The speaker is the purohita, the house-priest, or chaplain of the king ; he figures prominently in all the ra^akarma^i, Kaus. 14-17.
b. Saya/za with one of Shankar Pandit's MSS. reads
406 HYMNS OF THE ATHARVA-VEDA.
vrzsham ekavmham, and glosses, se^anasamarthanaw virya-
vatara purushaf/aw madhye imam ra^anam . . . mukhya-
sektaram asahaya^uram . . . kuru; cf. our note on III, 5, 7.
c. nir aksh/zuhi, lit. 'castrate,' continuing the picture of the preceding Pada : the king is to be a bull, his enemies castrated. Cf. RV. I, 33, 6 ; Sat. Br. IV, 4, 2, 13 ; XIII, 4, 2, 5, and the word mahanirashifa. Ludwig, ' drive out ; ' Zimmer, ' zerstreue ; ' Saya/za, sa;/zku/£itaprabhavan kuru.
d. Saya;/a divides aham uttareshu, with the result, ' I
(the purohita) put him among the highest rulers.' Cf.
XII, 4, 50.
c. The Tait. Br. II, 4, 7, 7, the Paippalada, and Saya;/a read varshman, loc. sing. I see no cogent reason for giving up (with Zimmer, Hillebrandt, and Grill) the reading of our MSS., varshma.
IV, 28. Commentary to page 158.
Bhava and Sarva, two of the well-known forms (murti) of Rudra (cf. especially their epithet ugra in sts. 3, 6, 7) 1J are implored by virtue of their cosmogonic powers to afford protection against calamity, and, with the familiar Athar- vanic specialisation, to destroy sorceries and demons. The ritual, Kau^. 28, 8, regard the hymn as medicinal (sarva- vyadhibhaisha^yam, 'a remedy for all diseases'). Seven cornucopias are made from (leaves of) the kampila (crinum amaryllacee), filled with water, and anointed with the dregs of ghee. With the right hand the water is poured upon the patient, and the cornucopias are thrown behind the patient. The connection between the prayer and the practice is not manifest. The hymn is rubricated also in takmana^-anaga^a of the Ga/zamala, Ath. Pari*. 32, 7 ; see Kauj. 26, 1, note. It has been translated by Muir, I.e., P- 332.
1 See the introduction to XI, 2 for the Vedic texts, and the Western literature, dealing with this subject.
Iv, 36. Commentary. 407
b. The periphrastic expression stuvann emi is so strange
to the padakara as to induce him to divide it into stuvan
nemi. Saya^a blunders still further, reading stuvan nemi
(stuvan pra^a;^san , . . nema/z ardhaw balam asya*sti*ti
nemi).
a. mulakr/t, ' manipulator of roots,' is so characteristic a feature in sorcery-practice, as to give rise to specific prohibition of the act ; see Vish/zu-smrzti XXV, 7 ; Manu IX, 290, and cf. Naraya/za on the latter passage in Biihler's translation of Manu, Sacred Books of the East, XXV, 394.
IV, 36. Commentary to page 35.
The hymn is one of the Mtanani (sc. suktani), ' hymns which drive away demons and diseases,5 Kau.y. 8, 25. The entire list (ga^a) is employed at Kauj. 25, 22, among the bhaisha^yani, ' remedial charms,' against bhuta and pua£a ; the performance connected with the recital of the ga;/a is identical with the so-called apanodanani, ' practices to drive away,' described at Kau^. 14, 14 ff. They consist chiefly in burning chaff, spelt, offal of grain, and wood shavings, symbolizing, doubtless, rapid consumption or destruction.
The hymn has been translated by Ludwig, Der Rigveda,
III, 526; Grill2, pp. 3, 136 ff. The Anukramam, satyau-
£-asam agneyam (cf. st. 1).
The first hemistich is not at all clear, agare being air. key. and uncertain. We have taken it with the Pet. Lexs. and Ludwig as = agara, and it is to be noted that two MSS. of S£ya«a's commentary (& Kd) read agaro for agaro. Cf. also agara at Asv. Grzh. I, 7, 21. 'Saya/^a etymologises, agiryate samantad bha^yate ma/^sa.yomtadikam atre*ti agaro yuddharanga^. Grill, supported by a more recent utterance of Roth, renders ; unter rufen.' In that case agara would be 'shouting to' (cf. akro^a, Kerava, p. 327, and
408 HYMNS OF THE ATHARVA-VEDA.
often elsewhere), pratikrcra, ' shouting back,' i. e. ' under shouting and counter-shouting.' We have taken amavasya as an adjective = amavasya, ' in the night of the new moon ' (Pacini IV, 3, 30. 31). Cf. our note on I, 16, 1. Saya/za aptly quotes from the Apast. Sr. the following passage : ' In the night of the new moon one shall offer to Agni, the slayer of Rakshas, a rice-cake in twelve cups.' Note the concatenation between this and the following stanza.
