India

"In both India and Pakistan civilian politics have taken on a military tinge, with some political parties sponsoring paramilitary organisations whose members wear uniforms, march in formation with flags and carry sticks to menace their opponents. Or in the case of India’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) it looks more as though the paramilitary Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) sponsors it."

"The refugees from the West Pakistan —all of them without exception wherever they are living in India, to a man are grateful to RSS for coming to their help at a time when they felt deserted by all."

"Non-violence and the advice given by Mrs. Sucheta Kripalani, Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. Rajendra Prasad, etc., to stay out where they were with a firm trust in God appeared to most of the victims as a counsel of perfection which could only be given from a safe distance. Who else came to the rescue of the people at this stage, but a band of young selfless Hindus- popularly known as the RSS? They organised in every Mohalla of every town of the province the work of evacuation of the Hindu and Sikh women and children from dangerous pockets t comparatively safe centres. They organised for their feeding, medical aid, clothing and care. Parties for the protection of institutions were organised. Even fire engine brigades were formed. in various towns. Arrangements for transport by lorries and uses and provision of escort on the trains carrying the fleeing Hindus and Sikhs were organised. Day and night vigils in various Hindu and Sikh localities were kept up and people were taught how to defend themselves when attacked. When the Situation on the eve of Partition became very serious and law and order utterly broke down-or it would be more correct to say, was now used only to suppress the Hindus and Sikhs,— several members of the RSS showed their proficiency in the use of fire weapons. it almost became a tit for tat. These young men were the first to come to the help of the stricken Hindus and Sikhs and were the last to leave their places for safety in the East Punjab. I could name several Congress leaders of note in the various districts of Punjab who openly solicited the help of the RSS even for their own protection and the protection of their kith and kin. No request for help from any quarter was refused and there are cases which came to our notice where the Muslim women and children were safely escorted out of the Hindu Mohallas and sent to Muslim League refugee centres in Lahore by the RSS men."

"I also found during my tour of the East Punjab a deep: sense of gratitude and gratefulness to the Sikhs and the Sanghies among the masses. They were considered the saviours of the people and it was a universal belief that they had made the rehabilitation of a part of the Hindu and Sikh refugees possible in the East Punjab. A few lakhs of them had at least found a temporary shelter in the vacated house and lands. Judging in the light of subsequent history of rehabilitation of refugees, one shudders to think of what would have happened to these refugees if like the other unfortunate refugees they had also to seek shelter in refugee camps and on road-side..."

"Bhagva Dhwaj represents the tradition and history of the Hindus, the saints and sages from Vedic times and all heroes of Hindu history. It is the undisputable Guru of all those who call themselves Hindus."

"Their (RSS) discipline, their physical fitness and their selflessness in face of dangers came to the rescue of the people in the Punjab when the whole province was burning and when the Congress leaders were helplessly fiddling at New Delhi, not being able to overcome the opposition of the Muslim League and the obstinacy of the Governor-General to their proposal for stronger action for the maintenance of law and order. If now somebody from a place outside the Punjab were to call upon the Hindus and Sikhs of the Punjab to disown the Sikhs and RSS- heroes who defended them gloriously, his advice is sure to fall. on absolutely deaf ears."

"During the Emergency period some followers of the Jamaat-e-Islami found themselves in the same jail as the members of the RSS; here they began to discover that the latter were no monsters as described by the 'nationalist' and secularist propaganda. Therefore they began to think better of the Hindus. This alarmed the secularists and the interested Maulvis. Some Maulvis belonging to the Jamiat-ul-Ulema-i-Hind met President.. Fakhruddin Ahmad, and reported to him about the growing rapport between the members of the two communities. This 'stunned' the President and he said that this boded an 'ominous' future for Congress Muslim leaders and he promised that he would speak to Indiraji about this dangerous development and ensure that Muslims remain Muslims."

"Any Indian who comes with the intention to settle in Kashmir will be treated as an agent of RSS and not as a civilian and will be dealt with appropriately."

"Upper Assam, Jan. 15th [1836] – We arrived at Kujoo, a rather large village of Singfos, and within half a day’s journey of which the tea is found in its native state…The people themselves are fair, much like the Burmese, but still quite distinct. The male dress resembles the Burmese much; the females is more distinct, consisting chiefly of a sort of gown; and whilst tattooing is confined to the males in Burma, it here appears to be indulged in chiefly by the ladies; all the legs I saw during the day, being ornamented with rings of tattoo. The men are a stout, rather fine race; free, easy, and independent, and great admirers of grog in every form."

