For the description of the plant in this stanza, cf. ma;^- pa^ya in VII, 38, 1, and see the introduction to VI, 139. I have upheld in my translation the text of the edition, guaranteed as it is by the unanimous tradition of the MSS. of the wSaunakiya-i-akha. All corrections, including the important variant pa^yasi for paiyati throughout the stanza in the Paippalada, seem to me in this instance to amount to the substitution of a better literary performance for a poorer one ; they do not bring with them the proof that
400 HYMNS OF THE ATHARVA-VEDA.
the priests of our school ever had any other text, or, what is more to the point, that the original versifex had com- posed differently. The merit of the Paippalada's pa^yasi is so obvious that it may be due to a conscious improve- ment on the part of its author. The metre of the stanza is irregular (Anukramam, svara^) ; the first Pada is hyper- catalectic, the third Pada may be sustained by reading, with elision and crasis, divantariksham for divam anta- riksham. Hillebrandt's suggestion, accepted by Grill, that ad be thrown out seems to me unnecessarily violent.
a. Hillebrandt would restore the Pada : pisyati prati pajyati ; Grill (with the help of the Paippalada), a paiyasi pra pajyasi, continuing with pa^yasi throughout. Saya/za retains the third person, referring the stanza to the person who wears the amulet : he devi sada^pushpakhye oshadhe tvadvikarama^idharako^yaM ^anas tvatprasadad apa^yati agamibhayakara/za/^ pratihartu^^anati, 'O goddess plant, sada/^pushpa by name, this person here, who wears an amulet fabricated out of thee, by thy favour perceives the cause of approaching danger, and knows how to repel it.5 The emendation of prati to pra (Grill) is especially unde- sirable, as the same expression occurs in a closely parallel situation, AV. VII, 13, %.
b. Grill suspects the second pa^yati, and imagines oshadhe in its place.
d. The temptation to emend the vocative devi to the
nominative devi' is great. The sense then would be that
the amulet itself sees all dangers. Grill, as we have seen
above, adopts the Paippalada reading paiyasi, is thus
enabled to retain devi, and also obtains essentially the
same sense.
a. Read przthvi'^. The three heavens are well known ; see, e.g. AV. V, 4, 3 5 VI, 95, 1 5 XVIII, 2, 48 ; XIX, 39, 6 (cf. the note on V, 4, 3). For the three earths see RV. I, 108, 9 ; II, 27, 8 ; III, 56, 2 ; AV. VI, 31, 1, and Muir, Original Sanskrit Texts, V, p. 305, note ; Zimmer, Altin- disches Leben, p. 357 ; Bergaigne, La Religion Vedique, I,
Iv, 20. Commentary. 4oi
239. Cf. also Yasna XI, 7 : madheme thrishve ainhao zemo, ' in the middle third of this earth/
a, b. divyasya supanzasya . . . kanihika is rendered by Ludwig, 'dises himlischen adlers kleine tochter ;' by Grill, ' der Augenstern des Adlers, der am Himmel ist.' Saya^a glosses supanza by garutmant, which suggests RV. I, 164, 46. Grill follows the Pet. Lex. [s.v. 2 a), a)] in regarding the divine eagle as the sun. But perhaps the lightning-fire is in the mind of the poet. At Y&g. S. XVII, 72 ; XVIII, 51 ; Sat. Br. IX, 2, 3, 34; 4, 4, 3, the divinity addressed, supanzo*si garutman, is treated distinctly as Agni, and Mahidhara states this plainly. In Maitr. S. I, 2, 5 ; Vdg. S. IV, 32; Tait. S. VI, i, 7, 3, 'the eye-ball (kanmika, kanihaka) of Agni's eye' is spoken of. The expression divya supar/za may be the exact equivalent of divik .yyena, and that, I believe I have proved, is Agni, the lightning, personified as a divine eagle; see Contributions, Fifth Series, Journ. Amer. Or. Soc. XVI, 1 ff. The descent of this eagle, or the Gayatri, as the Brahma/zas have it, is frequently disturbed by a heavenly archer Krwanu who wounds the eagle, so that he loses a feather which falls to the earth, and grows up as a plant or tree. See Adalbert Kuhn, Die Herabkunft des Feuers und des Gottertranks, p. 148 (first edition). The use of the word supar/za in our edition is, in my opinion, intended to convey a double entente, ' bird ' and ' having beautiful leaves.' Cf. Tait. S. VI, i, 1, 5, where Vr/tra's eye-ball (kamnikS,) flies away after he had been slain by Indra, and turns into salve (a%*anam). Ludwig does not comment upon his transla- tion of kanmika by 'kleine tochter,' rather than 'eye-ball ;' it may possibly turn out correct when RV. X, 40, 9 yields up its meaning. We have there as follows : ^anish/a yoshi patayat kaninako vi £a*ruhan viriidha^, a passage which suggests the situation in our stanza completely and yet vaguely. But it is interpreting obscurum per obscurius
[42] D d
402 HYMNS OF THE ATHARVA-VEDA.
to bring the RV. stanza into play. Cf. also our note at V, 5, 8-
c. Saya//a, ^agadrakshartham oshadhiriipe/za bhumav avatir/za*si.
