The one and many vedic dawns in poetic translation

This paper examines two issues concerning the Rgveda, the oldest text of the Indian religious tradition. The first addresses the problem of translating ancient religious poetry into English with an underlying desire to find a balance between maintaining philological accuracy and conveying some of the poetic quality of the original. Two hymns, RV 4.51–52, are used to example how such a balance may be struck, with the resultant translations retaining the syllable-count of the original Vedic metre, but not its rhythmical element. The second issue examined in the paper relates to the contents of these two hymns that are dedicated to the Dawn goddess Uas, with RV 4.51 invoking only her plural form and RV 4.52 only the singular. The clear demarcation made between the one and many Dawns in these two hymns is unusual, as elsewhere in the Rgveda, the singular and plural occur in adjacent verses. Hence, a close examination of these two hymns provides the opportunity to elucidate the differing natures of the singular and plural Dawns