d. pitr/shu, ' with her relatives,' as stated more explicitly in st. 2. So also Saya/za. Cf. the words pitrzshad and ama^iir in the lexicons. But there seems to be intended, too, an allusion to the manes, i. e. to death ; cf. the intro- duction,
a, b. Saya^a, here and in the next stanza, refers ra^an to
Soma, supporting his hypothesis by a reference to RV. X,
85, 40, where Soma is said to have been the first to woo
the maiden, being followed by Gandharva, Agni, and man.
Cf. also Vas. Dharm. XXVIII, 5.
c, d. It depends upon circumstances whether the girl lives with her (widowed) mother, or her father, or, after the decease of her parents, with her brother ; cf. for the latter contingency, AV. I, 17, 1.
1 Unless the word faanahata, Kaiw. 36, 15, has misled the author of that very late and bungling performance.
I, 14. Commentary. 255
a. Saya//a comments upon kulapa instead of kulapa(/z) of the Sa;//hita and Padapa/^a.
d. The MSS. unanimously have this Pada in the form a .rirsh/za^ jam6pyat (Padap., jam opyat). Saya;/a emends to samopyat, commenting, .rirasa^ sa;/zvapanat bhumau sa/^pa- tanat, ' until her head sinks to the ground/ This coin- cides with the reading of the Paippalada, and is accepted by Shankar Pandit and Whitney ; see Festgruss an Rudolf von Roth, p. 90. For the interchange between s and s, see our article in the Proc. Amer. Or. Soc, May, 1886 (Journal, vol. xiii, p. cxx). The text in this form might mean ' until she scatters from her head,' i. e. ' until she becomes bald.' Even after the authority of the Paippalada I venture to repeat, very hesitatingly, my suggestion (Amer. Journ. Phil. VII, p. 476), that a sirshnik ke^am opyat may have been the original text of the Saunakiya-^akha. ' Let her scatter her hair from her head/ or * let her scatter the hair of her head,5 either by growing bald, or as a sign of mourning (cf. Contributions, Second Series, Amer. Journ. Phil. XI, pp. 336 ff.). Opya as a noun is very strange, and sam + a -h upyat (precative) would seem to require an expressed object in the accusative. We are reminded, too, of the expression kejan pra vapanti, 'they let down their hair,' AV. XIX, 32, 2, as a sign of mourning.
a, b. The juxtaposition of Ka^yapa and Gaya reminds
one of Ka^yapa of Gayd, who plays a conspicuous part in
the Buddha legend. Asita is another worthy in the same
narrative. See the words in the Pet. Lex., and cf. our note
on IV, 20, 7.
c. ^ami, in the broader sense of the word in the later
language, 'female relatives of the householder.' Saya;/a,
striya/fc ; cf. Nirukta III, 6.
256 HYMNS OF THE ATHARVA-VEDA.
I, 16. Commentary to page 65.
The Kaimka, 47, 23-4, presents this hymn in the sixth book, devoted to the witchcraft practices (abhiMrikam), as follows: 33. 'While reciting AV. 1, 16 he who performs the practice collects ground lead, and puts it into the food (of his enemy), or upon the ornaments (upon his person). 24. With a staff, made from a decayed bamboo-reed, as long as an arm, and ornamented *, he strikes (the enemy)/ According to the Paribhasha-sutra, Ka.us. 8, 18, the word ' lead ' in these practices is to be construed very broadly, including both lead itself, ' river-lead ' (i. e. according to the commentators, river-foam), iron-filings, and the head of a lizard. In Contributions, Third Series, Journ. Amer. Or. Soc. XV, pp. 157 ff, I have endeavoured to show that this class of practices is founded upon the famous legend of Indra and Namu^i, in which Indra slays Namu^i with the ' foam of the waters.' The other substances seem to be substituted for practical reasons, being more easily obtained and more readily handled. They may, of course, have been regarded as available for this purpose for other reasons, that escape us.
The hymn has been translated by Weber, Ind. Stud. IV,
409; Grill2, pp. 1, 75. The Anukramam describes the
hymn as /£atanam, ' charm to chase away with,' and accord-
ingly it figures in the series called £atanaga#a in the
Ga/zamala, Ath. Paris*. 32, 3 ; see Kaos*. 8, 25 note.
a. In Apastamba's Dharmasutra I, n, 31, 21 we have: ' During the day the sun protects the creatures, during the night the moon. Therefore let him eagerly strive to pro- tect himself on the night of the new-moon by purity, con-
1 The term alawkn'ta here seems to mean technically 'anointed (with ghee);' see Darila at Kaux. 48, 3, and c£ Kauj. 47, 40. 44.
