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 1226

XIX, 53. COMMENTARY.
683
none of them satisfactory-are enumerated by Scherman, pp. 78, 81, and Grill, p. 193. I am inclined to believe in the kinship of our passage with RV. I, 164, 2, and also in a semi-lucid blending of the attributes of time with those of the sun. Cf. AV. XIII, 2, 39, where Rohita, a form of the sun, is identified with time; see Henry, Les Hymnes Rohitas, pp. 13, 44, and Contributions, Fourth Series, Amer. Journ. Phil. XII, p. 430. The Maitri-Upanishad states distinctly that the sun is the source of time, sûryo yonih kâlasya (VI, 14).
b. sahasraksha is an attribute of a great variety of divinities, and it does not, therefore, contribute to the definition of the passage, see the note on IV, 20, 4; Sâyana, sahasrakiranopetah, i.e. the sun. agára and bhåriretah are attributes of the two Ushas at AV. VIII, 9, 12. The latter, in the RV., only of heaven and earth; the former, again, of an almost complete assortment of divinities. One must not be too insistent with a later Atharvan production, the poet makes draughts upon the entire stock of mythic and cosmogonic ideas; the poetic past is his kâmadhuk; he cares not for nicety of distinction.
c. Sâyana: ‘The Rishis mount (i. e, control) time,' svâdhînam kurvanti, svâdhînakâlâ bhavanti.
Stanza 2. 8. The MSS. have kakrấn which Roth and Whitney emend to kakrá; Shankar Pandit adheres to the MS. reading. Sảyana comments upon kakrå nu vahati (sapta ritùn anu anukramena . . . dhârayati). The seven wheels occur again at RV. I, 164, 3. 12, where Sâyana refers them to the seven modes of subdividing the year. But the scholiast to the present passage, again, as in st. 1, has in mind the seven seasons (sapta ritûn), i.e., the six seasons and the intercalary month. A wagon with seven wheels occurs also at RV. II, 40, 3, where it is employed by Soma and Půshan to carry the gods. Cf. also the Brihaddevata, IV, 32.
b. Sayana comments upon amritam tany akshah, to wit:
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