Rudram, anuvāka 1 — the bow, the arrow, and the first request
The popular claimBefore the hundred bows, the Namakam asks one thing: put the bow down.
Every Rudrābhiṣeka opens with this section, and it is the one part of the Namakam a listener can follow as sentences, because it is one. The other ten are lists; this is a plea.
The opening
Namas te Rudra manyava utota iṣave namaḥ; namas te astu dhanvane bāhubhyām uta te namaḥ. — Obeisance to your anger, Rudra, and to your arrow obeisance; obeisance to your bow, and to your two arms obeisance. The text bows first to the anger — manyu — and to the weapon, before it bows to the god. Sāyaṇa reads this as propitiation in the plain sense: one addresses what one fears.
The arrow made gracious
Yā ta iṣuḥ śivatamā śivaṁ babhūva te dhanuḥ, śivā śaravyā yā tava tayā no rudra mṛḍaya. — That arrow of yours which is most gracious, your bow which has become gracious, your quiver which is gracious — with that, Rudra, be kind to us. This is the verse in which śiva occurs three times as an adjective — śivatamā, śivam, śivā — describing the weapons, not naming the god. The reader who wants to see the word before it became the name sees it here.
The gracious body
Yā te rudra śivā tanūr aghorā'pāpakāśinī, tayā nas tanuvā śantamayā giriśantābhicākaśīhi. — That body of yours, Rudra, which is gracious, not terrible, not showing evil — with that most peaceful body, dweller on the mountain, look upon us. The text knows Rudra has two bodies and asks for the second. Giriśanta — the one on the mountain who gives peace — is the first of the mountain-names that later become Kailāsa.
The request
Yām iṣuṁ giriśanta haste bibharṣy astave, śivāṁ giritra tāṁ kuru mā hiṁsīḥ puruṣaṁ jagat. — The arrow you hold in your hand to shoot, mountain-dweller, make it gracious, mountain-guardian; do not harm man or world. Then: Śivena vacasā tvā giriśācchā vadāmasi, yathā naḥ sarvam ij jagad ayakṣmaṁ sumanā asat — with gracious speech we address you, mountain-lord, so that all our world be free of disease and of good mind. Ayakṣma — without yakṣma, the wasting disease — is the specific thing asked for.
The physician
Adhyavocad adhivaktā prathamo daivyo bhiṣak, ahīṁś ca sarvāñ jambhayan sarvāś ca yātudhānyaḥ. — May the advocate, the first divine physician, speak for us, crushing all serpents and all sorceresses. Rudra as bhiṣak, healer, is Ṛgvedic — the god of fever is the god of its cure — and this verse carries it into the Yajurveda.
The colours
Asau yas tāmro aruṇa uta babhruḥ sumaṅgalaḥ, ye cemāṁ rudrā abhito dikṣu śritāḥ sahasraśo'vaiṣāṁ heḍa īmahe. — That one who is copper-red, ruddy, brown, auspicious; and those Rudras who stand around in the directions by thousands — their anger we turn aside. The Rudras are already plural here, which the eleventh anuvāka will make its whole subject. Tāmra, aruṇa, babhru — the three colours of the sun at rising, which the commentators say is what the verse describes.
The blue-throated
Asau yo'vasarpati nīlagrīvo vilohitaḥ, utainaṁ gopā adṛśann adṛśann udahāryaḥ, utainaṁ viśvā bhūtāni sa dṛṣṭo mṛḍayāti naḥ. — That one who goes down, blue-necked, deep red; the cowherds saw him, the women carrying water saw him, all beings saw him — seen, may he be kind to us. Nīlagrīva, blue-throated, is here long before the Purāṇic story of the poison; Sāyaṇa reads the verse as the sun setting, and the blue neck as the sky at dusk. The tradition reads it as the god. Both are on the page.
Unstring the bow
Namo astu nīlagrīvāya sahasrākṣāya mīḍhuṣe, atho ye asya satvāno'haṁ tebhyo'karaṁ namaḥ. — Obeisance to the blue-throated, thousand-eyed, bountiful; and to those who are his warriors I have made obeisance. Then the verse the section exists for: Pramuñca dhanvanas tvam ubhayor ārtniyor jyām, yāś ca te hasta iṣavaḥ parā tā bhagavo vapa. — Loosen the string from both ends of your bow, and the arrows in your hand, lord, cast them away. Avatatya dhanus tvaṁ sahasrākṣa śateṣudhe, niśīrya śalyānāṁ mukhā śivo naḥ sumanā bhava. — Having unstrung the bow, thousand-eyed, hundred-quivered, having blunted the points of the arrows, be gracious to us and well-disposed. Vijyaṁ dhanuḥ kapardino viśalyo bāṇavāṁ uta, aneśann asyeṣava ābhur asya niṣaṅgathiḥ. — Stringless the bow of the braided one, arrowless his quiver; his arrows have vanished, empty his sheath.
The closing
Yā te hetir mīḍhuṣṭama haste babhūva te dhanuḥ, tayā'smān viśvatas tvam ayakṣmayā paribbhuja. — The weapon in your hand, most bountiful, your bow — with it, made harmless, protect us on every side. Namas te astv āyudhāyānātatāya dhṛṣṇave, ubhābhyām uta te namo bāhubhyāṁ tava dhanvane. — Obeisance to your weapon, unstrung, bold; and to both your arms, and to your bow. Pari te dhanvano hetir asmān vṛṇaktu viśvataḥ, atho ya iṣudhis tavāre asman ni dhehi tam. — May the weapon of your bow avoid us on every side; and that quiver of yours, lay it far from us.
What the section does
It names the fear, asks for the weapon to be put down, and asks for the gracious body to be turned toward the reciter — and only then, in the second anuvāka, does the bowing to Rudra as everything begin. The order is the theology: the god is approached first as the one to be appeased, and then as the one who is in every place.
What this page does not say
It does not choose between Sāyaṇa's reading of the sunset verses and the devotional one, and it does not say that the recitation does anything. It gives the first anuvāka as sentences, so that a listener at an abhiṣeka knows what is being asked in the first four minutes.
Source — Taittiriya Samhita 4.5.1 (Namakam, first anuvaka), Krishna Yajurveda; Sayana's bhashya on the Taittiriya; Bhattabhaskara's commentary on the Rudram; Rigveda 2.33 and 7.46, the Rudra hymns whose language this section shares
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