Hymns of the Atharva-Veda — SBE Vol. 42 (Clarendon Press, 1897) — second scan
The text is shown on its own: no facing layer is held for this issue.
The translator’s English as printed. The original-language text is not held; names are romanised as the translator printed them.
ourn. Phil. XI, 342 (24 of the reprint) ff.1 The role of the frog here is distinctly the same, and is especially significant for the identification of fire and fever which is indeed superficially obvious in all the hymns and practices connected with the takman. The quaint performance of the Kau.sika-sutra, 32, 17, is as follows: namo ruraye*ti jakunin ive*shika/]g"imdinduka.m nilalohitabhya/^ sutrabhya;« sakakshaz/z baddhva2, ' while reciting AV. VII, 116, he does as in the casep. 566 of the birds, i. e. he ties a frog that has stripes like reeds (upon his body) by means of a blue and a red thread by the arm-pits (to a low couch upon which the patient is made to recline, and besprinkles him).' In order to understand this difficult Sutra we must follow the commentaries. Darila says, ^akunin ive karoti, mantroktan * adhastalpe haritasutre^a savya^anghasu baddhve*ty adivat, ' He does as in the case of the birds, i. e., as in the performance indicated in Kaui". 26, 1 8 with the words mantroktan adhastalpe, &c.' The practice in question centres about AV. I, 22, a charm directed against jaundice. In the course of it the patient is seated upon a couch beneath which the yellow birds are tied with a yellow thread by their left legs; then the patient is washed off, and his jaundice is supposed to settle upon the yellow birds where, as it were, it is naturally at home; see the introduction to I, 22. In accordance with that performance, Darila continues to expand and explain the suggestion of the practice in Sutra 32, 18, which is connected with the present hymn : ishike*va rekha yasya sa ishika;7^*i//, tam nilasutre;/a 2 lohitena ka, sutre;/a saha kakshabhya;/z baddhva ^akunin iva karoti, 'he who has a line like a reed he is a reed-marked (frog) ; him he ties with a blue and a red thread by the arm-pits and treats as he does the birds.' See also Ke^ava on the passage, and cf. Kaiu. 40, 4 ; 48, 40.
1 See also the introduction to VI, 106.
2 Shankar Pandit's reproduction of this Sutra, in the introduction to the hymn in Saya//a's commentary, is decidedly free.
From all these statements it becomes clear that the fever (Darila, ^varabhaisha^yam) is washed from the patient down upon the frog, but apparently with this difference, that the birds — homoeopathically as it were — take up the jaundice because they are themselves yellow, while the frog, allopathically, quenches the fever (fire) of the patient, d from the patient down upon the frog, but apparently with this difference, that the birds — homoeopathically as it were — take up the jaundice because they are themselves yellow, while the frog, allopathically, quenches the fever (fire) of the patient,
1 The MSS.
1 The MSS. of Darila read mantroktan ; this appears in the edition as mantroktam, because I did not know at the time that the passage is a quotation of part of Kaor. 26, 18, which see.
2 Cod. somewhat indistinctly tatnlasutre^a, obviously for tan nilasutre^a, and that again for taw (sc. ma^ukam) nilasutrerca, the plural tan being a corruption derived from the plural mantroktan in 26, 18.
p. 567
being himself cold and moist. I would also draw attention to RV. X, 166, 5, where in the course of a hostile charm occurs the expression, a vo murdhanam akramim, adhaspadan ma lid vadata ma/zduka ivo*dakat, ' I have stepped upon your head ; from under my feet do ye speak up to me like frogs from the water V A touch of this idea also is perhaps worked up symbolically in the present practice, and even more clearly in the related performance at Kaus. 48, 40.
