Satapatha Bramhana Part 03

SR No.: 007679
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Julius Eggeling
Publisher: Oxford
Publication Year: 1894
Total Pages: 2382
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 45 MB

Page 1097

554
HYMNS OF THE ATHARVA-VEDA.
Stanza 3.
a. For yáto dashtám, cf. the formulaic yato dashtali, Kaus. 28, 7; 32, 5 (see the note on V, 13, 4). The expression tripradamsín suggests asutrip, RV. X, 14, 12, &c.; Ludwig, 'bitter-zanig.'
Stanza 4.
Ludwig suggests krinoti for krinoshi, but this sort of anacoluthon is common in the Atharvan. The appeal to Brihaspati is natural as soon as we substitute Brahmanaspati, and remember that bráhma is the ordinary Atharvanic word for 'hymn.' Or, again, Brihaspati, as the companion and double of Indra and Agni, represents their constant hostility towards all vicious forces. Sâyana refers the stanza to the victim of the serpent: the contortions of his body and face are supposed to be described in the first hemistich, the cure in the second. Very plausible, but we are cautioned by such an expression as vritrám víparvam, RV. I, 187, 1, which is favourable to the construction of víparur as an epithet of the serpent.
Stanza 5.
In the Paippalâda these stanzas are wanting; they have the character of a production somewhat independent of the preceding stanzas. To such a view also points the separate quotation of this stanza (and the rest?) in the late (parisishta) chapter Kaus. 139 (see above, and cf. Kausika, Introduction, p. xxv ff.).
a. The Pet. Lexs. and Zimmer, p. 95, deal with sarkóta as a serpent, Grill and Henry as 'scorpion.' The former compares karkata and karkataka, 'crab,' but more significant seem to me to be karkota and karkotaká, both of which are mentioned as names of serpents. There is, however, in the mind of the Atharvan writer but little difference between both kinds of vermin (cf. AV. XII, 1,46; 4, 9. 15), and the description in the sequel favours the scorpion. Cf. for the interchange of s and k, Kuhn's Zeitschrift, XXV,
Digitized by
Google