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 495

xxviii
Even in the Atharvan Upanishads the term is wanting1. The earliest occurrences of the word, aside from Sânkh. Grih., are Vait. Sû. 1, 1; Gop. Br. I, 2, 16. The word is common in the Parisishtas.
HYMNS OF THE ATHARVA-VEDA.
We may note finally the terms pañkakalpa and paйkakalpin. They do not refer directly to the Samhitâs of the AV., but are both bahuvrîhi-compounds designating 'one who practises with the five kalpas of the AV.,' i.e. Atharvan priests. Thus the words were first explained by the author, Journ. Amer. Or. Soc. XI, 378; Kausika, Introduction, p. lvii. Cf. also Magoun, The Åsurî-kalpa, Amer. Journ. Phil. X, 169. They are very late: they do not occur in the Sutras or Brahmana of the AV., nor, as far as is known, in the literature proper of that Veda. They appear as the titles of scribes of Atharvan texts, see Kausika, Introduction, p. ix; Weber, Verzeichniss der Sanskrit und Prâkrit Handschriften, II, 96. But they are sufficiently attested outside of the Atharvan, in the expression, paйkakalpam atharvânam, Mahâbh. XII, 342, 9913258, and in the Mahâbhashya (Ind. Stud. XIII, 455).
II. THE POSITION OF THE ATHARVA-VEDA IN HINDU LITERATURE IN GENERAL.
Statement
In addressing oneself to the task of characterising the estimate which the Hindus placed upon the Atharvan texts and practices, it is especially needful to of the take a broad, if possible a universal view, of problem. the statements of the Vedic and mediaeval texts bearing upon the question. The Atharvan is
1 The word occurs in certain doubtful variants of the text of the Mundaka Up.; see Ind. Stud. I, 301, note. In Râm I, 65, 22 brahmaveda is contrasted with kshatraveda, just as at Mahâbh. VII, 23, 39-988 brâhma veda with dhanurveda. In such cases the word brahma is not to be referred pregnantly to the fourth Veda, but to Brahmanic religion in general represented by the first caste, the science of war being in the hands of the second, or warrior-caste. Cf. below, p. xlii. The word brahmavid, Mahâbh. III, 2625 (Nala 14, 18, brahmarshi, however, seems to mean 'skilled in sorcery,' and may contain an allusion to the AV.
Digitized by Google