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 1511

lxviii
HYMNS OF THE ATHARVA-VEDA.
a good old age, if a Brâhmana, imbued with this knowledge, is his purohita, the shepherd of his kingdom. The subjects of such a king are loyal and obedient (VIII, 25, 2. 3). The prescriptions regarding the purohita are followed (VIII, 25) by a magic rite, called brahmanah parimâra, designed to kill hostile kings, which might have found a place in the ritual of the Atharvan? In later texts, as a matter of fact, the rule is laid down formally that the purohita should be an Atharvavedin. Thus in Gaut. XI, 15. 17; Yâgñav. I, 312 (cf. also Manu XI, 33); see p. xlviii, above. Sâyana in the Introduction to the AV., pp. 5, 6, claims outright that the office of purohita belongs to the Atharvanists (paurohityam ka atharvavidaisva kâryam), and he is able to cite in support of his claim not only the rather hysterical dicta of the Atharvan writings, but also slokas from a number of Puranas, the Nîtisastra, &c.; cf. above, p. lvi? In the Dasakumara-karita magic rites, as well as the marriage ceremony, are in fact performed at the court of a king with Atharvan rites. atharvanena (àtharvanikena) vidhina, and the statement is the more valuable as it is incidental; see above, p. lv.
I do not desire to enter here upon a discussion of the question of the original relation between the purohita and the brahman, whose identity is baldly assumed in many passages of the earlier Hindu literature 3. I believe that they were not originally the same, but that they were bound together by certain specific ties. They are similar,
i Cf. the battle-charm, AV. III, 19: the purohita figures in it as well as in the accompanying performances, Kaus. 14, 22-23 (Dârila). And RV. IV, 50, 7-9, perhaps earlier, shows the brihaspati (purohita) in essentially the same important relation to the king.
Cf. Deva at Kâty. Sr. XV, 7, 11, purohito yo stharvavedavihitânâm sântikapaushtikábhikârakarmanâm karta.
Cf. Max Müller, History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature, p. 485 ff.; Weber, Ind. Stud. X, 31 ff.; Râgasûya, p. 23, note; Haug, Brahma und die Brahmanen, p. 9 ff.; Geldner, Vedische Studien, II, 144 ff.; Oldenberg, Die Religion des Veda, pp. 374, 395 ff. Sâyana at RV. VII, 33, 14 equates purohita and brahman, and Ait. Br. VII, 16, I exhibits Vasishtha, the typical purohita, in the office of brahman at a srauta-rite. At RV. IV, 50, 7 ff. the activity of a parohita is sketched : the parohita, bowever, is called brihaspati (- brahman).
s bowever, RV. IV., the ty
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