Rudram, anuvāka 7 — the drum, the rivers, the rain
The popular claimThe drum and the drumstick; the well and the pit; the cloud and the lightning; the house and its guardian.
The seventh anuvāka has the most physical geography in the Namakam. After four warrior pairs it walks through every kind of water a Vedic settlement knew, and every kind of sky.
The warrior, finished
Namo dundubhyāya cāhananyāya ca. — To the drum and the drumstick. Dundubhi — the war-drum; āhananya — Sāyaṇa: the stick that strikes it. The god is the instrument and what plays it.
Namo dhṛṣṇave ca pramṛśāya ca. — To the bold and the deliberate. Pramṛśa — the one who considers, who touches carefully; the rash and the careful, one clause.
Namo dūtāya ca prahitāya ca. — To the messenger and the one sent.
Namo niṣaṅgiṇe ceṣudhimate ca. — To the sword-bearer and the quiver-bearer.
Namas tīkṣṇeṣave cāyudhine ca. — To the sharp-arrowed and the armed.
Namaḥ svāyudhāya ca sudhanvane ca. — To the well-weaponed and the well-bowed.
Roads and waters
Namaḥ srutyāya ca pathyāya ca. — To the one in the narrow track and the one on the road. Sruti — a footpath; pathya — of the highway.
Namaḥ kāṭyāya ca nīpyāya ca. — To the one in the shallow pool and the one in the low water. Kāṭa — Sāyaṇa: a small pit of water; nīpa — the water at the foot of a slope.
Namaḥ sūdyāya ca sarasyāya ca. — To the one in the marsh and the one in the lake. Sūda — mud, mire.
Namo nādyāya ca vaiśantāya ca. — To the one in the river and the one in the tank. Nadī — river; veśanta — a small reservoir.
Namaḥ kūpyāya cāvaṭyāya ca. — To the one in the well and the one in the pit. Kūpa — the dug well; avaṭa — the hole in the ground.
Sky and weather
Namo varṣyāya cāvarṣyāya ca. — To the one in the rain and the one in the drought. Both are his; the text does not ask for one.
Namo meghyāya ca vidyutyāya ca. — To the one in the cloud and the one in the lightning.
Nama īdhriyāya cātapyāya ca. — To the one in the clear sky and the one in the heat. Īdhriya — Sāyaṇa: of the cloudless sky, the autumn brightness; ātapya — of the sun's glare.
Namo vātyāya ca reṣmiyāya ca. — To the one in the wind and the one in the storm. Reṣmi — Sāyaṇa: the whirlwind, the destructive gale.
The house
Namo vāstavyāya ca vāstupāya ca. — To the one who dwells and the guardian of the dwelling. Vāstu — the site, the house; vāstupa — its protector. The section ends at home: after every water and every sky, Rudra is the one inside the house and the one watching over it. Vāstu-śāstra takes its name from this word, and the vāstu-puruṣa of the later texts is a descendant of vāstupa here.
What the section is
It is the Namakam's map of the world a person moves through: track and road, pool and lake, river and tank, well and pit; rain and drought, cloud and flash, clear sky and heat, wind and gale; and the house. A listener who knows only that the Rudram is "about Śiva" can hear in this anuvāka what kind of Śiva — the one who is the weather and the water table.
What this page does not say
It does not claim that the rain-and-drought pair means Rudra sends both, though Sāyaṇa reads it so; the text says he is in both. It does not tie vāstupa to any modern vāstu claim. It opens the thirty-two names so that the drum, the well and the lightning are heard as what they are.
Source — Taittiriya Samhita 4.5.7 (Namakam, seventh anuvaka), Krishna Yajurveda; Sayana's bhashya on the Taittiriya; Bhattabhaskara's commentary on the Rudram
Every claim on this site names its source, and every calculator shows its arithmetic.