Adhyāya III, Kaṇḍikā 12

1. When a battle is beginning, (the royal Purohita) should cause the king to put on his armour (in the following way).

2^[1]. (The Purohita) stations himself to the west of (the king's) chariot with (the hymn?), 'I have brought thee hither; be here' (Rig-veda X, 173).

3. With (the verse), 'Like a thunder-cloud is his countenance' (Rig-veda VI, 75, 1), he should tender the coat of mail to him.

4. With the following (verse) the bow.

5. The following (verse) he should cause him to repeat.

6. He should murmur himself the fourth.

7. With the fifth he should tender the quiver to him.

8. When (the king) starts, the sixth.

9. The seventh (he recites) over the horses.

10. The eighth he should cause (the king) to repeat while looking at the arrows;

11. (The verse), 'Like a serpent it encircles the arm with its windings' (Rig-veda VI, 75, 14), when he ties to his arm the leather (by which the arm is protected against the bow-string).

12^[2]. He then mounts up to (the king on his chariot), while he is driving, and causes him to repeat the Abhīvarta hymn (Rig-veda X, 174) and the two verses, 'He who, Mitra and Varuṇa' (Rig-veda VIII, 101, 3 seq.).

13^[3]. He then should look at him with the Apratiratha, Śāsa, and Sauparṇa hymns.

14^[4]. The Sauparṇa is (the hymn), 'May the streams of honey and ghee flow forwards.'

15. (The king) should drive (in his chariot successively) to all quarters (of the horizon).

16. He should commence the battle in the line of battle invented by Āditya or by Uśanas.

17^[5]. He should touch the drum with the three verses, 'Fill earth and heaven with thy roar' (Rig-veda VI, 47, 29 seqq.).

18. With (the verse), 'Shot off fall down' (Rig-veda VI, 75, 16), he should shoot off the arrows.

19^[6]. 'Where the arrows fly' (l.l. v. 17)—this (verse) he should murmur while they are fighting.

20. Or he should teach (the king the texts mentioned). Or he should teach (the king).

End of the Third Adhyāya.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

12, 2. According to Nārāyaṇa the Pratīka here signifies not the verse, but the whole hymn, though a whole Pāda is given (comp. Śrauta-sūtra I, 1, 17).

[2]:

The Abhīvarta hymn begins with the word abhīvartena, and is ascribed to Abhīvarta Āṅgirasa.

[3]:

The Apratiratha hymn is Rig-veda X, 103 (ascribed to Apratiratha Aindra); the Śāsa, X, 152 (ascribed to Sāsa Bhāradvāja). On the Sauparṇa, see the next Sūtra.

[4]:

This hymn is not found in any Vedic Saṃhitā, as far s I know, nor does it occur in the Suparṇādhyāya. I have followed Prof. Stenzler's conjecture pra dhārā yantu instead of pradhārayantu, which is confirmed by Sāyaṇa's note on Aitareya Brāhmaṇa VI, 25, 7; VIII, 10, 4 (pp. 365, 399 ed. Aufrecht).

[5]:

17, 18. According to Nārāyaṇa the subject is the king.

[6]:

Here the subject is the Purohita.