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

The performances at Kau.r. 36, 25 ff. involve the use of this hymn in company with VII, 45, and the third stanza of VII, 74. They picture a woman engaged in symbolic acts calculated to appease a jealous man, and to remove the jealousy from his body, to wit: 25. 'The practising woman mutters the above-mentioned mantras against (the jealous) man, presents to him (a stirred drink with grits, Kau^. 7, 7), and touches (his person). 26. With the first (of these hymns) she performs upon his body the act described in the hymn (i.e. she blows out fire held over his body2). 27. While reciting VII, 45, 2 (see the stanza) [she gives him to drink] water, warmed by pouring it over a heated axe.' Soothing the jealous man, and the symbolic removal of the fire of his jealousy, are therefore the points of the practice.

1 Ke^ava, a^yuta dyaur iti. Darila, jakhantariyasuktam.

2 Darila, hrz'daye*gninirvapa«a*rc mantroktatvat. Kesava, ka/ipra- de^e . . . dhamati.

H h 2

468 HYMNS OF THE ATHARVA-VEDA.

The present hymn has been rendered by Weber, Indische Studien, V, 235 ff. ; Ludwig, Der Rigveda, III, 514 ; Florenz, in Bezzenberger's Beitrage, XII, 270 ff. ; Grill2, pp. 28, 159 ff. The Anukrama/zi, irshyavinaianadevatyam.

b. For manaskaw patayish^ukam, cf. RV. I, 163, 11 ; VI, 9, 5. Ludwig renders patayish^ukam by ' zu falle bringend,' but that would require patayish;^ukam, since the Vedas discriminate between the stems pataya and pataya, the former being simple, the latter alone causative. Weber also causatively, ' was dir den sinn entfallen macht.'

d. nr/ter is untranslatable, though Ludwig renders the Pada, c wie die erhitzung eines tanzers.' The Paippalada reads trtter ; this supports in a measure Weber's and the Pet. Lexs.' emendation to dr/ter, ' as heat from a pot,' or, ' as the exhalation from a (water-carrier's) skin.' Similarly also Saya?za, with the approval of Shankar Pandit, yatha drzte/i ^armamayya bhastrikaya^ saka^at tanmadhyavarti- nam ushmknani ^vasavad anta^purita^ vayum.

VI, 20. Commentary to page 3.

The Kaui-ika offers by way of practice to be performed in connection with this charm a part of that reported for AV. V, 22. The exceedingly terse Sutra, 3T, 7, agner ive*ty uktam dave, is to be translated, ' With AV. VI, 20 he does what has been said in connection with the forest-fire,' i.e. according to Darila, what is prescribed in Sutra 29, 19 (and by implication also what is prescribed in 29, 18). Namely, he pours the dregs of gruel, which the patient has imbibed previously, from a copper vessel over his head into fire derived from a forest-fire. See the introduction to V, 22. The practice is again symbolic, aiming by attractio similium to obviate the symptoms of heat and fire incidental to the disease. The hymn has been translated by Ludwig, Der Rigveda, III, 51 1 ; Zimmer, p. 380 ; and Florenz, in Bezzen- berger's Beitrage, XII, 273 ff. ; and it is quoted also in the

Vi, 20. Commentary. 469

takmana^anaga^a of the Ga^amala, Ath. ParLr. 32, 7 (Kauy. 26, 1, note). The Anukrama/n designates it as yakshma- najanadaivatam, and describes its authorship and purpose as follows : bhrzgvangiraA . . . anena mantroktan sarvan devan

astaut.

a. A^agati Pada maybe construed if one syllable is sup- pressed. Probably agndr iva is to be read as three syllables with elision of r and crasis (cf. Pet. Lex., s. v. iva 4 c), or by reading va in the manner of the Prakrit. Florenz, 1. c, makes different propositions. The Anukrama^i designates the stanza as ati^agati.

.mshmfn is a derivative from .nishma, whose fundamental meaning seems to be ' lightning/ from which ' strength ' is derived secondarily ; see Contributions, Sixth Series, Zeitschr. d. Deutsch. Morgenl. Gesellsch. XLVIII, 565 fif.

b. matto vilapan ; cf. the words unmadito and lalapiti in A V. VI, in, 1.

c. Ludwig and Florenz propose to emend avratas to avratam, because the epithet * impious ' does not seem to suit the takman ; cf. RV. I, 132, 4. A glance at AV. VII, 1 ] 6, 2 exhibits the takman with the same epithet under circumstances which admit of no doubt, showing the danger of subjective reasoning on matters connected with foreign folk-psychology. Ludwig renders ' irgend einen werklosen.'

a. Note the concatenation with Pada 1 d : tapurvadha in 1 d suggests Rudra in 2 a, and takmane is repeated.

c, d. The diction lapses into formulary prose, which does
not however deter the Anukrama^i from assigning the
entire stanza to the metre kakummati prastarapankti.

