Adalbert Kuhn, Zeitschrift fiir vergleichende Sprach- forschung, XIII, 58 ff.; 151 ff., has compared the hymn with the Merseburg charm, and a considerable variety of related materials from German, Scandinavian, and English sources. And, having in view more particularly AV. V, 5, 8. 9, he believes that the creeper was used primarily to heal the fractured limbs of horses—a construction which seems to me too narrow. Any kind of genetic connection between the Hindu and the German charm is none too certain, since the situation may have suggested the same expressions independently. Yet as a strongly-marked line in the folk-psychological character of the peoples in question, the parallels are extremely valuable and instructive. The hymn has also been translated by Ludwig, Der Rigveda, ITI, 508, and Grill’, pp. 18 and 125 ff.; cf. also Hillebrandt, Vedachrestomathie, p. 48. The Anukramavzi designates the hymn as vanaspatyam, ‘ devoted to Vanaspati, its author being Azbhu (cf. st. 7).
a,b. I take it that the three occurrences of the word rohavi in the stanza are intended to convey the same word in at least a double meaning. The plant is a creeper growing upon trees, as is stated distinctly in AV. V, 5, =. vrtksham-vriksham 4 rohasi, ‘every tree thou doest ascend.’ The poet is very likely to have in mind this meaning of the root ruh in addition to the more direct one, ‘ cause to grow, at least in connection with the first occurrence of the word. It seems necessary to construe one of the two rohavi in the first Pada as a proper name ; Ludwig in his translation goes farther than that, and seems to take one of them as vocative, ‘ Rohawi[, die wachsen macht.] bist du, 0 Rohazi, &c.’ The passage with its three identical nomi- natives has a parallel in the traditional text of DG BME rise
Iv, 12. Commentary. 387
gangidéssi gangid6é rakshitassi gangidahk (so the MSS.; the edition corrects to angira asi gangida, &c.). The tempta- tion in both cases is to change at least one of the nomi- natives to a vocative; see the note on XIX, 35,1. Grill translates the two rdéhavzi in Pada a by two synonymic expressions, ‘Verheilung wirkst du, ja du heilst.’ This simply veils the difficulty. It may be worth noting that the MSS. of the Kausika in quoting the hymn at 28, 5 read unanimously rohizi; this is the reading of Sdyava, and of the Paippalada for all three occurrences of the word, and it suggests ‘red,’ a quality which is borne out by certain epithets of the plant, hirawyavarza, ‘ golden-coloured,’ in V,5, 6.73; sairyavarza, ‘sun-coloured,’ in V, 5,6; sushma, ‘fiery, in V, 5,7. The name of the plant, laksha, ‘ lac-dye’— cf. the Pet. Lex. s. v. 2—also suggests ‘red,’ and this may be a third thought which runs through the mind of the versifex while composing the stanza. I attach no text- critical significance to the metre of the stanza (gayatri), which differs from that of sts. 2-5 on the one hand, and Sand 7 on the other; cfiveso:/ RV. Vilide3; AV. Ti, 4; WELL, Oc.
b. I have reluctantly refrained from emending dsti to asthi’,‘ bone.’ The rather superfluous copula at the begin- ning of the Pada is suspicious, and the translation of pésh- tram by ‘bone’ is not at allcertain. Both the related pisita and pesi mean ‘flesh,’ and that, not ‘bone, may be the meaning of pésh¢ram. This fits here as well as at AV. VI, 37, 3, the only other place where the word occurs, and Hillebrandt in the vocabulary of his Vedachrestomathie states a similar view, ‘ losgeschlagenes stiick fleisch, fleisch- fetzen, although his derivation from the root pish, ‘crush,’ separates needlessly our word from pisita and pesi. With this change, Padas a,b should be translated ‘ what bone and flesh in thy person has been injured and burst, (may Dhatar,
* By way of illustrating the easy confusion of these two words we may mention that Sayama at IV, 10, 7 a, reads asti for Asthi.
CCc2
388 HYMNS OF THE ATHARVA-VEDA.
&c.).’ Note, too, the parallelism which is thus established with Padas c,d in st. 3 (dsthi in both stanzas, and pésh¢ram =madmsdsya). Sdyaza comments upon preshzkam instead of péshzram.
e, d. dhatd in alliteration with dadhat.
