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 804

I, 18. COMMENTARY.
261
with evil characteristics is sprinkled after each verse, commencing at the braid of hair at the right. 20. Having made an offering of chaff from a vessel made of the wood of a palasa-tree (butea frondosa), he pours the rest (of the chaff) after (the first oblation). 21. Chaff, husks, refuse of grain, and shavings are placed upon the heel of her left foot.'
There are good and evil characteristics (lakshmî = lakshana, cf. AV. VII, 115), and the main point of the practices is their removal by washing, and by placing all kinds of offal where it will easily drop from the person under treatment, and cause symbolically the removal of the bad points.
The hymn has been translated by Weber, Ind. Stud. IV, 411 ff. ; Ludwig, Der Rigveda, III, 498 (cf. also 338); and Geldner, Vedische Studien, I, pp. 313 ff., where the charm is interpreted erroneously as directed against the house-cat. Cf. our brief criticism in the Journ. Am. Or. Soc. XV, 153, note.
Stanga 1.
2. Sayana reads lakshmam for lakshmydm, commenting, asaubhågyakaram kihnam. To lalâmyàm he remarks, lalâme bhavam tilakasthånagatam.
d. The Pâda is hypermetric, unless we read pragâyârâtim with double sandhi. Ludwig would cure the passage by substituting nír for pragãyai, but the latter word seems guaranteed by AV. V, 25, 8, prągáyai tvã (två a) nayamasi, and possibly this is the original reading (cf. Geldner, 1.c., 314). In adhering to the traditional text I have supposed the meaning to be that she who has the character of an Arati is rendered fit for marriage and child-birth by the charm. Very problematic this is, to be sure. Sâyana takes pragayai with Pâda c, yâni ... saubhågyâni kihnâni ... tâni ... asmäkam pragayai ... bhavantu, . . . yâni pûrvam nihsâritâni asaubhagyakarâni kihnâni ... arâtim satrum ... pråpayāmah!
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