Zend Avesta Part 03

SR No.: 007673
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: L H Mills
Publisher: Oxford
Publication Year: 1887
Total Pages: 2618
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 49 MB

Page 626

VEDIC HYMNS.
Note 1. At must here take vyuha and be pronounced as an iambus. This is exceptional with at, but there are at least two other passages where the same pronunciation is necessary. I, 148, 4, at rokate vane å vi-bha-vá, though in the line immediately following it is monosyllabic. Also in V, 7, 10, åt agne áprinatah.
Note 2. Svadhâ, literally one's own place, afterwards; one's own nature. It was a great triumph for the science of Comparative Philology that, long before the existence of such a word as svadha in Sanskrit was known, it should have been postulated by Professor Benfey in his Griechisches Wurzellexicon, published in 1839, and in the appendix of 1842. Svadhi was known, it is true, in the ardinary Sanskrit, but there it only occurred as an exclamation used on presenting an oblation to the manes. It was also explained to mean food offered to deceased ancestors, or to be the name of a personification of Måyå or worldly illusion, or of a nymph. But Professor Benfey, with great ingenuity, pos. tulated for Sanskrit a noun svadhâ, as corresponding to the Greek Oos and the German sitte, O. H. G. sit-u, Gothic sid-u. The noun svadhå has since been discovered in the Veda, where it occurs very frequently; and its true meaning in many passages where native tradition had entirely 'misunderstood it, has really been restored by means of its etymological identification with the Greek doos: or hos. See Kuhn's Zeitschrift, vol. ii, p. 134 ; vol. xii, p. 158.
The expressions anu svadhảm and svadhấm ánu are of frequent occurrence. They mean, according to the nature or character of the persons spoken of, and may be translated by as usual, or according to a person's wont. Thus in our passage we may translate, The Maruts are born again, i. e. as soon as Indra appeared with the dawn, according to their wont; they are always born as soon as Indra appears, for such is their nature.
I, 165, 5. indra svadhảm ánu hí nah babhấtha. For, Indra, according to thy wont, thou art with us. VIII, 20, 7. svadhấm ánu srlyam narah-váhante.
According to their wont, the men (the Maruts) carry splendour.
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