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

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expected: there is no evidence of repugnance or exclusiveness. Witchcraft is blended with every sphere of religious thought and activity, and the only sane attitude on the part of these texts must be the recognition of the literary products which are by distinction the repositories of witchcraft. No one will expect rigid consistency : witchcraft blows hot and cold from the same mouth; according as it is turned towards the inimical forces, human and demoniac, or is turned by others against oneself, it is regarded as useful, or noxious. The AV. itself takes the same view by implication: the hymn, II, 12, hurls the bitterest invective against enemies that endeavour to thwart one's holy work; this does not prevent one's own endeavour to frustrate the sacrifice of an enemy (VII, 70); the hymn, II, 7, ensures protection against curses and hostile plots, but does not prevent the existence of fierce imprecations and curses issued forth subjectively for the ruin of another (VI, 13 and 37). It is a question throughout of my sorcery, or thy sorcery. The flavour of holiness and virginal innocency is necessarily absent, and this want crops out in connection with the performances of yâtu even in the RV. (VII, 104, 15. 16), where the writer exclaims: 'may I die to-day if I am a sorcerer,' and complains against his enemy who calls him, though he is pure, a sorcerer, and against the real sorcerer who pretends that he is pure. Though yâtu (sorcery) is regarded here as devilish (cf. e.g. AV. I, 7 and 8), the writer at Sat. Br. X, 5, 2, 20 is not prevented from placing the yâtuvidah, 'those that are skilled in sorcery,' in solemn array with the representatives of the holiest forms of literature, immediately after the bahvrikah, as the characteristic exponent of Atharvanic activity. And on the other hand even bheshagam, 'cure, medicine,' the altruistic province of the Atharvan, though well regarded in general, does not come off without a sneer. The Tait. S. VI, 4, 9, 3 (cf. Maitr. S. IV, 6, 2; Sat. Br. IV, 1, 5, 14) says, brâhmanena bheshagam na kâryam, 'a Brahman shall not practise medicine,' the reason that is assigned being that the physician is
Resumé of the srautatexts estimate of the AV.
INTRODUCTION.
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