2 The name m%avant, however, is typical for a region far dis- tant; see Tait. S. I, 8, 6, 2 ; Va^. S. Ill, 61, and -Sat. Br. II, 6, 2, 17, in all of which Rudra with his destructive bow is entreated to depart beyond the Mu^avants : esha te rudra bhaga^ . . . tena *vasena paro mug-avato*ti*hy avatatadhanva, &c. 'Here is thy share, O Rudra; provisioned with it go beyond the Mug-avants with thy bow strung, &c/
V, 2 2. Commentary. 447
word £ara, 'going.' Ludwig's translation is very literal, c wie gross du auch geboren bist, so gross bist du heimisch bei den Bahlikas.'
a,b. I really see no present possibility of translating the words vyala vi gada vyanga ; everything suggested is mere guess-work. A brief history of the interpretation of the words may be given in lieu of any personal conviction as regards their meaning, vy&la, according to the lexicons, means either ' malicious, wily,' or ' serpent,' or some other ferocious animal, any of which meanings might be given to the demon of a severe disease. Ludwig translates it ' schlange,' a rendering which is supported in a measure by vyanga, ' limbless ; ' Grill and Hillebrandt prefer ' tuck- is^.' The text of the Sa/^hita and the Padapa/^a both have vi gada, which is doubtless felt to be an imperative. Accordingly Ludwig translates it ' sprich heraus ; ' Grill in the first edition of his { Hundert Lieder,' pp. 11, 63, emended vi gadha, and rendered * lass los.' Whitney in his Index Verborum, s.v. gad and vigada, as also in his ' Roots, Verb- Forms,' &c, under root gad suggests the reading vigada, vocative, and this is now accepted by Grill in the second edition, who renders it ' stumm,' and Hillebrandt, s.v. vigada, who entertains the same view : etwa ' wort-, sprach- los.' With this emendation in mind the word might also be translated ' O chatterer,' referring to the delirium of the patient. One may be permitted, too, to consider the possibility that gada, ' sickness,' is at the bottom of the word : vigada, ' free from sickness ' (euphemistic address to the demon of the disease) ; cf. Bohtlingk's Lexicon, s. v. In that case vfgada would be synonymous with agada, ' free from disease,' and this would remind us strongly of RV. X, 16, 6; AV. XVIII, 3, 55; Tait. Ar. VI, 4, a, yat te kr/sb/za>£ ^akuna atutoda pipila^ sarpa uta va ^vapada^, agnish /ad vLsvad agada//z krzVzotu, ' If the black bird (vulture) has bitten thee, the ant, the serpent, or even the wild animal, may all-devouring Agni restore (agada#z kr//zotu) that.' And further, we may remember that the
448 HYMNS OF THE ATHARVA-VEDA.
kush//&a-plant, the specific against takman, renders agada a person suffering from takman in AV. V, 4, 6 ; VI, 95, 3. vyanga again calls up a variety of possibilities. If we translate vyala by * serpent/ we will not fail to remember that vyanga, 'limbless/ occurs in AV. VII, 56, 4 as an epithet of the serpent, and render accordingly. So Ludwig and Grill in the second edition. Hillebrandt more vaguely, ' korperlos.' The Petersburg Lexicons, and Grill in the first edition, translate it by * fleckig ' (vi + 2,ng), which might be justified by some symptom of the disease. Non liquet.— With bhuri yavaya we have supplied va^ram from Pada d.
c. nish/akvarim with the following pun in mind: nish takmanam (suva, or the like), ' drive out the takman.' The word is air. Aey., but fairly clear as a synonym of prakir/^a \ pumska.li, vipravra^ini, bahu^ari/zi, &c. Such a person is correlated with the cross-roads; see the citations in our edition of the Grzhyasa/^graha II, 23, note 3 (Zeitschr. d. Deutsch. Morgenl. Gesellsch. XXXV, 573), and add Kaiu.
b. The etymology of balhika in the mind of the poet
(bahika ' externus ; ' cf. note on st. 5) accounts for para-
staram 'farther away.' The statement may not be utilised
for geographical purposes.
d. vi *va dhunuhi, ' shake her through as it were ' with
humorous intent. The symptom referred to is ague, and it
is paralleled by the use of the root vip in st. xo (cf. also IX,
8,6)
b. I have translated in accordance with the vulgata, bandhv addhi paretya, but not without a strong temptation to emend to bandhv adhi paretya, and translate, * having passed over to thy kinfolk, the Mahavrzshas and the Mu^a- vants.' ' Eat your kinfolk ' seems exceedingly crude even for the present production. The MSS. exhibit indigestible variants.
