which, following the Western scholars, I 
have rendered into ‘‘ manly” but which literally means “ relat- 
ing to the pouring of water.’ It is therefore likely that rik 9 
should also have something to do with Indra’s killing Ahi and 
releasing the river the latter had blocked. And as a matter of 
fact the word Ahi occurs in this rik. In two of the previous 
riks in this hymn, namely, in the 2nd and the 3rd in which the 
word occurs, it means Vyitra, i.e. the river encompassing Ahi. 
I maintain that in this rik also Abi means Vritra and not an 
ordinary serpent. 
I shail now give my translation of the rik and then its 
explanation, together with the explanation of all the difficult 
words in it. 
Thou broughtest away, O lord of the tawny steeds, the son 
of the river maiden [or the unmarried damse who was being 
eaten by the Babylonians, from where he was lying. 
Brought away he saw Ahi though he had been blind. When 
released his limbs severed by the file were reunited. — Iv. 19. 9. 
The most difficult words in tne rik are the following :— 
1°, adt—I have already pointed out that it is equivalent to 
‘“Babli’’, the name of Babylon according to the cuneiform 
writings, or to ‘‘ Bawri’’ , the name of the same according to the 
Avesta. I take it up again. It appears that there is a word 
“aa” occurring in the Rigveda and derived probably from an old 
root ay to vomit, to bring out from the mouth, to speak, 
commen to a number of Aryan languages—Sanskrit, Greek, 
Latin, Lithunian and Zend. It occurs in five places in the Rig- 
veda, namely, as 
aa: in i. 51 and viii. 102. 21. 
aea: in x. 99. 12. 
aq@ in i. 112. 15. 
aaq in x. 99. 5. 
02. 21 aais the utterer of 
In all the riks excepting in viii. 1 ; 
aatis the female 
hymns, i.e., a Risi. In viii. 102. 21 it is an ant. 
