Note 208 — LECTURE V.

Madhuvridh is likewise a word which does not occur again in the Rig-Veda. Sãyana explains it by nirgundi and similar plants, but it is doubtful what plant is meant. Gunda is the name of a grass, madhuvridh therefore may have been a plant such as sugar-cane, that yielded a sweet juice, the Upper Indus being famous for sugar-cane; see Hiouen-thsang, II. p. 105. I take adhivaste with Roth in the sense "she dresses herself," as we might say "the river is dressed in heather." Muir translates, "she traverses a land yielding sweetness;" Zimmer, "she clothes herself in Madhuvridh;" Ludwig, "the Sîlamâvatî throws herself into the increaser of the honey-sweet dew." All this shows how little progress can be made in Vedic scholarship by merely translating either words or verses, without giving at the same time a full justification of the meaning assigned to every single word.