“Indra, twin-brother of the god of fire, When thou wast born, thy mother Aditi, Gave thee, her lusty child, the thrilling draught Of mountain-growing Soma--source of life And never-dying vigor to thy frame. Thou art our guardian, advocate and friend, A brother, father, mother--all combined. “Most fatherly of fathers, we are thine, And thou art ours. Oh! let thy pitying soul Turn to us in compassion when we praise thee, And slay us not for one sin or for many. Deliver us to-day, to-morrow, every day. Vainly the demon dares thy might; in vain Strives to deprive us of thy watery treasures. Earth quakes beneath the crashing of thy bolts. Pierced, shattered lies the foe--his cities crushed, His armies overthrown, his fortresses Shivered to fragments; then the pent-up waters, Released from long imprisonment, descend In torrents to the earth, and swollen rivers, Foaming and rolling to their ocean-home, Proclaim the triumph of the Thunderer. “Agni, thou art a sage, a priest, a king, Protector, father of the sacrifice. Commissioned by us men, thou dost ascend A messenger, conveying to the sky Our hymns and offerings. Though thy origin Be threefold, now from air, and now from water, Now from the mystic double Arani, Thou art thyself a mighty god, a lord, Giver of life and immortality, One in thy essence, but to mortals three; Displaying thine eternal triple form, As fire on earth, as lightning in the air, As sun in heaven. Thou art the cherished guest In every household--father, brother, son, Friend, benefactor, guardian--all in one. Deliver, mighty lord, thy worshipers, Purge us from taint of sin, and when we die, Deal mercifully with us on the pyre, Burning our bodies with their load of guilt, But bearing our eternal part on high To luminous abodes and realms of bliss, Forever there to dwell with righteous men. “Behold the rays of Dawn, like heralds, lead on high The Sun, that men may see the great all-knowing god. The stars slink off like thieves, in company with night, Before the all-seeing eye, whose beams reveal his presence, Gleaming like brilliant flames, to nation after nation. Sūrya, with flaming locks, clear-sighted god of day, Thy seven ruddy mares bear on thy rushing car. With these thy self-yoked steeds, seven daughters of thy chariot, Onward thou dost advance. To thy refulgent orb, Beyond this lower gloom, and upward to the light Would we ascend, O Sun, thou god among the gods.” The Samoyedes thus addressed Jumala, the god of the air: