? rash/ravagamanam. Darila, ganapada# tasyasvagamanakaram ... anurdgakaram. Sayaza, ‘a performance designed to restore a king, driven from his kingdom by an enemy. Cf. the hymns III, 3 and 4.
* The commentators state explicitly that rice which has grown anew upon the place, where it has previously been cut, is to be used. See Darila, Kesava, and Sayama (linapunarutthitagam odanam).
I, Io. Commentary. 241
Allusion seems to be made here to the rape of the soma
in Indra’s behalf by Agni, the heavenly eagle (syena).
According to our interpretation, in Contributions, Fifth
Series, Journ. Amer. Or. Soc. XVI, 1 ff., this Agni, the
eagle, is the lightning.
I, 10. COMMENTARY TO PAGE II.
Varuza punishes crime, especially falsehood (cf. AV. IV, 16; Tait. Br. I, 7, 2, 6, &c.), with his disease, the ‘ water- belly, dropsy?. The performance of the Kausika 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 Védique, p. 133.
b. Weber regards vasa as fem. sing.; Whitney, in the
Index Verborum, as nom. plur. masc. ; Sayama, as neut. plur.,
vasa vasdni. Varuza and Asura are, of course, the same
divinity.
ce. Weber, ‘durch mein gebet von da herauss dich reis-
send ;’ Ludwig, ‘mit meinem brahma hervor mich tuend ;’
Sayavza, brahmava mantrena... sdsadanak atyartham
tikshvak ... praptabalak.
c,d. The passage is a reverberation from the legend of Sunaksepa ; cf. Ait. Br. VII, 15.
* Varuna is the lord of the waters (see the note on IV, 16, 3): the dropsy is therefore conceived to be due to his infliction.
242 HYMNS OF THE ATHARVA-VEDA. ree eee ee eee ye i eta wi d. For tavasydm, cf. VIII, 2, 20d. Ludwig suggests that the sufferer, being a kshatriya, is said to be the man of Varuza, the king (kshatriya). Weber construes it as though it were an ethical dative, ‘dieser lebe dir (i.e. durch deine gnade) hundert Herbste.’ Sayama, identically the same way, tava anugrahat.
a, b. Ludwig, rendering ‘von dem grossen meere Vais- vanara, thinks that the lower regions are alluded to, since death overtakes him that has been seized by Varuza. Sdyavza over-ingeniously connects vaisvanara with the digestive fire (ga¢harAgni), 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. Sa. 38, 1.
I, 11. COMMENTARY TO PAGE 99.
The ceremonies connected with this hymn are described in Kaus. 33, 1 ff. They are in part intended to procure easy and natural parturition, but the attention of the sitra- 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 Sitras, as follows: 1. ‘While reciting AV.I,11, four portions of the dregs of ghee are poured into a water-pail, and four mu#ga-reeds are plucked (and placed) eastward upon the head (of the pregnant woman!) 2. The sheaths (of the muzga-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 loosened’. 6. On both
sides of her a cord and a wagon-rope is fastened. The
remaining Sitras 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 Grzhya-sitras and elsewhere by the name of soshyanti- karma; see Sat. Br. XIV, 9, 4, 22=Brzh. Ar. VI, 4, 23: Par. Grzh. I, 16, 1 ff.; Sankh. Gvzh. I, 23; Gobh. Grzh. II, See G.. bead. (arch. If, 2. 28 ff.; Hir. Greh. 1, 2, 8 ff. ; Apast. Grth. VI, 14, 13 ff.
The hymn has been treated by Roth, Ueber den Atharva-
veda (Tiibingen, 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 (siti) with the act of pressing the soma. This makes of it a sacrifice; Aryaman, as the hotar-priest, utters the vasha¢-call for Pfishan who is, as it were, the adhvaryu-priest ; cf. Ind. Stud. X, 324. Lud- wig’s surmise that Sdshan is to be read for Pishan (cf. stanza 3) is untenable. The association of the two in matters connected with marriage (RV. X, 85, 36, 37) is well known”, For hota vedhas, 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).
ce. The Pada is very difficult. Roth emends freely, sis77- tam nary ritapragato, ‘(a child) begotten at the proper time shall detach itself, O woman!’ He compares, for this use of sisrztam, Vag. S. VIII, 28, evdsyam dasamasyo asrat,
* Symbolic action calculated to loosen the foetus; cf. in general AV. IX, 3.
* The mantra quoted in Kens: 33, 7 is also based upon the same hymn, RV. X, 85, 40 (the sfirya-stkta).