The metre is very rough, according to the Anukramawi,
sata^pankti. Pada a is a trochaic anush/ubh if we read
* bhuo^ayish^ur ; b is a trish/ubh ; c is a hypercatalectic
anush/ubh; d a^agati.

470 HYMNS OF THE ATHARVA-VEDA.

a, b. In close parallelism with V, 22, 2 a, b : see the note on the passage.

c. The epithet babhru calls to mind Latin febris from febrv-is, which would then be the * brown, sallow disease/

d. The meaning of vanya, * silvestris,' seems fairly certain. The Pet. Lex. suggests 'greenish/ in order to establish a parallelism with anma and babhru in the preceding Pada. Grohmann, 1. c, p. 385, translates ' dem wilden (wasserge- borenen?) Takman.' If the word means 'forest-born' then it must refer to the malarial fever of the rainy season which is caused by the decay of the tropically prolific flora. Cf. the takman varshika in AV. V, 22, 13. Living in wooded, ill-ventilated valleys is, according to Wise, 1. c, p. 220, one of the causes of fever. ScLya^a, sa^/sevyaya, ' to him that is to be adored.'

VI, 21. Commentary to page 30.

This interesting hymn is accompanied by equally in- teresting symbolic practices, at Kaor. 30, 8-10, part of which passage is unfortunately very obscure : 8. « While reciting the hymn the person that desires the growth of hair (Saya/za, kcs-avrz'ddhikama;^) is rinsed off with water heated by burning plants1 that grow upon the earth under trees. 9. His head is rinsed off with an effusion prepared by heating dice in water. 10. (And also with an effusion prepared) from two nika/a-plants 2 (?)/ The symbolism of the first practice is quite clear: as the head of the earth is clothed with plants (cf. st. i), as the crown of the tree is full of leaves, so shall the person practising the charm be luxuriantly hirsute. But the dice (the fruit of the vibhitaka-tree) and the nika/a are left unexplained.

1 Cf. the note on Kauj. 27, 29, in the introduction to III, 7 (p. 336, note).

2 Very doubtful. Ke^ava, daruharidraharidre (!) ka, dvabhya/// kvathayitvd avasi^ati. Saya/za, haridrakvathodakena avasi^et. According to these authorities nika/a would then be the yellow curcuma.

Vi, 24. Commentary. 47 1

The hymn has been translated by Florenz, Bezzenber-
ger's Beitrage, p. 275 ff. ; Grill2, pp. 50, 160 ff. Cf. also
Bergaigne et Henry, Manuel Vedique, p. 150. The Anu-
kramam, ^andramasam (cf. st. 2).

For the conception of the three earths, see the note on
IV, 20, 2. Saya^a refers tva^o in Pada c to the real earth,
which is the skin of the other earths, tasam prtthivmam
tvaka/i tvag iva upari vartamana ya bhiimi^ tasya^.

VI, 24. Commentary to page 12.

Rubricated at Kauy. 30, 13. Darila prescribes it against dropsy ; Kcrava, more explicitly, as a cure for pain in the heart, dropsy and jaundice (cf. the introduction to I, 22). Kau-rikas performance is as follows : c While reciting VI, 24 water is drawn from a stream along its current 1 ; (the water is warmed with burning) grass from a thatch (and sprinkled upon the patient) V It seems quite possible that the ritualist has in mind the particular disease dropsy : the water (Vanma's infliction) shall flow from the body like a running stream. The word hrzddyota (st. 1) would accord with dropsy, since diseases of the heart are fre- quently associated with it. But st. 2 seems to point to a more general and vague conception on the part of the hymn, and accordingly we have expanded the caption. See also Kaus. 9, 2 ; 18, 3, note ; 41, 14 ; Ath. Paris*. 41, 1.

The hymn has been translated by Florenz, Bezzenber- ger's Beitrage, XII, p. 279 ff. ; Grill2, pp. 13, 161 ff.

1 anvipam : Pet. Lex. 'am wasser gelegen'(P). The word means ' along the course/ i. e. the water must not be drawn against the current. Cf. Maitr. S. IV, 4, 1, and Ke^ava, anulomam. The opposite of anvipam is pratipam, ' against the current/

2 The supplied passages are indicated, it seems, by Kau^. 29, 8 ; see the note on V, 1 3, 5. Kamika is at times so terse as to render necessary the memorising of the entire Sutra.

