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 952

IV, 37. COMMENTARY.
409
dharvas, and, according to Dârila at Kaus. 28, 9-11, it is employed in a remedial charm against one possessed by Pisakas (pisâkagrihita). Kesava and Sayana, more broadly and correctly, sarvabhūtagrahabhaishagyam. The practices are stated as follows: 9. While pronouncing IV, 37 the practitioner takes pulverised sami (i.e. the pulverised leaves, or fruit, of the prosopis spicigera) from a basket (and puts it) into the food (of the patient)?. 10. (He puts it also) into the cosmetics (of the patient). 11. He scatters (the pulverised sami) around the house (of the patient)?' The hymn is also rubricated among the katanâni (sc. sûktâni) 'hymns to drive away with,' Kaus. 8, 25. Cf. Santikalpa 17 and 21 3.
Adalbert Kuhn, in Zeitschr. f. vergl. Sprachf. XIII, 118 ff., has translated this hymn and compared it with parallel conceptions in the Teutonic folk-lore. Especially good are the parallels drawn between the Apsaras, who, from the time of RV. X, 95 onwards, are engaged in enticing heroes and divine seers“, with the Germanic elfs who fascinate the wanderer at night with their dance. The hymn has also been rendered by Ludwig, Der Rigveda, III, 352.
Stanga 3. The description of the natural abode of the Apsaras in this and the following stanzas is in accord with the Brahmanical view from earliest times. Cf. the apya yósha. 'water-woman,' RV. X, 10, 4; Bergaigne, La Religion Védique, II, 35, 40,96; III, 65 ff.; A. Holtzmann, Zeitschr. d. Deutsch. Morg. Gesellsch. XXXIII,631 ff. The fanciful list of names embodies largely a superficial personification of fragrant cosmetics and ointments: bdellium, spikenard, fragrant salve, &c.
* According to Kesava and Sâyana he puts pulverised leaves of sami into a sami-fruit, and feeds the patient upon that. Cf. Kaus. 47, 23.
. As there is no mention of the samî in the hymn, one is almost tempted to identify the agasringî with it.
3 Shankar Pandit, erroneously, Nakshatrakalpa 17 and 21. • Cf. our note on VI, 111, 4.
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