I, 17. Commentary. 257
tinence, and rites adapted to the season.' Cf. also AV. IV, 36, 3 ; Tait. S. II, 2, 2, 2 ; Maitr. S. II, 1, 11. The accu- sative ratrim is not favoured by the metre, and we should expect r£tryam. Saya/za, sarvasya/^ ratrau udasthu^ uttish- /^anti.
b. Saya^a reads bhra£*am for vra^am, to wit: rktxlm
raganinz bhragam bhra^amanam ; or again, bhra^amanarn
. . . purushaw hi^situm udasthu^. He repeats this read-
ing when quoting the stanza in his comment on II, 9, 1.
Cf. also the note on vatabhra^a/^, I, [2, ib.
c. Saya/za takes turiya in the sense of ' fourth,' as allud- ing to the well-known legend of the three older brothers of Agni who were worn out in the sacrificial service before the present Agni ; see RV. X, 51 and 52 ; Sat. Br. I, 2, 3, 1 ; Tait. S. II, 6,6; Mahabh. Ill, 222, 7 = 14214, &c. (cf. Ludwig, Der Rigveda, V, 504-5). But turiya is the equiva- lent of tura, e. g. RV. VIII, 52, 7.
For the uses of lead in the ritualistic texts, see Weber, 1. c, p. 410, and our article on Indra and Namu^i, quoted above in the introduction.
For a full discussion of vishkandha, either some disease,
or, as seems to us more likely, a kind of demon, see the
note on II, 4, 1.
I, 17. Commentary to page 22.
This charm against flow of blood is the only one of the kind in the Atharvan. Ke^ava specifies that it is employed against internal and external flow of blood and (excessive) menstruation, atha lohita/^ vahati ^ariramadhye bahis ka. . . . rudhiravra^e . . . strira^aso^tipravartane bhaisha^ya/^ rudhirapravahe ka. The Kau^ika attaches to it the fol- lowing performances at 26, j 0-13 : 'While reciting AV. I, 17 (the practitioner) strews dust and sand around (the wound) with a bamboo-staff containing five joints (accord- [42] S
258 HYMNS OF THE ATHARVA-VEDA.
ing to Kcrava he places the staff upon the wound [cf. Kaiu. 36, 9, sa/^stabhya], and then strews the dust and sand 1). 11. He ties on mud from a marsh2. 12. He gives (the patient a solution of it) to drink. 13. He (also) gives (him) to drink a mixture of curds and ground sesame, along with four tips of millet-grass/ The chief point of relation be- tween the practices and the hymn is the application of a bandage or poultice of dust and sand which seems indi- cated in the fourth stanza with the words sikatavati dhanur.
The first stanza of the hymn is quoted with variants in
Yaska's Nirukta, III, 4, from an unknown source ; the
Anukrama^t designates the hymn as yoshiddevatyam.
Previous translations by Weber, Ind. Stud. IV, 441 ; Lud-
wig, Der Rigveda, III, 508; Grill2, pp. 16, 76; cf. also
Hillebrandt's Vedachrestomathie, p. 46.
In Yaska's Nirukta, III, 4, the stanza occurs in the fol- lowing version : amur ya yanti^amaya^ sarva lohitavasasa/^ : abhratara iva yoshas tish/^anti (Durga, tish//fcmtu) hata- vartmana^. Durga declares this to be an Atharvan-stanza, and says that the women are the blood-vessels (nadyak) which shall stand still, like brotherless maidens, debarred
1 The word pawsusikatabhi^, which I have translated as a copu- lative compound, 'dust and sand/ is regarded by the commen- tators as a descriptive. Darila, pa^suvat ^lakshwadhuli^ sikata valuka; Kcrava, rathyayiU pazrcsfin.
2 It is not quite clear whether the armakapalika is tied on as an amulet or as a bandage upon the wound : usually badhnati is the terminus technicus for the tying on of an amulet. Nor are the commentators agreed as to the meaning of the word ; Kej. keda- rammtika, and pankamrz'ttika. But the word occurs also in Tait. Ar. V, 2, 13 (cf. also Tait. S. V, 1, 6, 2), and in the commentary on the Tait. Ar., p. 394, it is explained as * potsherds deposited in the decayed portion of the village/ /fciraMane ^in/agramade^e avasthita bha/z^ama^. Sayawa to our passage, jushkaparikamr/t- tika kedaram/Yttika va.