472 HYMNS OF THE ATHARVA-VEDA.

d. For hnddyota, see the note on I, 22, 1.

VI, 25. Commentary to page 19.

Adalbert Kuhn, in Zeitschrift fiir vergleichende Sprach- forschung, XIII, 128 ff., treated the hymn under the head of * Seven and seventy-fold disease/ comparing with it Ger- manic formulas directed against fever and other diseases ; these are often described as being of seventy- seven varieties. Florenz, Bezzenberger's Beitrage, XII, 281 ff., suggests that some febrile disease, accompanied by eruptions, is in question. In Contributions, Second Series, Amer. Journ. Phil. XI, 327 ff., we assumed that the hymn with its ritual represent a charm against a disease, similar to the scrofu- lous swellings called apa^it (VI, 83 ; VII, 74, 1-2 ; 76, 1-2), and this is now fully corroborated by Ke^ava and Saya/fa who define the present charm as a cure for ga/z</a- mala, ' scrofula.' Cf. also the interesting 'Manskunder' (m&nySJi and skandhya^ in sts. 1, 3 of the hymn), defined as 'tumours of the neck' in the previously quoted passage of Wise, Hindu System of Medicine, p. 316. The Anu- krama/zi, mantroktamanyavinaj-anadevatyam.

The practices are stated at Kaur. 30, 14-16, as follows : 14. 'While reciting the hymn, fifty-five leaves of the para^u1 (plant or tree?) are kindled by means of pieces of wood. 15. (The sap of the leaves) which has boiled forth into a cup is smeared with a stick of wood (upon the sores). 16. (The sores are then smeared) with a (pul- verized) shell, and with the saliva of a dog, and subjected to the bites of leeches, gnats, and so forth (cf. Keiava's

1 The word parajuparaan is not altogether clear, Darilas and Ke lava's (gopa^ulikam ?) glosses being corrupt. Kaur. 47, 25 presents the obviously parallel para^upala^a which Ke^ava glosses by pamiw'kshapatram, and this we have adopted as the sense here. But Danla at 47, 25 has ku/Mramukham, 'the blade of an axe ! ' Cf. the note on Kaur. 47, 25 in the introduction to II, 12.

Vi, 26. Commentary. 473

comment upon this Sutra at Kaui". 31, 16, and our remarks in the above-cited Contributions, pp. 325-6).

Stanzas 1-3.

d. The word vakak in the refrain is translated by Kuhn as ' swarms/ by the Pet. Lexs. and Florenz as 'buzzing.' But the apa^it are not insects (see VI, 83), and Saya/za's va^aniya dosha^ designates the low water-mark of his hermeneutical capacity. As it seems impossible to retain the word, we may perhaps resort to the emendation paka^, remembering the well-known confusion in the MSS. of v and p1. The sense would then be ' may they (the tumours) pass away like the pustules of the apa^it.' The implication would then be that the tumours in question are * hard and large' (Wise, I.e., 3T6), and that the apa^it are more easily brought to the point of breaking open.

VI, 26. Commentary to page 163.

The ritual treats this as a remedial charm, fit to remove all diseases (sarvarogabhaisha^yam). The performances, Kauj-. 30, 17. 18, are as follows: By night the hymn is recited, parched grains of corn are poured into a sieve, and then cast away. On the next day three bali-ofTerings are thrown into the water for Sahasraksha (' the thousand-eyed divinity/ cf. st. 3), and (three) puddings of rice are thrown and scattered upon the cross-roads2. The ceremony is symbolic for the most part : the sieve is always the tangi- ble expression of passing through and out (cf. Kau^. 26, 2 in the introduction to I, 1 2), and general dispersion is the salient motif. The hymn is also rubricated in the Santi- kalpa, chapter 15, in a rite directed against the goddess of

1 Cf. upolava and upolapa, Kau^ika, Introduction, p. xlviii.

2 Cf. the sentiment in st. 2 of the hymn : the cross-roads are the most convenient spot at which to part company. For the character of the cross-roads in general, see the note on p. 519 in the introduc- tion to VI, in.

474 HYMNS OF THE ATHARVA-VEDA.

misfortune (nimti^arma), and in the papmaga#a and the
takman&yanaga^a of the Ga^amclla, Ath. ParLr. 32, 7. 12
(cf. Kauj. 26, 1 ; 30, 17, notes). It has been translated by
Florenz, Bezzenberger's Beitrage, XII, 282. The Anu-
kramam, papmadevatcikam.