Anuvaka 1
Suktas in Anuvaka 1
Sukta 1
AV 13.1 is a grand Rohita-hymn that fuses cosmogony with royal ideology: the ruddy solar power is praised as the axis on which Heaven and Earth are set, and as the source of victory, wealth, cattle, and consolidated gain. By recounting Rohita’s many “births” and his role as the world’s navel and stabilizer, the hymn sacralizes the patron/king’s centrality, making sovereignty appear as a cosmic fact rather than a human arrangement.
Sukta 2
AV 13.2 is a Sūrya-sūkta that turns the Sun’s all-seeing radiance into a healing and protective force: what hides in night—disease-agents, thieves, and hostile sorcery—is driven off as darkness retreats. The hymn also praises Sūrya/Āditya’s “greatness” to stabilize vitality, social standing, and auspicious order through the regular cosmic circuit of day and night.
Sukta 3
Atharvaveda 13.3 is a punitive-protective hymn that frames harm done to a learned Brahmin as a cosmic crime against the wrathful Creator-Sun authority, and calls Rohita to execute retribution. Through recurring refrains (“make him tremble… waste him away… loose the nooses”), it turns cosmological sovereignty (world-envelope, time-wheel, all-pervading stride) into legal-ritual enforcement that binds and diminishes the brahma-injurer.
Sukta 4
AVŚ 13.4 is a litany of cosmic sovereignty that identifies a single all-encompassing Power with multiple deities—Agni, Sūrya, Yama, Mahendra (Indra) and allied forms such as Aryaman, Varuṇa, Rudra, Mahādeva. Its recurring ray-and-sky refrain frames the deity as an encircling, stabilizing presence that fills the firmament and, by extension, secures the realm: prosperity, order, and protection from hostile forces. The hymn’s force lies in totalizing identification ("he is…") plus enclosure imagery (rays as bands), producing a royal-cosmic apotropaic shield.
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