I, 17. Commentary. 259
from the sa^tanakarma and the pi^adana (ancestral rites) practised by the family of their husband. In AV. I, 14, 2 the girl who has lost her father and mother is depicted as living in the house of her brother. Cf. Roth's comment, p. 25, and Zimmer, p. 328. The exact point of the com- parison is not quite clear, and Zimmers translation of hata- var^as as ' deprived of support or protection ' seems to import an occidental idea not in the text. See RV. I, 124, 7 ; IV, 5, 5, and especially the statement, na*bhratrim upaya^eta, ' one may not marry a brotherless girl,' in the commentary on Nirukta III, 5 ; Manu III, 1 1 ; Ya^/zavalkya I, 53 ; Vasish^a XVII, 16 ; Gautama XXVIII, 20.
b. lohita, with double entente, ' red ' and ' blood/
c. Read abhratareva ; the Anukrama^i, upon the strength
of the apparently additional syllable, designates the stanza
as a bhuri£\
b. Ludwig rather whimsically translates sahasrasya hira- «am 'von den tausend gelben.' It would seem as though the stanza intends to bring out a distinction between hira' and dhamani, the former being the smaller and the latter the larger blood-vessels. Accordingly, ' veins ' and ' arteries.' And yet in VII, 35, 2 (see the note there) both hira and dhamani apparently have the more general sense of ' inte- rior canals,' such as entrails, vaginal passage, and the like. Naturally, the knowledge of internal physiology is of the vaguest sort. For hira, see Aufrecht in Kuhn's Zeitschrift, III, 199 ; Weber, Omina und Portenta, p. 346.
Our translation of this stanza derives its main support from the practices above, which seem to imply that sand is put upon or about the wound. Saya^a gives the passage a totally different bent ; he takes sikatavati dhanifr brzhati as the designation of one of the canals in the body which contains the sand that results in calculi in the bladder, sikata Yagamsi tadvati na^i, 'sikata, i.e. sand, the canal containing that.' He says, further, that it is the canal
26o HYMNS OF THE ATHARVA-VEDA.
(naaft) which generates calculi (a^mari), and finally describes it more explicitly as a ' kind of canal crooked like a bow, and the seat of the urine,' dhanur dhanurvad vakro mutra- sayo nadwisesha/i. And he quotes a similar statement from a Smr/ti, mutra^ayo dhanur vakro vastir ity abhidhiyate *. It would seem accordingly that he imagines the bladder, or some similar vessel, capable as it is of producing sand or calculi, a fitting agent to stop the flow of blood — an inter- esting conceit at any rate! Grill thinks that the entire stanza is a later addition. But Kaorika, at any rate, found it where it is, and the original diaskeuasis of the AV. postulates four or more stanzas for each hymn of the first book ; see Seven Hymns of the Atharva-veda, Amer. Journ. Phil. VII, 470 ff. Against this, there is only the deviation in the metre.
c. The P&da is a formula ; see RV. I, 191, 6.
I, 18. Commentary to page 109.
Saya^a, in the introduction to the hymn, describes the practices associated with it at Kaui". 42, 19-21 as designed to remove the blemishes of a woman afflicted with the evil characteristics mentioned in the samudrika-treatises. These blemishes are supposed to be on her face, hands, feet, and other members, mukhahastapadadyangeshu samu- drikoktadurlaksha/zayuktaya^ striy&s taddoshanivrzttaye. The samudrika-books (treatises on chiromancy) treat of both good and evil characteristics, for in his comment on st. 1 c he says, yani samudrika^astraprasiddhani . . . sau- bhagyakara/zi £ihnani santi. Cf. Pet. Lex. under 2. sarau- dra, and Ke^ava to Kau.9. 42, 19, samudrike strilaksha^a^ vyakhyatam, and note also Kaus. 18, 38, samudra ity a^akshate karma.
The practices of the Kaurika are as follows : 42, 19. 'While reciting AV. I, 18, the face of the woman afflicted
1 Cf. with these statements Sayazza's comment on vasti, I, 3, 6, dhanurakaro mutrajayo vastir u/fyate.