The sense is that the superior gods who vie with the sun
(RV. I, 98, 1 ; 123, 12 ; V, 4, 4 ; IX, 27, 5) shall afford pro-
tection against the Pua^as to man and beast.
Note the pun between piskkaiA and .raknomi, and the
concatenation with the following stanza. For grama, see
the note on VIII, 7, 11.
a. Saya/za with some MSS. reads lipita^ (upadigdha/z
sa^kranta^), and Whitney in the Index, guided perhaps by
the pada-MSS., which read lapita without visarga, suggests
lapitva. But the text seems well enough as it stands.
d. alpa^ayun is uncertain : Saya^a, alpakaya^ . . . kiz^, and we accordingly. Ludwig (c, d), * mein ich, sind sie ungliicklich, nur kurze zeit mer im volke verweilend ' (cf. RV. 1,31, 2; 111,55,6; IV, 1 8, 12).
IV, 37. Commentary to page ^.
The plant a^a.srzngi'1, or, as it is called synonymously by Darila, mesha^zngi, 'goat's horn ' (Saya/za, again synonym- ously, visha/zi), is the odina pinnata ; see Zimmer, p. 68. The hymn is directed against Visakas, Apsaras, and Gan-
1 In stanza 6 it has the additional obscure epithet ara/akl Sayarca, ant . . . a/ayati u^atayati.
Iv, 37- Commentary. 409
dharvas, and, according to Darila at Kau^. 28, 9-1 1, it is em- ployed in a remedial charm against one possessed by Visakas (pua^agrzhita). Ke^ava and Saya?/a, more broadly and correctly, sarvabhutagrahabhaisha^yam. The practices are stated as follows : 9. ' While pronouncing IV, 37 the prac- titioner takes pulverised jam! (i.e. the pulverised leaves, or fruit, of the prosopis spicigera) from a basket (and puts it) into the food (of the patient) x. 10. (He puts it also) into the cosmetics (of the patient). 11. He scatters (the pulverised .rami) around the house (of the patient) V The hymn is also rubricated among the Mtanani (sc. suktani) ' hymns to drive away with/ Kaus. 8, 25. Cf. vSantikalpa 17 and 21 3. Adalbert Kuhn, in Zeitschr. f. vergl. Sprachf. XIII, 1 18 fT., has translated this hymn and compared it with parallel conceptions in the Teutonic folk-lore. Especially good are the parallels drawn between the Apsaras, who, from the time of RV. X, 95 onwards, are engaged in enticing heroes and divine seers 4, with the Germanic elfs who fascinate the wanderer at night with their dance* The hymn has also been rendered by Ludwig, Der Rigveda, III, 352.
The description of the natural abode of the Apsaras in this and the following stanzas is in accord writh the Brah- manical view from earliest times. Cf. the apya yosha, ' water- woman,' RV. X, lo, 4 ; Bergaigne, La Religion Vedique, II, 35, 40, 96 ; III, 65 fT. ; A. Holtzmann, Zeitschr. d. Deutsch. Morg. Gesellsch. XXXIII, 631 ff. The fanciful list of names embodies largely a superficial personification of fragrant cosmetics and ointments: bdellium, spikenard, fragrant salve, &c.
1 According to Ke^ava and Sayawa he puts pulverised leaves of jami into a jami-fruit, and feeds the patient upon that. Cf. Kau,r. 47> 23-
2 As there is no mention of the jami in the hymn, one is almost tempted to identify the a^a^nngi with it.
3 Shankar Pandit, erroneously, Nakshatrakalpa 17 and 21.
4 Cf. our note on VI, in, 4.
4-IO HYMNS OF THE ATHARVA-VEDA.
For aukshagandhi, cf. auksham in our note on II, 36, 7, and in the introduction to I, 34 ; pramandani' reminds us of pramanda, Kaorika, Introduction, p. lii. See also Kuhn, 1. c, 127.
b. Bohtlingk, in his lexicon, proposes avajvase, dative
infinitive, ' to blow away.' Saya/za and the Paippalada
read iva svasam for ava^vasam. The former glosses,
susht/m nauprera/zakiu-alam yatha titirshavo ^*ana upaga-
£/?anti.
f. Saya^a reads pratibaddha/z for pratibuddha^ (nirud- dhagataya^) in this and the subsequent stanzas.