"Here is no part of the costume where the natives shew such variety of taste as in the arranging of the hair. And this does not as far as I can see depend on religious distinction. Some cover the head with a load of folded cloth, others wear no covering on it, and have the hair cropped close. Some wear little caps and the hair reaching down to the shoulders, where it is cut square across. Others have a broad line shaven from the forehead to the nape of the neck, and others cut off the hair above the forehead from ear to ear. And it is not uncommon to see the whole head shaven except one long tuft on the crown. The Mussulmanns have generally fine beards. But the Hindoos almost always shave theirs."

"The colours used by the Indian craftsmen for their textiles, writes Robinson, were not only brilliant and of great variety, they were also often exceedingly subtle and particularly so in their tonal qualities: Their colours seem to contain hidden qualities and effects that only appear in differing lights. The pagris or headwear produces in Rajasthan (originally Rajputana), Kotah and Alwar contained two slightly differing shades which produced a constantly changing colour pattern as the fabric rippled."

"The Mahratta dress consists only of two garments, which are a tight body to the waist, with sleeves tight to the elbow; a piece of silk, some twenty yards or more in length, which they wind around them as a petticoat, and then, taking a part of it, draw it between the limb and fasten it behind in a manner that gives it the effect both of petticoat and trousers; this is the whole dress unless, at times, they substitute angiyas, with short sleeves, for the tight long-sleeved body."

"They are hardy, stout men, particularly those of the Catteywar and Cutch districts. Their usual dress is a petticoat round the waist, like that of the Bheels, and a cotton cloth wrapped round their heads and shoulders, which, when they wish to be smart, they gather up into a very large white turban. In cold weather, or when drest, they add a quilted cotton kirtle, or “lebada,” over which they wear a shirt of mail, with vant-braces and gauntlets, and never consider themselves as fit to go abroad without a sword, buckler, bow and arrows, to which their horsemen add a long spear and battle-axe. The cotton lebada is generally stained and iron-moulded by the mail shirt, and, as might be expected, these marks, being tokens of their martial occupation, are reckoned honourable, insomuch that their young warriors often counterfeit them with oil or soot, and do their best to get rid as soon as possible of the burgher-like whiteness of a new dress. This is said to be the real origin of the story told by Hamilton, that the Coolies despise and revile all cleanly and decent clothing as base and effeminate. In other respects they are found of finery; their shields are often very handsome, with silver bosses, and composed of rhinoceros-hide; their battle-axes richly inlaid, and their spears surrounded with many successive rings of silver. Their bows are like those of the Bheels, but stronger, and in better order; and their arrows are carried in a quiver of red and embroidered leather."

"It's not that the woman adjusts to the sari; rather the sari adjusts to the woman. The sari is just a strip of fabric without form; it's the Sari's wearer to give it a shape."

"The turban is not a symbol of Islam. If you had done your homework you would have discovered that, far from defining it as an "Islamic garment", all dictionaries and encyclopaedias define it as "Oriental or women's head-dress". And the Orient, thank God, is not composed of Muslim countries only. It includes India, for instance, which despite Muslim invasions has always managed to remain Hindu. In India the turban was used a long time before Prophet Mohammed. Think of the black turban of the gurus, of the jewelled turban of the maharajas, of the red turban of the Sikhs who by the way are the most unbending enemies of Islam."

"In November 2017, New York Times painted India’s decision to promote its indigenous textile industry as an obstacle in country’s growth. “Since the Bharatiya Janata Party formed a national government in 2014, the Indian fashion industry has been pressed to aggressively promote traditional attire and bypass Western styles” (Qadri, 2017, para, 3). It's ignorance to attack the promotion of local industries of Saree, which has been women’s attire in the Indian subcontinent since Indus valley civilisation and continues to be so today as well. “During his campaign, Mr. Modi had promised to revive the tradition of the Banarasi Saree and to help its weavers, a significant percentage of the constituency’s electorate. The weavers, who are mostly Muslim and following a family trade, largely live in poverty” (Qadri, 2017, para. 14). To prove its point, New York Times goes on to falsely claim that clothing choices are being imposed upon people. “Mr. Modi has made traditional dress a priority and, as many in the country want to please him, the fashion industry has followed along”."

"Then, as always, when Indian and European women meet, the conversation turned to the sari, this beautiful piece of clothing ... next to which each model dress of Chanel or Dior looks ridiculous, clumsy and graceless."