a 'The thousand-eyed god.' In X, 3, 3 an amulet derived from the vara^a-tree is designated as sahasraksha ; in XI, 2, 3. 7. 17 ; Sat. Br. IX, 1, 1, 6 Rudra is so called ; in IV, 28, 3 Bhava-Sarva; in IV, 16, 4 Varu^a's spies; in RV. I, 23, 3 Indra and Vayu ; in Tait. S. II, 3, 14, 4 Indra. Further, we have the 'thousand-eyed papman, evil/ in AV. VI, 26, .3; .rapatha, 'curse,' in VI, 37, 1. Grill fancies that the god of the plant here in question is meant, but this seems faint after the plant herself has been personified as a goddess, devy oshadhe, in st. 2. Perhaps rather Agni, said to be 'thousand-eyed' with especial frequency, is meant; see RV. I, 79, 12; Va£\ S. XVII, 71 (XIII, 47) ; Sat. Br. VII, 5, 2, 32 ; IX, 2, 3, 32 ; Apast. Sr. VI, 25, 10. Agni particularly chases away evil spirits, agm raksha^si sedhatl RV. VII, 15, 10 ; AV. VIII, 3, 26 ; Tait. Br. II, 4, 1, 6 ; agnir hi rakshasam apahanta, Sat. Br. XIV, 3, 1, 11.
b. £ dadhat. Zimmer, I.e., 204, construes this as an
augmentless imperfect. In the Sa//zhita the augmented
form would not differ, adadhat. The sense is satisfactory
either way.
e. Saya/za comments upon tvaya instead of taya, as inst. 2.
d. { The Sudra and the Arya/ i. e. every kind of person,
as we should say in America ' black and white/ The
phrase is formulaic, as may be seen from the compound
^udraryau (Mahidhara, judravaLsyau), Va£\ S. XIV, 30 ;
Sat. Br. VIII, 4, 3, 12. See in general Muir, Original
Sanskrit Texts, II, 368; Ludwig, Der Rigveda, III, 212;
Zimmer, 1. c, 117 ff, 204, 216, 435.
a, b. rupaVn and atmanam are antithetical : rupam, ' the outer forms of things ;' a'tmanam, ' thy own nature.' It is
Iv, 20. Commentary. 403
a controlling characteristic of Vedic conceptions that the inner, true nature of any divinity, or instrument of power, must be understood in order to control its influence or power : ya eva#z veda, and ya evdun vidvan in the Brah- ma^as are crystallisations of this idea ; cf. AV. I, 13, 3 ; VI, 46, 2; VII, 12, 2, &C
c. sahasra^aksho, here, and XIX, 35, 3, as epithet of the plant ^-angk/a, is a vocative from a stem sahasra-^akshu. The beginnings of a stem £akshu, a pendant of ^akshus in the ablative £akshos, RV. X, 90, 13. Transition forms between the us- and u-declensions (as also between the is- and i-declensions) are not uncommon in the Veda ; see Lanman, in the Journ. Amer. Or. Soc. X, 568 ff.
d. For the class of demons called kimidin, see AV. I, 7 ; I, 28; II, 24; VIII, 3, 25; 4, 2; 6, 21 ; XII, 1,50.
For yatudhana, -n!', and pisaka, see the hymns I, 7'and 8.
a. Ka^yapa is a name to conjure with in the Atharvan writings ; amulets and charms handled by him are peculiarly powerful (e.g. I, 14, 4 ; IV, 37, 1 ; VIII, 5, 14). He rises to the dignity of the supreme self-existing (svaya///-bhu) being in AV. XIX, 53, 10; cf. also Tait. S. V, 6, 1, 1, and see the Pet. Lex. s. v. 2 b. He is also intimately related with forms of the sun, Surya and Savitar, as is stated expressly in Tait. Ar. I, 7, 1 ; see also Tait. Ar. I, 8, 6, and compare Tait. S. V, 6, 1, 1 with AV. I, ^, 1 b. This fact may by itself account for the expression kaiyapasya £akshur asi. In fact ka^yapa is the sun as a tortoise, that creeps its slow course across the sky ; cf. the conceptions of the sun as a hermit, and a Brahman disciple, XI, 5, introduction. Only we must not forget that these writings neglect no opportunity of being guided in their construc- tions by puns, even of the most atrocious sort, and ka.syapa surely suggests pa^yaka, ' seer,' to the Atharvan mind, as is written distinctly in. Tait. Ar. I, 8, 8, kaiyapa/^ pa^yako
