Rig Veda · 856 of 1027
Mandala 10: HYMN XIX. Waters or Cows.
1.TURN, go not farther on your way: visit us, O ye Wealthy Ones. Agni and Soma, ye who bring riches again, secure us wealth.
2.Make these return to us again, bring them beside us once again. May. Indra give them back to us, and Agni drive them hither-ward.
3.Let them return to us again: under this herdsman let them feed. Do thou, O Agni, keep them here, and let the wealth we have remain. 4 1 call upon their herdsman, him who knoweth well their coming nigh, Their parting and their home-return, and watcheth their approach and rest. 5 Yea, let the herdsman, too, return, who marketh well their driving-forth; Marketh their wandering away, their turning back and coming home. 6 Home-leader, lead them home to us; Indra, restore to us our kine: We will rejoice in them alive. 7 1 offer you on every side butter and milk and strengthening food. May all the Holy Deities pour down on us a flood of wealth. 8 O thou Home-leader, lead them home, restore them thou who bringest home. Four are the quarters of the earth; from these bring back to us our kine,
Asked of Guide
Why does the hymn keep asking Agni, Indra, and the herdsman to 'bring them back'?
The hymn repeatedly asks Agni, Indra, and the herdsman to “bring them back” because it is a ritual plea to recover lost wealth — here cows or waters — by invoking the gods and the skilled guide who knows their movements. The repetition fixes attention on return: “Let them return to us again” names both the object of loss and the desired restoration, making the petition precise and insistent.
This chapter treats divine agents as specialists: Agni as carrier, Indra as restorer, the herdsman as one who “marketh their wandering away, their turning back.” That practical division of roles echoes other Rig Veda hymns where gods execute distinct functions, and it matches the procedural requests in the later Atharva Veda, which also addresses recovery through ritual and named mediators.
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