Almost every feature of the detailed account of the parts of the body, here and in the following two stanzas, may be paralleled from the Teutonic charms, e.g. Kuhn, l.c., p. 51:
‘ben zi bena bluot zi bluoda lid zi geliden sose gelimida sin,’
The Norwegian charm mentioned on the same page
recites marrow, bones, and flesh:
‘marv i marv, been i been, kjéd i kjéd,’
A charm from the Orkneys recites (l.c., p. 54):
‘Sinew to sinew, joint to joint,
Blood to blood, and bone to bone, Attend thou in God’s name!’
a. As the Pada stands it is hypercatalectic. The Paippa- lada omits te, which may have crept in from Pada c. But even this leaves a bad final cadence: perhaps bhavatu is to be read dissyllabically (bhotu, in the manner of the Prakrit hodu). For the metrical equivalence of ava and 0, see the author’s article, ‘On certain irregular Vedic Subjunctives, Amer. Journ. Phil. V, 25 ff. (p. 10 ff. of the reprint). Sayaza reads sam for sam in each of the four Pdadas.
The metre is very irregular ; the Anukramazi describes the stanza as tripada yavamadhya bhuriggayatri, not a bad characterisation, as the middle Pada is larger than the other two. By reading sottish¢za we obtain a good octosyllabic Pada a; b is atrish¢ubh, and c is a catalectic anush¢ubh (read | ardhuaZ). Hillebrandt and Grill assume that this and the following stanza are later accretions, and both metre and sense seem to bear them out. But these matters are so
Iv. 16. Commentary. 389
very subjective! Ludwig does not construe Pada b as
a comparison, but translates ‘ gutes rad, gute felge, gute
nabe hat der wagen. Evidently, he also has in mind an
exoteric origin of the stanza.
Cf. RV. VI, 54,7. The stanza.consists of two eleven- syllable and two octosyllabic Padas. The first Pada may be righted by reading patitud, or possibly yddi va kartam, &c. (cf. yadi vain Pada b). The Anukramavwi baldly counts thirty-six syllables as they stand, without resolution, and designates the stanza as brzhati.
c,d. The subject of sas dadhat seems to me (as to Grill) to be Dhatar, the fashioner in st. 2; rzbhti belongs » to the comparison, as in X, 1,8. The Azbhus are known to have constructed the chariot of the Asvins, but they are not counted among the divine physicians (Rudra, the Asvins, the waters, and Sarasvatt). Kuhn and Ludwig make vzbhi the subject of saz dadhat, but the former regards it as an epithet of Dhatar.
IV, 16. COMMENTARY TO PAGE 88.
Professor von Roth, who first treated this hymn in his well-known essay, entitled ‘Abhandlung iiber den Atharva- veda’ (Tiibingen, 1856), remarks on p. 30: ‘There is no other hymn in the entire Vedic literature which presents divine omniscience in terms so emphatic, and yct this beautiful fabric has been degraded to serve as an introduc- tion to an imprecation. One may surmise, however, in this case as well as in the case of many other parts of this Veda, that fragments of older hymns have been utilised to deck out charms for sorcery.’
We may remark, however, that the stanzas of this hymn
do not occur in any other connection, and there is no
tangible evidence that they were constructed for any other
purpose than that before us. Certainly the Atharvavedins
had nothing better in view, and accordingly the hymn is
rubricated in the sixth book of the Kausika which is
390 HYMNS OF THE ATHARVA-VEDA.
devoted to sorcery (Abhifarika). At Kaus. 48, 7 the con- juring enemy, as he comes on, is met by the recital of this hymn; at 127, 3 the third stanza, in praise of Varuma, figures in an expiatory rite when the constellation, ‘the seven Rishis’ (the dipper), is ominously obscured by some nebulous mass, or comet (yatra dhimaketu/ saptarshin upadhiipayati). The Anukramavzi describes the hymn as satyanrztanvikshavastiktam, ‘a hymn which searches out truth and untruth.’ 2
There are many translations of the piece: Roth, l.c., pp. 29 ff. ; Zeitschr. d. Deutsch. Morg. Gesellsch. VII, 607 ; Max Miiller, Chips from a German Workshop, I, 40 ff. ; Muir, Original Sanskrit Texts, V, 63 ff. (cf. also II, 451); Metrical Translations, p. 163; Kaegi, Der Rig-veda’, . p. 89 ff. (p. 65 ff. of Arrowsmith’s translation) ; Ludwig, Der Rigveda, III, 388; Grill?, pp. 32, 126 ff.; cf. also Hille- brandt’s Vedachrestomathie, p. 38 ff.; Bergaigne et Henry, Manuel Védique, p. 146 ff.