"The women wore a flowing robe—colorful silk sari, or homespun khaddar—which passed over both shoulders, clasped the waist tightly, and then fell to the feet; often a few inches of bronze flesh were left bare below the breast. Hair was oiled to guard it against the desiccating sun; men divided theirs in the center and drew it together into a tuft behind the left ear; women coiled a part of theirs upon their heads, but let the rest hang free, often decorating it with flowers, or covering it with a scarf. The men were handsome, the young women were beautiful and all presented a magnificent carriage; an ordinary Hindu in a loin cloth often had more dignity than a European diplomat completely equipped. Pierre Loti thought it “incontestable that the beauty of the Aryan race reaches its highest development of perfection and refinement among the upper class” in India. Both sexes were adept in cosmetics, and the women felt naked without jewelry. A ring in the left nostril denoted marriage. On the forehead, in most cases, was a painted symbol of religious faith."

"Textiles were woven with an artistry never since excelled; from the days of Cæsar to our own the fabrics of India have been prized by all the world, Sometimes, by the subtlest and most painstaking of precalculated measurements, every thread of warp and woof was dyed before being placed upon the loom; the design appeared as the weaving progressed, and was identical on either side. From homespun khaddar to complex brocades flaming with gold, from picturesque pyjamas to the invisibly-seamed shawls of Kashmir, every garment woven in India has a beauty that comes only of a very ancient, and now almost instinctive, art."

"The want of raiment is scarce an inconvenience; and the most wealthy remain by choice almost naked, when in their own families and free from the intercourse of strangers; so that all the manufacturers of cloth, for which India is so famous, derive more from the decency of their character; the luxurious taste of a rich and enervated people; and from the spirit of commerce which has prevailed among them from time immemorial; than from wants really felt; and if the manufacture of a piece of cloth was not the least laborious task in which a man can be employed in India, it is probable that the whole nation would at this day be as naked as their Gymnosophists, of which the ancients say so much and knew so little."

"On that occasion I gave a mantra, ‘Before Independence, Khadi was for the nation; after Independence, let Khadi be used for fashion.’ But I don’t insist people to become khadidhari—that is, wear only Khadi and nothing else. My appeal is that if you have numerous varieties of fabrics in your home, why not make it a point to ensure that Khadi is one of them? Just make it a point to buy Khadi products whenever you can. This campaign is carried out all over the state. As a result, we have witnessed a 40 per cent increase in the sale of Khadi in that one week of Gandhi Jayanti. I also introduced this tradition of offering a Khadi handkerchief and a book instead of offering a bouquet of flowers to dignitaries. I tell people if you give somebody flowers, within a day or two they will land in a pile of garbage. But if you give a book, it can pass on from person to person. So in every aspect of my social reform efforts, you will see the imprint of Gandhi."

"The dress of the Kashmirians consists of a large turban, awkwardly put on; a great woolen vest, with wide sleeves; and a sack, wrapped in many folds round the middle; under the vest, which may be properly called a wrapper, the higher class of people wear a pirahun, or shirt, and drawers; but the lower order have no under garment, nor do they even gird up their loins… The dress of the women is no less aukward than that of the men, and is ill adapted to display the beauties they naturally possess. Their outward, and, often, only garment, is of cotton, and shaped like a long loose shirt. Over the hair, which falls in a single braid, they wear a close cap, usually of a woollen cloth, of a crimson colour; and to the hinder part of it is attached a triangular piece of the same stuff, which, falling on the back, conceals much of the hair. Around the lower edge of the cap is rolled a small turban, fastened behind with a short knot, which seemed to me the only artificial ornament about them. You will be pleased to notice, that I speak of the dress of the ordinary women, such only being permitted to appear in public. The women of the higher classes are never seen abroad; nor is it consistent with the usage of any Mahometan nation, even to speak of the female part of a family."

