Questions of King Milinda Part 01

SR No.: 007681
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: T W Rhys Davids
Publisher: Oxford
Publication Year: 1890
Total Pages: 2695
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 47 MB

Page 1471

xxviii
HYMNS OF THE ATHARVA-VEDA.
Even in the Atharvan Upanishads the term is wanting! The earliest occurrences of the word, aside from Sankh. Grih., are Vait. Sû. 1, 5; Gop. Br. I, 2, 16. The word is common in the Parisishtas.
We may note finally the terms pañkakalpa and pankakalpin. They do not refer directly to the Samhitås of the AV., but are both bahuvrihi-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 Asurî-kalpa, Amer. Journ. Phil. X, 169. They are very late : they do not occur in the Sätras or Brâhmana 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 Prakrit Handschriften, II, 96. But they are sufficiently attested outside of the Atharvan, in the expression, pañkakalpam atharvânam, Mahâbh. XII, 342, 99 = 13258, and in the Mahâbhâshya (Ind. Stud. XIII, 455).
II. THE POSITION OF THE ATHARVA-VEDA IN
HINDU LITERATURE IN GENERAL. In addressing oneself to the task of characterising the estimate which the Hindus placed upon the Atharvan
ot texts and practices, it is especially needful to Statement
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.
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