Hymns of the Atharva-Veda — SBE Vol. 42 (Clarendon Press, 1897) page scans

' Cf. Aufrecht, Festgruss an Otto von Bohtlingk, p. 3.

268 HYMNS OF THE ATHARVA-VEDA.

And still more explicitly the scholiast at Tait. Br., dehasya svakiyak pirvasiddho varzah.

I, 24. COMMENTARY TO PAGE 16.

For the application of the hymn in the ritual, and
previous translations, ci. the introduction to I, 23. Stanza 3
is repeated’ at Tait. Broil;‘4; 4, 2°

Sayana states the little legend (4khyayika) as follows: The dark plant here in question was the gall (pitta, dosha) of the primordial bird suparza (garutman). The Asuri (asuravzam maya kakana stri) engaged in battle with him and conquered. The gall captured in the battle she embodied into the form of trees (nili, and so forth). This neat story would commend itself at once but for the word gitd, which does not mean ‘ she conquered ’ (Say., gitavati), but ‘she was conquered.’ The story is so pat as to tempt to the emendation gitva, or (as Ludwig suggests) gitam. In general, of course, asura in the Atharvan, as elsewhere, stands for the hostile powers conquered by the Devas, e.g AVE oo ora: TVS Tolar ane te Ve 2,17. 18» Xe 9, 115.6, 22-8 = ALB 7 16.30 tee 1, 15. But a different tone prevails occasionally. In VI, 108, 3 the Asuras are said to know wisdom; in VI, 100, 3 the ant (upagika), which is employed as an antidote against poison, is called the daughter of the Asuras; in II, 3, 3; VI, 109, 3 they dig remedies into the ground, and finally, in VII, 38,.2, the Asuri attracts to herself Indra from the company of the gods, so that, according to Ka/¢#. S. XIII, 5, he lives with the Asuras (cf. Ind. Stud. IIT, 479; V, 250, 453). The sense of Sayaza’s story is therefore not irrelevant. Note also that Asuri itself is the name of a magic plant (cf. Magoun, Asuri-kalpa, Amer. Journ. Phil. X, 165 ff.). If, on the other hand, gitd of the text is retained, it is hard to see how she possessed herself of the gall of the suparva, unless by way of revenge,

I, 24. Commentary. 269

or theft. Hence we have, hesitatingly, adopted the emen- dation gitva. A later transcriber, shocked by the imputation that the Asuri was victorious, might easily have made the change.

Weber, l.c., p. 418, regards suparva as the sun and Asuri as the night, who, having been conquered by the sun, with- draws into the forest and assumes the form of trees: ‘ Der vogel, der zuerst erstand, dessen gall’ du gewesen bist. Die Asuri im kampf besiegt machte die baum’ zu ihrer form. But there is scarcely any occasion here for a mythical eagle: the eagle and the boar naturally find plants, the one with his eye, the other with his snout (see II, 27,2; V, 14, 1), and the legend must in some way rest upen this natural fact. This translation, too, establishes no connection between the first and second parts of the stanza. Very similarly Grill.

d. For vanaspatin the Paippalada has vanaspatiz in accordance with the common usage of the Brahmawas, e.g. asvo ripam krztva, Tait. Br. III, 8, 12, 2; Apast. Sr. V, 2,43; krishvo ripam kritva, Tait. Br. III, 7,4, 8. See Delbriick, Altindische Syntax, p. 103; Pet. Lex. s.v. ripa (column 421); Ind. Stud. XIII, 111. This makes a decidedly better construction: ‘having assumed the form of a tree.’ Ludwig, translating the Saunakiya-text, ‘(die Asurt) hat es zur farbe der baume gemacht,’ and similarly Sayava, gayena labdham tat pittam ripam kakre, oshadhyatmana sevyam akaram akarshit, tad eva ripam daha, vanaspatin nilyddin. I have followed their lead, though I am for my part unacquainted with any such construction of kar (with three accusatives; note also the middle, fakre).

a,b. Sayana treats idam as follows: idam suparmapittena nirmitam nilyddikam, which corresponds with his and our interpretation of st. 1. In the later literature Asuri is a branch of medicine; see the Pet. Lex. under Asuri 3) and mAnusha. The metre of the two P4das is irregular: idam kilasandsanam seems to be a gloss.

