a. For the relation of light and gold, cf. I, 9, 2.
b. For pakvam kshetrat, cf. vrzksham pakvam, RV. Ill, 45, 4 ; pakvai iakha, RV. I, 8, 8.
Kaar. 63, 6. 7 : With Pada a the chaff is poured into the fire (Saya/za, agnau tushan ^uhuyat). With Pada b the refuse is swept aside with the left foot. The precise differ- ence between tiisha and kambuka is not clear. Saya/za glosses the former by, brahmaudanarthata;/^ulebhya/z pri- thakkr/tan ; both Kau/ika and Saya/za render kambuka by phalikara/za. These indications we have followed. The fire obtains the more valuable and nutritious part of the refuse ; Nirrzti, the goddess of destruction, has the refuse pushed to her as a sop, uncannily, with the left foot.
Kau^. 63, 19. 20: Either with the entire hymn, or with
the part of it that begins here, he first anoints the porridge
with the dregs of ghee. Cf. especially st. 31.
a. I have taken the words .sramyata/^ &c. as genitives
6l8 HYMNS OF THE ATHARVA-VEDA.
singular, dependent upon viddhi. See Delbriick, Altin-
dische Syntax, p. 159. Saya/za, as accusatives plural:
diksharupa/^ tapas tapyamanan, &c.
Kaiu. 62, 15-17 : With the first hemistich of our stanza and XII, 3, 45 he makes a cavity (for ghee) on the top of the porridge (Saya^a, garta/^ kuryat). The stanza is varied by substituting the word brahman for adhvaryo, if a priest other than the Adhvaryu is addressed. With the second hemistich of each of the two stanzas he floods the porridge with ghee.
For purishi/za^ Saya/za quotes to the point Tait. S. II, 6, 4, 3 : pra^a vai pa^ava^ purisham, pra^ayai^vai^na;// pam- bhi^ purishavanta;^ karoti. Cf. sts. 26 a, b ; 25 d.
XI, 2. Commentary to page 155.
The hymn is addressed to Rudra (Siva-Agni), under the large variety of names or embodiments (murti) customary with that divinity. These vary from seven to nine in number, most of which, namely Rudra, Bhava, Sarva, Pa^upati, Ugra (cf. also the word foe in st. 27, as reflecting the name Lana *), occur in the hymn either as full proper names, or as standing epithets. Connected lists of these names occur frequently, e. g. AV. XV, 5 ; Va£\ S. XXXIX, 8. 9 ; Kaush. Br. VI, % ff. : Sat. Br. VI, 1, 3, 10-17 ; Sankh. St. IV, 18,5 ; Kauj. 51, 8; Par. Grzh. Ill, 8, 6 ; Asv. Grzh. IV, 8, 19 ; Hir. Grzh. II, 8, 6. 7 ; Marka/zafeya-pura/m, 52, 2 ff. : cf. Weber, Ind. Stud. II, 302; XVII, 130; Omina und Portenta (Royal Academy of Berlin, 1858), p. 400 ff. ; Muir, Original Sanskrit Texts, IV2, 343, 403 ff.
The hymn is a prayer to Rudra, in his various aspects,
1 Saya^a cites the following versus memorialis : jarva/rc pa^u- pati/rc ko * gram rudrazrc bhavam athe * svaram, mahadevaw k& bhima^z k&.
Xi, 2. Commentary. 619
for protection and mercy, and it is rubricated, accordingly, at Kauj*. 50, 13. 14 in the course of the performances of a merchant who starts out upon his business. See the in- troductions to the hymns III, 15 ; VI, 59 ; and 128. Further, in a performance undertaken by a traveller in a lonely place, at Kauj. 51, 7 ff., and again, when an ominous bird of prey holding flesh in its beak alights, Kau^. 129, 3 (cf. stanzas 2, 24 of the hymn). See also Vait. Su. 29, 10. The hymn figures also in the raudraga;za of the Ga/zamala, Ath. Pam. 32, 17. It has been translated by Muir, Original Sanskrit Texts, IV2, 335 ff., and Ludwig, Der Rigveda, III, p. 549 ff. ; cf. also Bergaigne et Henry, Manuel Vedique, p. 157 ff.
The metrical tradition of the stanza is corrupt : avishya- v&k at the end of the first hemistich seems to belong to Pada c, which ends at pa^upate. Accordingly our transla- tion. Saya?za, in Pada b, reads, pampering his etymology, aviklabebhya/^, and glosses, viklaba adhrzsh/a/fc kataras tad- viparitebhya/z, 'to those who are the reverse of viklaba (cowardly)/ i.e. 'bold ; ' cf. the note on XI, 9, 9.