D d 2
404 HYMNS OF THE ATHARVA-VEDA.
bhavati yat sarvaw paripa^yati. The name ka^yapa is in some special relation to the Atharvan writings, not as yet fully cleared up ; cf. the author in the Journ. Amer. Or. Soc. XI, p. 377.
b. The MSS. read £aturaksha^, but Saya/za fitly com- ments upon ^aturakshya^, the form as emended in Roth and Whitney's edition ; cf. akshos for akshyos in AV. V, 4, 10 (see the note). The ' four-eyed bitch' is Sarama. the mother of the two four-eyed dogs of Yama \ Syama and .Sabala, which I have explained as the sun and the moon ; see Journ. Amer. Or. Soc. XV, 163 ff. The epithet ' four- eyed ' seems possibly to be derived from the same view, namely the capacity of the two dogs to see both by day (the sun), and by night (the moon). The Paippalada as quoted by Grill2, p. 135, .makes the notable statement that 'the four-eyed dog (obviously the moon) overlooks by night the sphere of the night,' yatha jva ^aturaksho ratrlm naikta*tipa.syati. In practice the fiction of a four- eyed dog is materialised both by the Hindus and Iranians in the form of a dog with marks over the eyes ; see my article, I.e., p. 165, note 1, and Kaegi in the Philolo- gische Abhandlungen fur Heinrich Schweizer-Sidler, p. 64, note 57.
c. vidhre, lit. ' in the clear sky ; ' Ludwig, ' im hellen ; ' Grill, 'heiteren tags.' suryam iva is to be read as three syllables, as frequently elsewhere, either suryeva or suryaw va.
c. tena may be either masculine, referring to the divinity in st. 4, or neuter, agreeing with brahma, ' charm.'
IV, 22. Commentary to page 115.
The hymn is employed twice in the so-called ra^akarmam,
' the royal practices,' Kaas\ 14-17. The first is characterised
by the scholiasts, Ke^ava and Saya^a, as a battle-charm
In RV. I, 29, 3 the two messengers (dogs) of Yama are per- sonified as females.
Iv, 2 2. Commentary. 405
(^ayakarma, sa/^grama^ayartham), and its rather colourless proceedings are as follows: 14, 24. 'While reciting IV, 22 and 23 he performs the ceremonies which culminate in the presentation (of the bow to the king).' These are described in Sutras 8-11 of the same chapter, to wit: 8. ' An oblation of ghee and grits is poured out. 9. Upon a fire made of bows a bow is laid on as a fagot 10. Like- wise an arrow (is laid oil) upon a fire made of arrows. 11. The bow (of the king), smeared with the dregs of the ghee, is presented to him/
The other performance, Kaus. 17, 28-9, is part of the consecration of a chief ruler (ekara^a, Kaiu. 14, 11 ; cf. ekavraha in our hymn, sts. 1, 5, 6, 7): The special solem- nities of the consecration have been absolved, but every morning the royalty of the king has to be renewed, to wit :
28. ' Every morning the hymn IV, 22 (or its first stanza?) is recited to the king (by the purohita, the house-priest).
29. They (the king and the purohita) then perform the above-mentioned pouring of water (each into a vessel), and the exchange (of the vessels).' This refers to Sutras 4 and 5 of the same chapter ; cf. the introduction to IV, 8, and Professor Weber's discussion of the passage in his treatise, Uber die Konigsweihe, p. 140 (Transactions of the Royal Prussian Academy, 1893). The hymn, further, is one of a cycle (ga^a) devoted to the gain of royal power (rash/ra- sa;^varga), grouped together in the indramahotsava, Ath. Pam. 19, 1 (cf. Kaiu. 140, 6, note). See also Ath. Parij\ 4, 1 and 16. The fanciful analysis of the hymn by the Anukrama/zi may be seen in Grill's introduction.
The hymn appears again in Tait. Br. II, 4, 7, 7 ff. ; it
has been translated by Ludwig, Der Rigveda, III, 457;
Zimmer, 165; Grill2, 67, 135 ff . ; cf. Hillebrandt's Veda-
chrestomathie, p. 43.