General Index to the 49 Volumes of the Sacred Books of the East (SBE Vol. 50; comp. M. Winternitz, 1910)

Vanma punishes crime, especially falsehood (cf. AV. IV, 16 ; Tait. Br. I, 7, 2, 6, &c), with his disease, the ' water- belly/ dropsy1. The performance of the K audita is purely symbolic: 25,37. 'While reciting the hymn (the priest) sprinkles the patient over the head (with water) by means of twenty-one tufts of darbha-grass together with reeds taken from the thatch of a house.' The water in the body is supposed to be washed out by the water sprinkled upon it (attractio similium).

The hymn has been translated by Weber, Ind. Stud. IV,
403-4 ; Ludwig, Der Rigveda, III, 445 ; cf. also Bergaigne
et Henry, Manuel Vedique, p. 133.

b. Weber regards visa as fern. sing. ; Whitney, in the
Index Verborum, as nom. plur. masc. ; Saya/za, as neut. plur.,
va^a va^ani. Varu/za and Asura are, of course, the same
divinity.

e. Weber, ' durch mein gebet von da herauss dich reis-
send ; ' Ludwig, ' mit meinem brahma hervor mich tuend ; '
Saya^a, brahma^a mantrena . . . ^a^adana^ atyartham
tikshTza^ . . . praptabala^.

c, d. The passage is a reverberation from the legend of ^unaZ/i-epa ; cf. Ait. Br. VII, 15.

1 Varu/za is the lord of the waters (see the note on IV, 16, 3) : the dropsy is therefore conceived to be due to his infliction. [42] R

242 HYMNS OF THE ATHARVA-VEDA.

d. For tava*yam, cf. VIII, 2, 20 d. Ludwig suggests that the sufferer, being a kshatriya, is said to be the man of Varu/za, the king (kshatriya). Weber construes it as though it were an ethical dative, * dieser lebe dir (i. e. durch deine gnade) hundert Herbste.' Saya^a, identically the same way, tava anugrahat.

a, b. Ludwig, rendering ' von dem grossen meere VaLr- vanara,' thinks that the lower regions are alluded to, since death overtakes him that has been seized by Varu//a. Saya;/a over-ingeniously connects vaLrvanara with the digestive fire (ga/^arigni), i. e. in this connection, digestive disturbance. But AV. VIII, 2, 27 shows that nothing more is intended than the funeral fire. Cf. for the entire stanza, Vait. Su. 38, 1.

I, 11. Commentary to page 99.

The ceremonies connected with this hymn are described in K&US. 3$, 1 ff. They are in part intended to procure easy and natural parturition, but the attention of the sutra- kara seems to be engrossed even more by certain oracles which shall tell whether the woman is in danger, and whether or not she will give birth to a male child. As the practices, in spite of their unusual length, do not ex- hibit any very close connection with the hymn, we may only present the first six Sutras, as follows: 1. 'While reciting AV. I, 11, four portions of the dregs of ghee are poured into a water-pail, and four mu;^a-reeds are plucked (and placed) eastward upon the head (of the pregnant woman :). 2. The sheaths (of the mu^a-reeds) are placed westward. 3. If (these reeds and stalks) should break, there is danger. 4. (The practitioner) washes her with warm water, beginning with the braid of hair to the right.

1 Cf. the four directions mentioned in the second stanza of the hymn.

I, Ii. Commentary. 243

5. The joints of the house are loosened1. 6. On both sides of her a cord and a wagon-rope is fastened.' The remaining Sutras are not all of them clear ; they seem to be devoted wholly to oracles for finding out whether it is to be a boy or not.

Practices similar to the above, in part built up upon mantra-materials of a similar character, are known in the GWhya-sutras and elsewhere by the name of soshyanti- karma; see Sat. Br. XIV, 9, 4, 2,2 = Brih. Ar. VI, 4, 23; Par. Grih. I, 16, 1 ff. ; Sankh. Grih. I, 23 ; Gobh. Grih. II, 7, 13 ff. ; Khad. Grih. II, 2, 28 ff. ; Hir! Grih. II, 2, 8 ff. ; Apast. Grih. VI, 14, 13 ff.