Sciya;2a, ropaya/£ ropayitryo mohayitryas tanva^. Cf. V,
30, 16, and Rudra's relation to diseases in st. 22. The
epithet ' thousand-eyed ' accentuates the relation between
Rudra and Agni ; see the note on IV, 20, 4.
One is tempted to emend antarikshaya in Pada d to
antarikshat, ' from the atmosphere reverence be to thee/
The change of the ablative to the dative may be due to
st. 5 d, pratiKnaya te nama^.
c. The MSS. read unanimously ardhakaghatina, but
there is no Ardhaka to slay. S^ya^a, ' he whose habit it
is to slay half of the (hostile) army/ an insipid pis-aller.
620 HYMNS OF THE ATHARVA-VEDA.
A demon by the name of Andhaka is in the epics a familiar victim of vSiva, who is styled andhakaghatin in Maha- bharata XII, 10356, and 5iva is the later representative of Rudra. The Paippalada reads adhvagaghatin, ' the slayer of the wayfarer.' This suits admirably, since the hymn is intended as a prayer for protection against the dangers of a journey ; cf. st. 4, and the practices (in the introduction). But its very suitableness lays it open to the suspicion of being an easy reading which shirks the difficulty involved in the less familiar ardhaka (andhaka).
For the last Pada, cf. XI, 9, 7. 14; 10, 7, and our Con-
tributions, Second Series, Amer. Journ. Phil. XI, 339 fif.
The female mourners indicate, of course, the presence of
death.
b. The MSS. read sahasraghnim, -ghnyam, and -ghni.
The vulgate has adopted the impossible -ghnim ; Saya/za,
-ghnyam ; and Shankar Pandit, -ghni. We have translated
the latter, as a locative singular from -han, with haste,
understood.
Cf. X, 1, 26; vSat. Br. XIV, 4, 2, 18: padam means 'tracking the steps,' not 'leading the steps' (Pet. Lex.), as may be seen especially in the passage of the 5at. Br., where vindate is the synonym of ni.
b. The text has £arato, not £aratho : change the con- struction accordingly to the third person.
Stanzas 15, 17.
St. 15 is formulaic: see, e.g. XI, 4, 7. St. 17 is rubri- cated in Ath. Parij-. ^ 3.
In the epic literature, Ke^in is a demon slain by Kr/sh/za.
In RV. I, 164, 44, three Ke^in are mentioned: they are
Agni, Surya, and Vayu ; further, RV. X, 136 is a hymn to
Xi, 2. Commentary. 62 1
Kcrin, the sun, typified as a solitary hermit (muni) ; see Contributions, Third Series, Journ. Amer. Or. Soc. XV, 167. Possibly the chariot of the sun is the object of Rudra's attack. The entire stanza may, however, be taken differently : ' The crushing chariot of the long-haired (ke^in, i. e. Rudra) ... we approach first/ Saya^a advocates the construction which we have put into the text.
Cf. XII, 1, 49. 51. In Pada a, vane may be a metrically
superfluous gloss suggested by kxanyah. In Pada c, ya-
ksham is not quite clear: 'thy spirit,' or 'thy reflection,
image/ Saya/za adopts the hackneyed etymological ex-
planation of the word, pu£ya;/z svarupam.
a, b. Saya/za, ' simsumara. is a kind of crocodile, agagara a kind of serpent, pulikaya and the rest varieties of water animals/ The last word occurs in the form pulikaya at Maitr. S. Ill, 14, 2 (between matsya and nakra) ; in the corresponding passage, Vag. S. XXIV, 21, in the form kulipaya (Mahidhara, ^ala^a), and at Tait. S. V, 5, 13, 1 in the form kulikaya (commentary, bahupan matsyavLresha^). For the interchange between gutturals and labials, see Contributions, Sixth Series, Zeitschr. d. Deutsch. Morgenl. Gesellsch. XLVIII, p. 557, note1. For the obscure ra^asa (Padapa/^a, ra^asa^) Say ana reads ra^asa (atmiyena te^asa).
d. Many MSS. sarvan. Saya^a with some MSS. reads
sarvam for sarvan, the obviously correct form which we
have in the vulgate.
Though Rudra here threatens men with poison, he is
elsewhere reported as himself drinking it. So clearly in
the Bhagavata-pura/za X, 31, and apparently also RV. X,
1 Add the following possible cases of the correlation of gutturals and labials: riph=rikh; stupa=stuka; and cf. kapu^ala, ' back- hair ' (cf. Lat. caput), with kakubh, kakudh.
62 2 HYMNS OF THE ATHARVA-VEDA.