2/0 HYMNS OF THE ATHARVA-VEDA.

a. The European edition reads sama, which Ludwig puts
forth as the title of the hymn. The Paippalada, as also
two of Shankar Pandit’s MSS., have syama (cf. simaka =
syAmaka, Kaus. 8, 11); this is undoubtedly correct, and
corresponds with ragani in I, 23, 1.

I, 25. COMMENTARY TO PAGE 3.

The practice which Kausika reports for this hymn is similar in character, but totally different in detail from those connected with AV. V,22 and VI,20. The practising priest, according to Sitra 26, 25, has an axe heated; then the axe is quenched in water, and the water thus heated is poured upon the patient: yad agnir iti parasus gapams tapayati kvathayaty avasizkati. Darila renders this quite clear, parasunad kvathayaty udakam ... taptenodakena svasimkati rogizam. The heated water is supposed doubt- less to draw the heat of the fever out of the patient, as it flows from him (attractio similium). Kesava describes the performance as a gvarabhaishagyas, nityagvare velagvare satatagvare ekantaritagvare aturthikagvare ka ritugvare ka; cf. stanza 4.c,d. Similarly Sayava in the introduction, aikahikadisitagvarasamtatagvaravelagvaradisantaye. The hymn has been treated by Weber, Indische Studien, IV, 419 ff.; Grohmann, ib. IX, 384 ff.; Ludwig, Der Rigveda, IIT, 511; Zimmer, Altindisches Leben, pp. 381, 384 ; Bergaigne et Henry, Manuel Veédique, p. 136. It is quoted also at Kaus. 26,1 note, as one of the takmana- sanagava of the Gavamala, Ath. Paris. 32, 7.

The stanza is not quite clear. Sdyaza refers to the practices in the Sitra, which are, of course, themselves based upon suggestions derived from the mantra. ‘When \gni having entered the waters burned’ refers doubtless to the circle of well-known legends that deal with Agni’s escape to the waters. Two hymns of the Rig-veda, X, 51 and

I, 25. Commentary. 271

52, deal with this subject, and it is one of the stock-legends, with protean variations, in the Brahmavas (cf. Indische pimceny 119,0467),¢.0.° Sat; Br. ‘Tyo2;°3,°1 9 9) 9, 139=16 ; Tait. S. II, 6, 6, 1 ff.; VI, 2,8, 4 ff. For later forms of the same legend, see Adolf Holtzmann’s essay, Agni nach den Vorstellungen des Mahabharata, p. 11, and especially Mahdabh. III, 14214 ffi.=222, 7 ff. The basis of these legends is the plain observation that lightning comes from the clouds, that is, the waters (cf. Nirukta VII, 23), and perhaps, again, that it strikes the water upon earth, and disappears in it. This again connects the takmdan with lightning, which is conceived as a cause of fever, &c. See our introductions to V, 22, and I, 12. It is perhaps not going too far to suppose that the connection of fever with lightning is another way of saying that fever is associated especially with the rainy season, and that incleed seems to be the purport of the stanza: the period of the lightning is the time when the takman originates. Cf. Grohmann, l.c., p. 403; Zimmer, l.c., p. 384.

a. Apo, the nominative for the accusative, especially in
the AV., as conversely apa the accusative appears as
nominative; see Whitney’s Sanskrit Grammar, § 393 a.
The expression 4po.. . pravisya, as in RV. X, 51, 1,
pravivésitha = paz.

b. dharma-dhrttak with alliteration. The expression does not refer to pious men, as is assumed by Weber, Grohmann, and Zimmer; and that too, although their translation would seem to receive support from RV. X, 51, 5, éhi manur devayur yag#akamas, ‘come (O Agni), pious men desire to sacrifice. The meaning of the first two Padas would according to this be as follows: When Agni hid himself in the waters, and men being thus deprived of the carrier of the sacrifice approached him humbly, with the purpose of inducing him to resume his functions!... But

1 Weber, l.c., to be sure, quite differently, refers the humble attitude of the pious to the dread of the supposed consequence of Agni’s action, namely, the fever.