The hymn has been treated by Roth, Ueber den Atharva-
veda (Tubingen, 1856), pp. 15 ff. ; Weber, Indische Studien,
IV, 404-5 ; Ludwig, Der Rigveda, III, 478.

a, b. The point of the first hemistich is the punning comparison of the birth (suti) with the act of pressing the soma. This makes of it a sacrifice ; Aryaman, as the hotar-priest, utters the vasha/-call for Pushan who is, as it were, the adhvaryu-priest ; cf. Ind. Stud. X, 324. Lud- wig's surmise that Sushan is to be read for Pushan (cf. stanza 3) is untenable. The association of the two in matters connected with marriage (RV. X, 85, 36, 37) is well known 2. For hota vedha^, see Ludwig, Der Rigveda, III, pp. 223-4; vedha^, however, is not derivable from the root vidh, but is equal to Avestan vazdanh (Geldner, Studien zum Avesta, p. 58).

c. The Pada is very difficult. Roth emends freely, sisri- Xkm nary rztapra^ato, ' (a child) begotten at the proper time shall detach itself. O woman!' He compares, for this use of sfsrztam, V&g. S. VIII, 28, eva*ya;/z da^amasyo asrat,

1 Symbolic action calculated to loosen the foetus ; cf. in general AV. IX, 3.

? The mantra quoted in Kaor. 33, 7 is also based upon the same hymn, RV. X, 85, 40 (the surya-sukta).

244 HYMNS OF THE ATHARVA-VEDA.

where asrat is, however, to be derived from sra//zs, ' fall.' Weber regards nary rz'tapra^ata as parenthetic, and com- bines sisratam with parvam, ' lass nachgeben — mog die frau richtig gebaut sein! — lass weichen die glieder!' Ludwig, ' es lose sich die frau als eine richtig gebarende.' We have adhered closely to the text, but sisratam as a third singular middle imperative is problematic, and perhaps Roth's emen- dation (sisntam) is to be adopted. Possibly some deriva- tive of sraws stood in place of the word (sfsrasat, ' may she cause the child to fall ' ?).

d. The editio princeps reads taw vyur/mvantu sutave ;
Shankar Pandit, following the minority of his MSS. and
Saya;za, reads taw, which was also proposed by Roth, 1. c,
p. 15, and adopted by Weber, 1. c, p. 405. I have trans-
lated taw, because the womb and not the foetus (cf. AV.
IV, 2, 8) is opened at birth.

a. We shall, in all probability, never be able to unravel the tangle of mixed, punning notions which have given rise here to the air. Aey., the proper name Sushan. Ludwig is impressed with it so much as to endow the entire hymn with the title Sushan. In the first place it is a modification of Pushan, suggesting the future or desiderative of the root su, 'beget;' cf. sushyanti, RV. V, 78, 5. Then, there is surely an allusion to usha(/z) vyur/zvati' in RV. I, 92, it, that is, susha is dimly felt to be su + usha, ' beautiful Ushas ;' cf. Tait. S. IV, 7, 3, 2. Sayafza plainly and mechanically offers this as one of three explanations, ^obhana usha^ susha. And again the words su 'well' and san 'obtain' may also have flitted before the eyes of the versifex, cf. susha^e in Pada c. Saya/za offers two explanations in addi- tion to the above, susha savitri pra^anayitri devata, and suvaw sanoti*ti susha. The Pada is catalectic, but scarcely stands in need of emendation ; cf. Oldenberg, Die Hymnen des Rigveda, pp. 34 ff.

I, Ii. Commentary. 245

b. Cf. RV. V, 78, 5 ; Ait. Br. V, 15, 4.

c. Susha//e (ct7r. Aey. as sush£ in P&da a) may be a voca- tive from either susham or susha^a Saya^a, he susha//e, suva;^ sanoti praya^^ati . . . sukhaprasavak&ri/zi devat&.

d. Still more problematic is bishkale. Saya^a explains it as either from bishka, an imitative word, and the root la * take ' or ' make,' or else from a combination of the roots vish * permeate* and kal 'go!' According to the 5abda- kalpadruma, bishkala is the domestic sow (gramya^ukara^) called bahv-apatya, ' having abundant offspring/ on account of its prolificness.