"The growing of cotton appears earlier in India than elsewhere; apparently it was used for cloth in Mohenjo-daro.15 In our oldest classical reference to cotton Herodotus says, with pleasing ignorance: “Certain wild trees there bear wool instead of fruit, which in beauty and quality excels that of sheep; and the Indians make their clothing from these trees.”16 It was their wars in the Near East that acquainted the Romans with this tree-grown “wool.”17 Arabian travelers in ninth-century India reported that “in this country they make garments of such extraordinary perfection that nowhere else is their like to be seen—sewed and woven to such a degree of fineness, they may be drawn through a ring of moderate size.”18 The medieval Arabs took over the art from India, and their word quttan gave us our word cotton.19 The name muslin was originally applied to fine cotton weaves made in Mosul from Indian models; calico was so called because it came (first in 1631) from Calicut, on the southwestern shores of India. “Embroidery,” says Marco Polo, speaking of Gujarat in 1293 A.D., “is here performed with more delicacy than in any other part of the world.”20 The shawls of Kashmir and the rugs of India bear witness even today to the excellence of Indian weaving in texture and design.IV But weaving was only one of the many handicrafts of India, and the weavers were only one of the many craft and merchant guilds that organized and regulated the industry of India."

"The dress of the people, both male and female, commonly consists of a long loose wrapper and trowsers, the former of woollen cloth. As a further protection against the cold in winter the Kashmirians usually carry under their tunic an earthen pot with a small quantity of live charcoal, a practice that invariably discolours and sears the skin, and not unfrequently occasions palsy. ....The Hindu women never go veiled, and never affect concealment, either at home or abroad."

"Speaking of the weightages granted to the Muslims by the Lucknow Pact, the authors of the Joint Report observed:— "Now a privileged position of this kind is open to the objection, that if any other community here after makes good a claim to separate representation, it can be satisfied only by deducting the non-Muslim seats, or by a rateable deduction from both Muslim and non-Muslim; and Hindu and Muslim opinion are not likely to agree which process should be adopted. While, therefore, for reasons that we explain subsequently we assent to the maintenance of separate representation for Muhammadans, we are bound to reserve our approval of the particular proposals set before us, until we have ascertained what the effect upon other interests will be, and have made fair provision for them.""

"Notwithstanding this grave flaw in the Lucknow Pact, the Government of India, in its despatch referred to above, recommended that the terms of the Pact should be improved in so far as it related to the Muslims of Bengal. Its reasons make a strange reading. It argued that :— "The Muhammadan representation which they [the authors of the Pact] propose for Bengal is manifestly insufficient. It is questionable whether the claims of the Muhammadan population of Eastern Bengal were adequately pressed when the Congress-League compact was in the making. They are conspicuously a backward and impoverished community. The repartition of the presidency in 1912 came as a severe disappointment to them, and we should be very loath to fail in seeing that their interests are now generously secured. In order to give the Bengal Muslims a representation proportionate to their numbers, and no more, we should allot them 44 instead of 34 seats [due to them under the Pact].""

"The negotiations following upon these demands resulted in agreement between the Hindus and the Muslims which is known as the Lucknow Pact. It may be said to contain two clauses. One related to legislation, under which it was agreed that :— "No Bill, nor any clause thereof, nor a resolution introduced by a nonofficial affecting one or other community (which question is to be determined by the members of that community in the Legislative Council concerned) shall be proceeded with, if three-fourths of the members of that community in the particular Council, Imperial and Provincial, oppose the Bill or any clause thereof or the resolution." The other clause related to the proportion of Muslim representation. With regard to the Imperial Legislative Council the Pact provided :— "That one-third of the Indian elected members should be Muhammadans, elected by separate electorates in the several Provinces, in the proportion, as nearly as might be, in which they were represented on the provincial legislative councils by separate Muhammadan electorates.""

"The conquest, the quickened pace of commerce, and the increase of traffic between India and the heartlands of the Umayyad and Abbāsid caliphates, as well as western Asia, Africa and Europe, also led to a noteworthy dissemination of numerous Indian crops... and new agricultural techniques to parts of the world far beyond India. This process was relatively slow and less easily visible, but its results revolutionised agriculture and may well have been the most significant legacy of early Muslim rule in Sind over the long term."

"There is really no Indian agriculture as such, but a group of related regional complexes differing in important details, including inventories of cultivated plants. Sanskrit, being a supraregional language, incorporates terms relating to various regional features."

"May the ploughshares break up our land happily; may the ploughman go happily with the oxen; may Parjanya (water the earth) with sweet showers happily."

"Beef is as much a forbidden food in the Punjab as pork is in Hindostan to the natives; and to kill a cow across the Sutlege would subject the perpetrator of the deed to almost certain death."

"Bullets for the kar sevaks, biryani for the Kashmiri militants."

"The Rohillas, especially the lower classes, were, with but few exceptions, the only sect of Mahometans in India who exercised the profession of husbandry; and their improvements of the various branches of agriculture, were amply recompensed by the abundance and superiour quality of the production of Rohilcund."