The combination of the colours blue and red is associated everywhere with hostile witchcraft. In RV. X, 85, 28 = AV. XIV, 1, 26 (cf. iarikh. Grzh. I, 12, 8 ; Apast. Grzh. 1,5, 23) the bridal garment polluted during the consummation is spoken of as, nilalohitaw bhavati krz'tya*saktir vy a^yate, ' blue and black it is ; the sorcery, the inherent (evil) 2, is driven out.' In AV. IV, 17, 4 (see our note on that stanza) a hostile charm is made in a blue-red vessel, and red and blue threads are spread out against enemies in AV. VIII, 8, 24 (cf. Kaus. 16, 20). This sinister employment of red and blue renders it unlikely that the use of the same colours in German wedding-practices is in any way to be connected with the Hindu conception ; see Weber, Indische Studien, V, 308, note 4 ; Winternitz, Das altindische Hochzeitsrituell nach dem Apastambiya-Grzhyasutra (Imperial Academy of Vienna, vol. xl), p. 67 ; Hillebrandt, Mitteilungen der Schlesischen Gesellschaft fur Volkskunde (1894-95), I, 39 ff. Why, now, is blue and red fit for Hindu sorcery practices ? Is nilalohita night and day ?
On the other hand it seems difficult to dissociate from the present practice the Bohemian frog-charm which Grohmann, 1. c, reports as a cure against fever : ' In Bohemia the practice is to cure chills and fever (kaltes fieber) by catching a green frog at the time of the morning dews on the day preceding that of St. George.
ractice the Bohemian frog-charm which Grohmann, 1. c, reports as a cure against fever : ' In Bohemia the practice is to cure chills and fever (kaltes fieber) by catching a green frog at the time of the morning dews on the day preceding that of St. George. This is sewn into a bag which is hung about the neck of the patient without his
1 Cf. the Sutra 26, 20 in connection with the jaundice cure, vadata (sc. ^akunin) upasthapayati, and Ke^ava's comment thereon.
2 For asakti, see Ludwigs excellent remark, Der Rigveda, vol. v, p. 398.
p. 568
knowing its contents. Then the patient must pronounce the lord's prayer nine times on nine days before sunrise. On the ninth day he must go with prayer to the river, cast the bag into the water, and return home praying and without turning his face.5
The hymn has been translated and expounded by Grohmann, 1. c, pp.386, 414; Zimmer, Altindisches Leben, p. 381; and Victor Henry, Le livre VII de TAtharva-veda, pp. 45, 124. The hymn is quoted also as one of the takmanajanaga//a in the Ga;mmala, Ath. Paris". 32, 7 (Kauy. 26, i5 note).
Stanza 1.
As the verse stands the first half is hopeless prose, and yet the second half is a good ^agati-pada. Henry, 1. c, p. J 25, makes the exceedingly ingenious and plausible suggestion that the first half consisted originally also of two £*agati-padas, and stood, namo ruraya ^yavanaya dhrzsh;zave, namo ruraya ^odanaya dhr/sh^ave.
These were then by a species of haplology1 fused, so as to yield namo ruraya ^yavanaya £6danaya dhr/srmave. Still we would not go as far as Henry himself does, and make this reconstruction the basis of a translation, especially as either the word £yavanaya, or £6danaya (more probably the latter), might have entered the text as a gloss. The expulsion of either yields a good ^agati-pada, and the tradition may at any rate be respected as long as it does not interfere with good sense.
a. For ruraya, see the note to V, 22, 10 a, and cf. I, 25, 4 ; for ^odanaya, Shankar Pandit with Saya/za and some MSS. reads nodanaya.
b. purvakamakr/tvane is obscure. The Pet. Lexs. translate it, ' alte wlinsche erfiillend ; ' Grohmann and Zimmer, ' nach altem triebe thatig.' Grohmann supposes that thep. 569 word refers to the periodicity of the attacks of fever.
1 For haplology in Vedic Sanskrit, see the author in the Proceedings of the American Oriental Society for 1893 (Journal, vol. xvi, p. xxxiv).
No commentary for this page under the selected tracks.
There is commentary on page 1.