Cf. Par. Grih. I, 16, 2; Hir. Grzh. II, 3, 3. Saya/za,
supported by some MS. authority, reads ma^sena, as does
P&raskara. Saya;/a quotes from an unquotable Vedic text
(nigam&ntaram) another form of this mantra, svavity (!) avapa-
dyasva na ma/^seshu na snavasu na baddham asi ma^asu.

c. vSevalam is problematic. The scholiast to Paraskara renders it ' moist, slimy,' and the Petersburg lexicon s sus- picion that this is a purely etymological rendering based upon the name of the water-plant .raivala is fully borne out by Saya^a's statement, ^evalam ^alasyoparisthit&yaivalavat antaravayavasa/^baddham. Roth, I.e., p. 16, suggests kevalam, 4 alone ; ' cf. for the interchange between s and k, Bloomfield and Spieker in the Proc. Amer. Or. Soc. for May, 1886 (Journ., vol. xiii, p. exxi).

Cf. Tait. S. Ill, 3, 10, 1 ; AV. I, 3, 6. Saya/za, gavinike yone^ par^vavartinyau nirgamanapratibandhike nadyau.

Cf. RV. V, 78, 7-8; Sat. Br. XIV, 9, 4, 22; V^f. S. VIII, 28; Nirukta III, 15; Hir. Grih. II, 3, 1; Apast. Mantrabr. II, 11, 15; Bhar. Grih. I, 21; Baudh. Grih. Parmsh/a II, 2.

246 HYMNS OF THE ATHARVA-VEDA.

I, 12. Commentary to page 7.

The history of the interpretation of this hymn is of uncommon interest, because it illustrates forcibly the par- ticular closeness of relation between the hymns of the Atharvan and the practices reported in connection with them. Professor Weber, Indische Studien, IV, p. 405, translated the hymn under the caption fGegen hitziges fieber,' 'and, guided especially by the more immediate meaning of ^arayii^a^, 'the product of the placenta, after- birth,' he thought that the hymn referred to puerperal fever, or the fever of a child. Ludwig, Der Rigveda, III, p. 343, surmised that the hymn was directed against inflam- mation, and Zimmer, Altindisches Leben, p. 390, refers to it in connection with the word vata in the first stanza, which he would translate by ' wound ; ' he also identifies vata with ' wound ' etymologically. The compound vata- bhra^as in the first stanza, as he understands, means ' suffering from wound-fever/ But Zimmer's theory that the word vata ever means ' wound ' has not sustained itself: vata is 'wind in the body;' vatikrztanayani (VI, 44, 3 x) is ' destroyer of the disease which comes from wind (of the body) ;' cf. bata byadhi (vatavyadhi), 'diseases pro- duced by wind (in the body),' in Wises Hindu System of Medicine, p. 250, and see Contributions, Fourth Series, Amer. Journ. Phil. XII, p. 427.

In Seven Hymns of the Atharva-veda, 1. c, VII, pp. 469 ff., I presented a full discussion of the hymn, and, aided by the indications of the Kaurika-sutra, showed that the hymn referred to lightning, which is regarded as pro- ductive of certain diseases mentioned in the context, to wit, fever (cf. the word ^o^isha in st. 2), headache, and cough. The pivotal word in the hymn is ^arayu^a^, and it is interesting to note why it is especially misleading. The first book of the Atharvan is a miscellaneous collec-

1 Cf. the note there, at VI, 109, 3, and IX, 8, 20.

I, 12. Commentary. 247

tion of hymns containing for the most part, though not unfailingly, four stanzas each (cf. AV. XIX, 23, 1 ; Atharvd- nukramam I, 1, 13; Ath. Park 48, 9 and 10; Gop. Br. I, 1, 8 ; Ind. Stud. IV, 433 ; XVII, 178). There is no definite order in the arrangement of the hymns within the book, but there appears a marked tendency to group together two or even three having the same or a similar subject. This concerns especially hymns n-13. The eleventh is a charm for easy delivery in childbed. The last three stanzas end with the refrain, ava ^arayu padyatam, ' may the placenta come down ; ' in addition to this the word £*arayu occurs thrice more in the course of the last three verses. Now, there can be no doubt that the redactor placed our hymn (I, 12) after I, 11 simply because it begins with the word gaxayugkh \ This does not argue that he misunderstood the true nature of the hymn ; on the con- trary it is quite clear that he recognised its association with lightning, because he has placed after it I, 13, a hymn which is evidently a prayer to lightning (namas te vidyiite, &c). He placed I, 12 after I, 11 simply because the word g-a.r&yug&k offered as good a point of linkage as any other at hand, the fundamental difference in its value notwith- standing. But it is natural that European readers should have seized upon this erroneous suggestion, so as to be influenced by it in deciding the purpose of the hymn.