"Of the poverty of these people, however, I had no idea till I this day saw the bread they eat. It is the grain of a kind of holcus, and looks like clover-seed: the flour, bran, husk and all, is made into thick coarse cakes, like those for elephants, and these are not baked as the elephants’ bread is, but laid on the fire and scorched or toasted there, so that part is raw dough, part ashes. To such a people potatoes must, indeed, be an exceeding and obvious blessing."

"Water is the only drink of every Indian respectable enough to be admitted into their assemblies of public worship, as all inebriating liquors are forbore through a principle of religion; not that the soil is wanting in productions proper to compose the most intoxicating, nor themselves in the art of preparing them for the outcasts of their own nation, or others of persuasions different from their own, who chuse to get drunk. They have not equally been able to refrain from the use of spices and these the hottest, without which they never make a meal. Ginger is produced in their gardens as easily as radishes are in ours; and chilli, the highest of all vegetable productions used for food, insomuch that it will blister the skin, grows spontaneously: these, with turmeric, are the principal ingredients of their cookery, and by their plenty are always within the reach of the poorest. A total abstinence from animal food is not so generally observed amongst them as is imagined; even the Bramins will eat fish; but as they never prepare either fish or flesh without mixing them with much greater quantities of spices than Europeans suffer in their ragouts, animal food never makes more than the slightest portion of their meal, and the preference of vegetables, of which they have various kinds in plenty is decisively marked amongst them all. The cow is sacred every where: milk, from a supposed resemblance with the ‘amortam’ or nectar of their gods, is religiously esteemed the purest of foods, and receives the preference to vegetables in their nourishment. If the rice harvest should fail, which sometimes happens in some parts of India, there are many other resources to prevent the inhabitant from perishing: there are grains of a coarser kind and larger volume than rice, which require not the same continuation of heat, and at the same time the same supplies of water, to be brought to perfection: there are roots, such as the Indian potatoe, radish, and others of the turnip kind, which without manure acquire a larger size than the same species of vegetables in Europe, when assisted with all the arts of agriculture, although much inferior to those of Peru, of which Garcilaffa della Vega gives so astonishing a description: there are ground fruits of the pumpkin and melon kind, which come to maturity with the same facility, and of which a single one is sufficient to furnish a meal for three persons, who receive sufficient nourishment from this slender diet. The fruit-trees of other countries furnish delicacies to the inhabitant, and scarcely any thing more; in India there are many which furnish at once a delicacy and no contemptible nourishment: the palm and the coco trees give in their large nuts a gelatinous substance, on which men, when forced to the experience by necessity, have subsisted for fifty days: the jack-tree produces a rich, glewy, and nutritive fruit: the papa and the plantain-tree grow to perfection, and give their fruit within the year: the plantain, in some of its kinds, supplies the place of bread, and in all is of excellent nourishment. These are not all the presents which the luxuriant hand of nature gives as food to the inhabitant of India…The sun forbids the use of fuel in any part of the year, as necessary to procure warmth; and what is necessary to dress their victuals, is chiefly supplied by the dung of their cows."

"Should any European enter their houses, they imagine them to be the polluted: neither will they eat or drink anything that has been touched by Europeans, or even Moors, who they hate – and not without reason, for they are a lazy, haughty people, oppressing without mercy where they have any power."

"If farmers become weak the country loses self-reliance but if they are strong, freedom also becomes strong. If we do not maintain our progress in agriculture, poverty cannot be eliminated from India. But our biggest poverty alleviation programme is to improve the of our farmers. The thrust of our poverty alleviation programmes is on the uplift of the farmers."

"The food of those who can afford it is partly of meat, mutton of goats or sheep, which sells at about three pence per pound. Beef is not procurable, as the Sikh ruler punishes the death of a cow capitally. The chief food of the people is vegetable; turnips, cabbages, and radishes, the Sinhara, or water-nut, and rice. The turnips are purple, or reddish, and speedily become woolly: the radishes are mostly white and strong: the cabbages do not head, but the leaves are frequently stripped. Besides these, lettuces, spinach, and other common vegetables are in extensive use, boiled into a sort of soup, with a little salt, or even the leaves of the dandelion, dock, plantain, and mallow; and the catkins of the walnut are employed as food, seasoned with a little salt, mustard, and walnut oil... Another principle article of the food of the common people, the Sinhara, or water-nut, grows abundantly in the different lakes in the vicinity of the capital, and especially in the Wular lake, which yields an average return of ninety-six to a hundred and twenty thousand ass-loads a year. It is fished up from the bottom in small nets, and affords employment to the fishermen for several months. It constitutes the almost only food of at least thirty thousand persons for five months in the year. After being extracted from the shell the nuts are eaten, raw, boiled, roasted, fried, or dressed in various ways, after being reduced to flour. The most common preparation is boiling one ser of the flour with two quarts of water, so as to form a sort of gruel, which, though insipid, is nutritive. The Sinhara, in the shell, is sold in about a rupee per load... Another article of food derived form the lakes is the stem of the Nymphaea Lotus. In the autumn, after the plate of the leaf has begun to decay, this has acquired maturity, and, being boiled till tender, furnishes a wholesome and nutritious article, which supports, perhaps, five thousand persons in the city for nearly eight months."