244 HYMNS OF THE ATHARVA-VEDA.
where asrat is, however, to be derived from srams, ‘fall.’ Weber regards nary rvitapragat4 as parenthetic, and com- bines sisratam with parvavi, ‘lass nachgeben—még die frau richtig gebaut sein!—lass weichen die glieder!’ Ludwig, ‘es lése sich die frau als eine richtig gebarende. We have adhered closely to the text, but s{fsratam as a third singular middle imperative is problematic, and perhaps Roth’s emen- dation (sisvztam) is to be adopted. Possibly some deriva- tive of srams stood in place of the word (sisrasat, ‘may she cause the child to fall’ ?).
d. The editio princeps reads tam vyirzuvantu sitave;
Shankar Pandit, following the minority of his MSS. and
Sayaza, reads tam, which was also proposed by Roth, l.c.,
p- 15, and adopted by Weber, l.c., p. 405. I have trans-
lated tas, 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 Gm. Aey., the proper name Sishan. Ludwig is impressed with it so much as to endow the entire hymn with the title SGshan. In the first place it is a modification of Pishan, suggesting the future or desiderative of the root si, ‘beget ;’ cf. sishyanti, RV. V, 78, 5. Then, there is surely an allusion to usha(Z) vydrzvati in RV. I, 92, 11, that is, sisha is dimly felt to be su + ushd, ‘ beautiful Ushas;’ cf. Tait. S. IV, 7, 3, 2. Sdayavza plainly and mechanically offers this as one of three explanations, sobhana ushaZ sisha. And again the words su ‘well’ and san ‘obtain’ may also have flitted before the eyes of the versifex, cf. sishaze in Pada c. Sdyaza offers two explanations in addi- tion to the above, stsha savitr? praganayitri devata, and suvam sanotisti sisha. The Pada is catalectic, but scarcely stands in need of emendation; cf. Oldenberg, Die Hymnen des Rigveda, pp. 34 ff.
I, Il. COMMENTARY. 245
eeeetev. V, 7e, 4° Att. Br, Vi; 25, 4:
e. Sishave (dz. Aey. as sishd in Pada a) may be a voca-
tive from either sishazi or stishaz4 Sdyama, he siishaze,
suvam sanoti prayakkAati ... sukhaprasavakarizi devata.
d. Still more problematic is bishkale. Sdyaza 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 Sabda- kalpadruma, bishkala is the domestic sow (gramyas(karah) called bahv-apatya, ‘having abundant offspring,’ on account of its prolificness.
Ch-Par.Grih...F, 16, 25 His. -Geh, HW, 3.4. Sayana,
supported by some MS. authority, reads mazmsena, as does
Paraskara. Sdyavza quotes from an unquotable Vedic text
(nigam4ntaram)another form of this mantra, svavity (!) avapa-
dyasva na maseshu na snavasu na baddham asi maggasu.
e. Sévalam 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 saivala is fully borne out by Sayaza’s statement, sevalam galasyoparisthitasaivalavat antaravayavasambaddham. Roth, l.c, p. 16, suggests kevalam, ‘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. cxxi).
Cf. Tait. S. III, 3, 10,1; AV. I, 3,6. Sdyaza, gavinike yone/ parsvavartinyau nirgamanapratibandhike nadyau.
Gr ny. Vv, 75, 7: 8; Sat. Br. XIV, 9, 4, 27; Vag. S. VIII, 28; Nirukta III, 15; Hir. Gvzh. II, 3, 1; Apast. Mantrabr. II, 11, 15; Bhar. Grzh. I, 21; Baudh. Grch, Parisish/a ‘II, 2.
246 HYMNS OF THE ATHARVA-VEDA.
i LT
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 ‘Gegen hitziges - fieber, and, guided especially by the more immediate meaning of garayugaf, ‘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, Pp. 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- bhragds 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;’ vatikrztandsani (VI, 44, 3") 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 Wise’s 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 Kausika-saitra, 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 sof#isha in st. 2), headache, and cough. The pivotal word in the hymn is garayugah, and it is interesting to note why it is especially misleading. The first book of the Atharvan is a miscellaneous collec-
* 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; Atharva- nukramawi I, 1,13; Ath. Paris. 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 11-13. The eleventh is a charm for easy delivery in childbed. The last three stanzas end with the refrain, ava garayu padyat4m, ‘may the placenfa come down;’ in addition to this the word garéyu 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 garayugah'. 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 vidyute, &c.). He placed I, 12 after I, 11 simply because the word garayugah 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.