1 Schol. at Gr/hyasawgraha II, 22, gn'he-grzhe gamanajfla.
V, 2 2. Commentary. 449
d. anyakshetr£/zi va im£ seems to refer to other countries, nearer to the speaker than those mentioned in the stanza ; perhaps, as Grill remarks, the Anga and Magadha men- tioned in st. 14.
The exact connection between the various statements made in this stanza is not easy to find. Perhaps as fol- lows : Takman does not take pleasure in the other regions (near by), that is, he remains in the country of the person praying ; therefore he seems to be implored not to damage him personally, but to seek out other victims. But (after all?) Takman has got himself ready and will go to the remotest region, that of the Balhikas, that being the final outcome announced by the priest in charge of the exorcism. Ludwig translates anyakshetre ' in andrer leib ;' neither his, nor Grill's translation makes clear the sequence of thought.
b. The Pada is formulaic = VI, 26, 1 b.
c. The translations of pr&'rthas, our own included, are practically guess-work. The Pet. Lexicons, c ausriistung zur reise ; ' Ludwig, ' begirig nach der feme ; ' Grill, in the same spirit, 'schon riistet Takman sich zur reis ; ' Hillebrandt, ' bereitwillig.' I have translated simply upon the basis of the denominative prarthayati, ' desire, demand.' The metre demands pra-arthas.
a. We have translated rura by ' deliriously hot/ In the Atharvan it occurs only as a form of the takman (see st. 13, and I, 25, 4 ; VII, 116, 1, and cf. Tait. S. II, 5, 2, 3), but in the T&/zdya-Br&hma;za VII, 5, 10 it occurs as an epithet of Agni, and the scholiast is pretty nearly right in commenting, rtiru iti .rabdayamano dahati*ti rtira^. The word is indeed to be derived from the root ru, ' howl,' and it expresses both the heat and delirium of the fever. For agnir rura^, cf. also the mantra in Kans. 71, 6, addressed to Agni, ma no ruro^, &c. Saya^a at AV. I, 25, 4, .ritanantarabhavine ^varaya.
b. For avepaya^, cf. the note on stanza 7 d. Read k&sa avepaya^.
[42] G g
450 HYMNS OF THE ATHARVA-VEDA.
b. We have not rendered balasa by ' consumption/ with most of the authorities, on account of our distrust of the commentators : Mahidhara at Va£\ S. XII, 97, kshaya- vyadhi . . . balam asyati kshipati, and Saya/za at AV. XIX, 34, 10, balasya asanakartaraw balakshayakarakam. The explanations are of the etymologising sort, and the utter- ances of the texts as gathered by Zimmer, p. 385 ff., are not conclusive. The strongest evidence in favour of the identity or similarity of balasa and consumption is the parallel- ism of VI, 14, 1 with V, 30, 9, but even that is not conclu- sive. Further, the formal parallelism with kilasa, which means ' some kind of eruption, or leprosy/ points to a similar conclusion, ' sore, or swelling/ for balasa* Such, indeed, was Grohmann's view, Ind. Stud. IX, 396 ff. (cf. also Wise, Hindu System of Medicine, pp. 296 and 311), and we do not see that it is supported by a lesser array of intrinsic evidence. The question is still sub judice, and is not likely to be settled until the medical vSastras reveal their treatment of the disease more fully. We have there- fore not undertaken to translate the word for the present. Ludwig renders it by ' dropsy/ upon what authority, we fail to see. — Note the masculine thematic form kasam fol- lowing closely upon the fern, kasa in st. 10 b ; wre may, of course, resort to a correction of the accent (kasam), but see our note on I, 1 2, 3 b. udyuga is air. key., and might per- haps better have been left untranslated. We are permitting the word udyoga, 'exertion/ and Ludwig's rendering of udyuga by ' angestrengter husten ' to entice us. Grill retains the original, 'mit Schwindsucht, Husten, Udyuga ;' Zimmer, p. 384, ' den Balasa und den sich anschliessenden Rasa.'