136, 7, if we take visha in its ordinary sense. The trans- lators here generally render it by * water, fluid ' (cf. st. 1 of the same hymn). See Muir, 1. c, IV2, pp. 50, 320.
c. The vulgata reads tasyai. This is corrected in the
Index Verborum to tasmai. Some of Shankar Pandit's
MSS. now exhibit this obviously correct reading, which is
also the basis of Saya/za's comment.
e. Parallels to this interesting passage, together with
a valuable discussion of the position of jraddha, ' faith,' in
the Veda, are presented in Ludwig's work, Der Rigveda,
III, z63 ff.
b. The stanza is repeated, RV. I, 114, 7 ; Va^. S. XVI, 15; Tait. S. IV, 5, 10, % ; the second Pada appears there m the more desirable form, ma na ukshantam uta ma na ukshitam, ' do not cause injury to our growing and grown up (children).' The Atharvan reading seems to be due to a misunderstanding of the meaning of the root uksh, as being derived from vah, ' carry.' Saya/za, bharavahana- kshama;^ madhyavayaskam, ' the middle-aged man capable of carrying burdens,' and vakshata/^ (!) krztavahanavya- paran. Ludwig, ' der uns faret . . . die uns faren werden/ Our own translation is a makeshift.
b. The Pet. Lexs. and Muir translate asa^suktagile-
bhya^ by ' devouring unchewed food.5 We with Saya/m
and Ludwig.
XI, 4. Commentary to page 218.
In the Upanishads, pra^a, ' breath,' is frequently identified with brahma and atman. See, e.g. Kaushitaki Up. II, 1, % ; III, % ; IV, 20 ; Tait. Up. Ill, 3. Very frequently Agni and Surya take the place of these abstractions, e. g. Maitri
Xi, 4- Commentary. 623
Up. VI, 1. 5. 9. 33 ; Pra^na Up. I, 5. 7. 8 ; II, 8. Pra/za is the personified breath of life, itself at the base of all existence (Ka//za Up. VI, 2), and fits naturally into the system of monotheistic-pantheistic thought which from the earliest beginnings of Hindu literature runs in a parallel current with polytheism. A noteworthy feature of this hymn is the predication to Pra/za of the qualities of a rain- god (Par^anya). As such he quickens the life of plants and animals, and the account of this action of his is pursued with a great deal of detail and repetition. Equally remark- able is the outspoken identification of Pra/za in sts. 21 and 22 with the sun in the form of the ha^sa. This is a round- about way of saying that pra/za (atman) is identical with brahma, brahma. See Muir, Original Sanskrit Texts, V, 393 ff. ; Scherman, Philosophische Hymnen aus der Rig- und Atharva-veda-sa/^hit&, p. 69 ff., each of whom offers a partial translation.
In the ritual of the Atharvan the hymn figures as an ayushyam (sc. suktam), ' bestowing long life,' and therefore forms a part of the ^yushyaga^a in the Ga;^amal^, Ath. Pam. 32, 4 (see Kaiu. 54, 11, note). Cf. also Kau.y. 139, 7. At Kau.y. 55, 17 it is employed in the course of the investi- ture of the disciple with the holy cord; at Kaui*. 58, 3. 11 in certain special ceremonies (braiima/zoktam and rzshi- hasta/^, Su. 4), calculated to ensure longevity. The last stanza of the hymn is in our opinion constructed with this purpose directly in view : see the note on the passage. Cf. also 5antikalpa 15, 191.
The four component parts of a storm are wind, thunder, lightning, and rain; see our Contributions, Sixth Series, Zeitschr. d. Deutsch. Morgenl. Gesellsch. XLVIII, 569-70, and cf. especially the vayii krandadish/i, 'the wind hastening along with clamour' (RV. X, 100, 2). We have therefore assumed that kranda is the wind, ' the roarer/ par excel- lence. See also st. 15.
1 Erroneously quoted by Saya/za as Nakshatrakalpa.
624 HYMNS OF THE ATHARVA-VEDA.
Cf. Tvasna. Up. II, io : ' When thou, O Pra/za, sprinklest the rain, then are these creatures full of joy ; (they think): " food shall we have according to wish." ' Pra/za here, as elsewhere in this composition, approaches closely to the character of Par^anya; see the hymn, RV. V, 83. For
st. 5, cf. st. 17.
The verse is formulaic ; see, e. g. XI, 2, J 5.
Saya//a, ' by his going out he causes the death of all
living beings.' For Pada b of this and the following stanza,
cf. the similar sentiments assembled by Scherman, 1. c,
PP. 35, 59.
The epithet anaafvan, 'ox,' suggests AV. IV, 11, where
supreme divine power is attributed to an ox. See Muir,
Original Sanskrit Texts, V, 399, and Jacob's Concordance,
s. v. ana^uh.