Zia HYMNS OF THE ATHARVA-VEDA.

dharma-dhrétad cannot refer to men, and Ludwig is quite correct in his view, ‘die erhalter. der satzungen (die gotter).’ The dharman is upheld by the gods; so, e.g. Vishzu is described as dharmazi dharayan in RV. I, 22, 18; Indra as dharma-kr#t in VIII, 98,1; cf. also the epithet dhvzta- vrata as applied to Varuva at AV. VII, 83,1. Reference is therefore made to the suppliant attitude of the gods, as they induce Agni by promises to come forth from the waters and attend to his business.

ce. Weber translates tatra .. . paramazz ganitram ‘ dort is hauptsachlich dein Entstehen, and Grohmann and Zimmer adopt this very pregnant rendering. Ludwig, on the other hand, says, ‘da war deine erste geburt.’ It seems to me that neither translation is correct. The Pada is formulaic ; in RV. I, 163, 4 (the hymn to the horse, asvastuti) we have, yatra ta a4hu/ paramam ganitram, and Ludwig translates (902), ‘wo man sagt, dass dein hdchster geburtsort.’ Cf. also paramé ganitre in X, 56,1. The expression paramam ganitram, moreover, is the equivalent of paramé ganman in RV. II, 9, 3, which is contrasted with avaré sadhasthe. The former obviously refers to Agni, the lightning, and, as the takman is the effect of that Agni, the same origin is assumed for him. Hence I have translated the expres- sion by ‘ origin on high.’

b. Literally, ‘or whether thy origin is a splinter-seeking one,’ a bold figure as applied to the takman. But throughout this hymn the parallelism between fire and the takman is uppermost in the mind of the poet, and the phenomenon of Agni’s growth, as he eagerly licks the split wood, is meta- phorically transferred to his disease. Weber translates prettily, ‘sei Splitterfeuer, ziingelndes, dein geburtsort.’ Zimmer, less vividly, ‘oder wenn deine geburtsstatte glim- mend ist.’ Ludwig does not comment upon his obscure result, ‘oder mag spitze stachel suchend (stechend) deine geburt sein;’ he, at any rate, unnecessarily abandons the metaphor of the fire. Sdayava, sakalyam dahyam kashzha- samtiham ikfati sakalye¢ agnih.

I, 25. Commentary. 273

ce. I have left the word hriidu! untranslated, as I have not been able to discover any basis for the existing trans- lation, ‘cramp, which Weber, l.c., p. 420, proposes, and Ludwig adopts. Weber’s result is derived from etymo- logical considerations of insufficient cogency, and the recorded symptoms of the takman or the gvara fail to include cramps. The word, occurs only in this hymn, in evident alliteration with haritasya, and I should not wonder if the word would yet turn out to have some connection with ‘yellow.’ For haritasya deva, see the note on V, 22,2 a.

Stanza 38.

b. The takman as a son of Varuva presents a snatch of that broader and deeper view of the origin of disease, according to which it is due to the violation of the laws of Varuza, who has in his charge the order of the universe, and punishes the sinner by his ‘ fetters’ of disease, especially the dropsy; see, e.g. AV. IV, 16,6, 7%. In general, to be sure, the lower view prevails in the Atharvan: possession by demons, and the witchcraft of enemies, are the causes of sickness.

The metre is irregular: Pada a, anush/ubh; b and c, trish¢ubh; d, gagati.

b. For rdra, see the note on V, 22, Io a.

e. yO anyedytr . . . abhyéti (see also VII, 116, 2) refers to a fever which attacks, or becomes highest, every twenty- four hours; cf. perhaps the velagvara, mentioned by Kesava

* Some MSS., according to Weber, read hridu, and Whitney, Index Verborum, s. v., reports also hffdu, hrffdru, and rfidu. Sayama reads rfidhuh (rohakaf purushasarire utpadakah). Shankar Pandit notes still other variants.

2 I prefer this view to another suggested by Grohmann, l.c., p. 406 ff., according to which the malarial takman in marshy (i.e. watery) regions is especially pointed out. Varuma, being the god of the sea (water), this variety of takman might thus be regarded as his son. ‘This seems rather far-fetched.

274 HYMNS OF THE ATHARVA-VEDA.