We have adopted Shankar Pandit's arrangement of sts. 4-6, to wit : his st. 4 is made up of vulgata 4 a, b + 3 e, f, which is repeated by all his MSS. ; his st. 5 is the rest of vulg. 4 ; and his st. 6 is vulg. 5 + 6. Sayaz/a does not insert the additional hemistich, but he also differs from the vulgate in his arrangement.
b. The Pet. Lex. suggests ^ikha;^ini//, vocative, ' crested/ as an epithet of the Apsaras ; cf. the same epithet of the Gandharva in st. 7. Saya/za simply ' peacocks.' We prefer the poetic figure : the crowns of the great trees are likened unto crests.
a. For the epithet anr/tyata//, cf. the parinr/tyati apsara in IV, 38, 3.
c, d. The epithet avakada, ' devouring avaka-reeds ' (blyxa octandra), is clear. The Gandharvas live on the shores of waters, and the avaka is the typical water-plant. See our Contributions, Second Series, Amer. Journ. Phil. XI, 342 ff. (especially 349 ff.) ; Roth, in Festgruss an Otto von Bohtlingk, p. 97 ff. Less certain is havirada, ' devouring oblations.' The sense of the hemistich might be taken pregnantly: The Gandharvas who devour our oblation, though their natural food is the avaka-reed, &c. But
I have in mind RV. X, 95, 16, where the Apsaras Urva^i exclaims that upon eating a drop of ghee her appetite was cloyed for ever (cf. Hariva;//^a 1377 ; Vish//u-pura//a IV, 6, 28, and Geldner, Vedische Studien, I, pp. 263, 282). The Atharvan is reminiscent, and fond of generalising salient features of legends. It seems possible that the Gandharvas are substituted for the Apsaras who represent the Apsaras par excellence, Urva^i. Saya/za on the AV. evinces his customary and astonishing talent of dodging difficulties by means of bad variant readings, to wit : abhi- hradan abhigatahladan prapta^allyayan va.
Professor von Roth in Festgruss an Otto von Boht- lingk, pp. 97 fT., proposes to read ^yotayamamakan (Pada- paz7za, ^yotaya mamakan) as one word, and interprets the word in his inimitably ingenious manner as^pLra/kadipika, ' will o' the wisp, Jack o' lanthorn.' Yet we have adopted the simpler solution of the difficulty, proposed by Whitney in Festgruss an Rudolf von Roth, p. 91. He proposes ^yotayamanakan, comparing pravartamanaka, RV. I, 191, 1 6. In both cases the suffix ka is truly diminutive, indi- cating that the action of the verb is undertaken by a dimi- nutive agent ; cf. also ava^arantika, AV. V, 13, 19 (see the note there), and the Mantrabrahma/za of the Sama-veda II, 7, 3, athai*sha//z (sc. krimi/zam) bhinnaka/z kumbha/z. ' Little shiner ' would be the literal translation of ^yotaya- manakan, and Roth's comparison with the will o' the wisp may yet hold good.
b. The epithet sarvake^aka reminds one of hairiness as a sign of sexual power, RV. I, 126, 7 ; X, 86, 16. a very suitable attribute of the Gandharva ; cf. also kapi in vrzshakapi in X, 86. But the word for 'hair' in both these passages is roma, while sarvakejaka naturally refers to the hair of the head ; RV, X, 136, 6. Yet the two conceptions may be connected.
412 HYMNS OF THE ATHARVA-VEDA.
IV, 38. Commentary to page 149.
Both the internal evidence of the stanzas themselves (including the metre), and their employment in the ritual prove the composite character of this hymn. The Anu- krama^i, too, significantly describes the hymn as dvideva- tyam. A gambling song of four stanzas is combined with cattle-charm of three stanzas, apparently for the purely formal reason that every hymn of the fourth book must consist of at least seven stanzas ; cf. AV. XIX, 23, 4 ; Gop. Br. I, 1, 8; Ath. Pari.?. 46, 9. 10; Ind. Stud. IV, 433 ; XVII, 178 ; Kaorika, Introduction, p. xli. Saya/za is the only authority that makes a blend of the two parts. He comments upon yasam rzshabho, &c, in st. 5, as follows: yasam apsarasam . . . se^anasamartha^ pati^.
The practices connected with' the gambling-song are
reported at Kaar. 41, 10-13, as follows: 10. 'Under the
constellation purva asha^a^1 the gambler digs a pit (in
the gambling-house), ti. Under the constellation uttara.
%.$\Adhkh he (again) fills up the pit. 12. He smoothes
the place where the play takes place. 13. While reciting
IV, 38, 1-4; VII, 50 ; and VII, 109 he throws dice which
have been steeped (in curds and honey during the three
nights [and days] beginning with" the thirteenth day of the
month ; see Kauj*. 7, 19)!'
This part of the hymn has been rendered by Muir,
Original Sanskrit Texts, V,- 430 ; Ludwig, Der Rigveda,
111,454; Grill2, pp. 71, 140 ff. ; cf. also A. Holtzmann,
Zeitschr. d. Deutsche Morg. Gesellsch. XXXIII, 631 ff.