Cf. Psalms xxxiti 13+ exttl. 5 cxxxvill. 6s cxxxing @- ee XXiii. 23, and see for scriptural parallels to the next stanzas the notes to Kaegi’s translation. Sayawa refers esham to the enemies ; most translators, to the human race in general. We supply devanam from devaéd in Pada d. Some MSS. of the Padapaz/a read tayat and drat; the latter is adopted by Sayaza, karanasilam ka nasvaram ka vastu manyate.
a. Sdyava explains va#kati by kaudilyena pratarayati, ‘leads astray by means of guile.’ Cf the formula, namo vazkate, parivazkate, stayinas pataye namaz, Mait. S. II, 9, 33: lait..S. [V5 3, 13) Vee. Saou, 21,” addrecsedsars part of the satarudriya-litany to god Rudra in his capacity of master-thief (Mahidhara also, va#kati pratarayati). The Paippalada reads, yas tish¢Zati manasa yas ka vazkati, sup- porting in a measure SAyaza’s and Mahidhara’s glosses.
b. The Padapa¢ha reads nislayan, a participle, not a
Iv, 16. Commentary. 291
gerund ; pratankam is left as an accusative dependent upon kar, a verb of motion. The meaning ‘hiding-place’ for pratanka suits its only other occurrence, AV. V, 13, 8: ‘the poison of all (serpents) who have run into their hiding- place is without force. Cf. also pratadkvan, Maitr. S. I, 2, 12; Tait. S. I, 3, 3,1; Vag. S. V, 32, and Pet. Lex. (epithet of a pit). Sayava reads nilayam, and glosses pratankam with prakarsheza krzkkhragivanam prapya. The Paippa- lada has pralayam, absolutive, in the place of pratankam.
ce, d. The last two Padas foreshadow Varuva’s later func- tion as Neptune (apam patiz); cf. RV. II, 38, 8; AV. III, 3,4; Maitr. S. II, 6,8; Tait. S. I, 8,12,1; V,6, 1,13. Vag. S. X, 7, and Weber, Ragasiya, p. 44, note 1. The two oceans are the heavenly and earthly oceans; cf. RV.
Mee as eV. 1, 2, 25 5 6.
Varuma’s spies are the stars, ‘the eyes of night’ (RV. X, 127, 1), ‘ the beholders of men, AV. XIX, 47, 3 ff. Cf. our Contributions, Third Series, Journ. Amer. Or. Soc. XV, p- 170.
b, ec. Sdyava reads purastat for parastat, and construes
samkhyata as the nom. of the stem saskhyatar (pramaza-
yita).
d. The Pada is exceedingly difficult. ni minoti has the sanction of all MSS., and is apparently the reading of the Paippalada also. The gamester throws down (ni vapati, Kaus. 41, 13) his dice, and it is implied here, of course, that it is done successfully, that the player obtains the stakes (kritam, see Pet. Lex., s.v. kvita 3c), because Varuma cannot be otherwise than successful. As the player plants down these (successful dice) thus does Varuza establish these laws (tani, sc. vratani?). Sayasza, who did not primarily influence our conclusion, in part approaches the same interpretation, tani papinam sikshakarmawi tattatpa-
392 HYMNS OF THE ATHARVA-VEDA.
a Se a panusareva ni minoti ni kshipati ... yatha kitava/ akshan Atmano gayartham nikshipati.. The Pet. Lex. (V, 764; VII, 409) emends to ni Ainoti and vi Ainoti without real gain, tempting as the emendation is in the light of RV. X, 42,9 = AV. VII, 50, 6, and AV. IV, 38, 2. Grill suggests n{ minoti (or minati) in the sense of ‘reducing, causing to vanish the strength of men’ (cf. Sayaza), but neither expression will bear such an interpretation (ni minati does not occur). The translators offer the greatest variety of versions, without, as a rule, adhering closely to the text.
Sayama reads visita and rushanta% (so also the Paippa-
lada). For sinantu of the vulgate the MSS. have #/inantu,
khinattu, and sinantu (Sayawa, kfinattu &/indantu).
a. varusa is metrically superfluous, an obvious gloss.
e. The MSS. read sramsayitva and sramsayitva. Sayaza, correctly, srassayitva (galodararogeva srastam kritva).
d. Sayaza, followed by Shankar Pandit, reads abandhaz for abandhraz. The Pet. Lex. s.v. 2 kart, ‘like a leaking tub wound about with rags’ (to stop the leakage). Sdayaza, ase kosa iva parikrztyamanaz (krzti k#edane), ‘like the broken sheath of a sword.’