"Ibn Battuta’s description of the preparation of samosa would make one’s mouth water even today: “Minced meat cooked with almond, walnut, pistachios, onion and spices placed inside a thin bread and fried in ghee.”"

"Pāṇini, ArthŚā, BṛSam and Vṛkṣ(S) define the word [for wheat] as a type of grain distinct from barley and rice [...] Additionally, NāmaMā makes a curious remark: it is a mlecchabhojya, 'a food of barbarians‘."

"The savage, by his chace and the perpetual war in which he lives with the elements, is enabled to devour almost raw the flesh of the animals he has killed. In more civilised nations, the plowman from his labour is enabled to digest in its coarsest preparations the wheat he has sown. Either of these foods would destroy the common inhabitant of Indostan, as he exists at present: his food is rice. To provide this grain, we see a man of no muscular strength carrying a plough on his shoulder to the field, which the season or reservoirs of water have overflown. This slender instrument of his agriculture, yoked to a pair of diminutive and feeble oxen, is traced, with scarce the impression of a furrow, over the ground, which is afterwards sown. The remaining labour consists in supplying the field with water; which is generally effected to no greater a toil than undamming the canals, which derive from the great reservoir. If in some places this water is drawn from wells, in most parts of India it is supplied by rain; as the rice in those parts, when the rainy season is of two or three months duration, is always sown just before this season begins. When reaped, the women separate the grain from the husk in wooden mortars, or it is trampled by oxen. Instead of hedges, the field is inclosed with a slender bank of earth. A grain obtained with so little labour, has the property of being the most easily digestible of any preparation use for food, and is therefore the only proper one for such an effeminate race as I have described. There is wheat in India; it is produced only in the sharper regions, where rice will not so easily grow, and where the cultivator acquires a firmer fibre than the inhabitant of the plain. It was probably introduced with the Alcoran, as all the Mahomedans of northern extraction prefer it to rice, as much as an Indian rejects a nourishment which he cannot well digest even in its finest preparation."

"In the history of human culture the contribution of the Indian peoples in all fields has been of the greatest importance. From India we are said to have derived domestic poultry, shellac, lemons, cotton, jute, rice, sugar, indigo, the buffalo, cinnamon, ginger, pepper, sugar-cane, the games of chess, Pachisi, Polo, the Zero concept, the decimal system, the basis of certain philological concepts, a wealth of fables with moral import, an astonishing variety of artistic products, and innumerable ideas in philosophy and religion such as asceticism and monasticism."

"May the planets belonging to the moon, the sun, and Rāhu bring well-being. May the deadly comets and the Rudras of the keen brightness bring well-being. (AV 19.9.10)"

"Like Heaven with the stars, Agni appears along both firmaments (II.2.5).7"

"Agni is first established here by the ordainers, the holy invoker, to be worshipped in the sacrifices. The bearer of truth, most wise, he appears as Heaven with the stars (IV.7.1,3)."

"They gleam with armlets as the heavens are decked with stars, like cloud-born lightnings shine the torrents of their rain. Since the strong Rudra, O Maruts with brilliant chests, sprang into life for you in Pṛśni's radiant lap."

"The Maruts are visible from afar, like the heavenly ones with the stars (I.166.11)."

"May those five Bulls which stand on high full in the midst of mighty heaven, Having together swiftly borne my praises to the Gods, return. Mark this my woe, ye Earth and Heaven."

"They yoke the red horse who moves around those who stand. The lights (or constellations) shine in Heaven (1.6.1)."

"The seers of ten rays first thought out the sacrifice. May they direct us in the breaking of the dawn. The dawn opens up the night with her red horses, with the great light of the luminous sea of milk (II.34.12)."