c. For paman, see Grohmann, 1. c, p. 401 ff. ; Zimmer, 1. c, p. 388, and Wise, I.e., p. 261. The latter describes the disease in accordance with isTaraka's teachings as fol- lows : ' Small tubercles in great numbers of a dark or
V, 22. Commentary. 45 1
purplish hue with a copious bloody discharge accompanied with burning and itching/ In the AV. the word is ctar. Aey. The schol. at Sat. Br. Ill, 2, 1, 31 renders pama by vi£ar- £ika, 'scurf, eruption.'
a. Zimmer, 1. c, 382, suggests upon rather slender evi- dence another explanation of tr/tiyaka, ' he who produces death after the third paroxysm/ Saya/za at AV. XIX, 39, 10 comments upon the traditional text .rirshaloka/^ tr/tiya- kam (which Roth and Whitney have emended in their edition to sirshasokAm trz'tiyakam), with the result, c Thy head (O kush/^a-plant) is in the third heaven/ thus omit- ting an opportunity to tell us what tr/tiyaka is. At I, 25, 4, however, he has, trztiyadivase aga^Mate. Without doubt the takman trztiyaka is identical with ^vara trztiyaka, Su- jruta II, 404, 7 ; 405, 14, trztiyakas trztiye*hni (pravartate), i.e. the rhythmus tertianus. Wise, I.e., p. 232, says, rather obscurely, ' When the fever returns at an interval of one day it is called Tritiyaka.' — vitrztiya is an. Aey. and not altogether clear. Grohmann, 1. c, p. 388, regards this as equivalent to the tertiana duplicata, consisting of daily attacks which, however, correspond in every other day as regards the time of day in which they take place, or as regards their intensity. But vitrztiya translated philolo- gically means ' leaving aside the third day,' and there is no evidence to connect it with the tertiana duplicata. Ac- cording to our construction the vitrztiya would appear to be identical with the takman of whom it is said, yo . . . ubhayadyiir abhyeti, I, 25, 4 (see the note there), and VII, 116, 2.
b. sada/^zdi is probably the equivalent of the sa^tata- ^-vara, or satata-gvara (Wise, 1. c, 231), a kind of fever which continues without interruption for a longer period, seven, ten, or twelve days, is then followed by an interval, and again occurs and remains for several days. Saya/za at AV. XIX, 39, 10 blunderingly refers sadawdi to the kush/7za- plant, and renders it by sada rogknkm kha/z^ayita, ' the constant crusher of diseases.' He has in mind no doubt
Gg 2
452 HYMNS OF THE ATHARVA-VEDA.
the root 3. da, ' divide,' and in this sense it may be an epithet of the takman, ' always cutting.' The Pet. Lex. suggests derivation from 2. da, 'fur immer fesselnd,' which is no less apt an etymology than the preceding. Zimmer's suggestion, 1. c. 383, note, is ingenious and enticing. He would see in the word an abbreviation of *sada//z-dina, made like madhya/^-dina, and meaning there- fore ' belonging to every day ; ' this etymology may per- haps now be supported by sadadi (adverb), 'commonly/ which occurs quite frequently in the Maitraya/rf-sa/rahita, I, 5, 12 (80, 18); I, 10, 9 (149, 15), &c. — iarada here, along with grafshma and varshika in the next Padas show that the takman raged at various seasons ; it seems, however, to be associated most persistently with the autumn, at least if we may trust the adjective vuva^arada 1 in AV. IX, 8, 6 ; XIX, 34, 10. Wise, 1. c, p. 233, remarks: 'The type of fever varies according to the season of the year.'
c. Read ^anam iva as three syllables, either ^"aneva (cf. Roth, Kuhn's Zeitschrift, XXVI, 45 ff.), or^ana^ va, with reference to the Prakritic form.— jevadhim, i. e. they shall hold on to the takman like a treasure, that he may not return.
V, 23. Commentary to page 23.
The practice connected with this hymn at Ka.us. 29, 20- 26 is an amplification of that described in Kauj. 27, 14-20 in conjunction with AV. II, 31, being supplemented by a distinct therapeutical treatment of the patient, as follows : 20. ' While reciting AV. V, 23 the practitioner uses the root of a (reed-grass called) karira 2, performing the rite described in connection with the arrow (at Kslus. 27, 15) upon a cer-
Saya«a at AV. XIX, 34, 10 glosses the word with, sarvasya sarvadd va vi^ararcakartaram !