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 942

IV, 20. COMMENTARY.
399
flora. The Kausika, 28, 7, mentions the name of the plant as sadampushpå ; this is glossed by Darila with trisamdhyâ and by Kesava with samdhyâ (probably a corruption of trisamdhya). The Sätra reads : à pasyatîsti sadampushpâ manim badhnâti, 'with AV. IV, 20 he ties on as an amulet the plant sadampushpå.' The plant is mentioned again along with others in a charm directed against witchcraft in 39, 6, and Sayana defines it in agreement with Kausika, he devi sadampushpåkhye oshadhe; cf. also sadapushpî in the lexicons. The plant seems to be the calotropis gigantea; cf. Karaka-samhità I, 4, 3. For amulets derived from the vegetable kingdom see Seven Hymns of the Atharva-veda, Amer. Journ. Phil. VII, 478, and for amulets in general Kaus. 7, 19. The hymn is rubricated further in the list of stanzas designated as katanâni (sc. suktåni), 'hymns to chase away with,' in Kaus. 8, 25, and the Ganamâlâ, Ath. Paris. 32, 4, adds it also to the three hymns which Kaus. 8, 24 describes as the måtrinâmâni (sc. sûktâni). The reason for this classification is the expression devy (oshadhe) in stanzas 1 and 2. See the note at Kaus. 8, 24, and cf. for the matrigana our remarks in the introduction to VI, III. The Anukramanî follows these secondary considerations, designating the hymn as mâtrinâmadaivatam, its author being Mâtrinâmarshi.
The hymn has been translated by Ludwig, Der Rigveda, III, 525, and Grill?, pp. 2, 133 ; cf. also Hillebrandt's Vedachrestomathie, p. 48.
Stansa 1. For the description of the plant in this stanza, cf. mâmpasya in VII, 38, 1, and see the introduction to VI, 139. I have upheld in my translation the text of the edition, guaranteed as it is by the unanimous tradition of the MSS. of the Saunakîya-sâkhâ. All corrections, including the important variant pasyasi for pasyati throughout the stanza in the Paippalada, seem to me in this instance to amount to the substitution of a better literary performance for a poorer one; they do not bring with them the proof that
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