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 1514

INTRODUCTION.
1xxi
21, 7 exhibits them, properly no doubt, as part of an ordinary srauta-rite, the agnishtoma. It would seem then that the Atharvavedins possessed the knowledge of, and practised srauta-rites prior to the conclusion of the present redactions of their hymns, and thus perhaps, after all, the purohita, in case of his being an Atharvan, was not altogether unequipped for taking a hand in the broader Vedic rites with the three fires and the usual assortment of priests. Again, the AV. contains hymns which are evidently expiatory formulas for faults committed at the sacrifice. Thus AV. VI, 114 presents itself in the light of an ordinary prayaskitta-formula, and there are MSS. of the Vaitâna-sútra which add six prayaskitta chapters to the eight which make up the body of that text? The Gop. Br., more frequently than other Brahmanas, refers to defects in the sacrifice (virishta, ûna, yâtayama) which are to be corrected (samdhana) by certain hymas, stanzas, and formulas; see I, 1, 13 and 22. Possibly the germs of the correlation of the Atharvan and the Brahınan, in his function as supervisor and corrector of the sacrifice, may also turn out to be traceable to a period prior to the present redaction of the Samhitâs.
The present volume of translations comprises about one third of the entire material of the Atharva-veda in the text of the Saunaka-school. But it represents the contents and spirit of the fourth Veda in a far greater measure than is indicated by this numerical statement. The twentieth book of the Samhitâ, with the exception of the so-called kuntapasûktâni (hymns 127-1362), seems to be a verbatim repetition of mantras contained in the Rig-veda, being employed in the Vaitâna-sútra at the sastras and stotras of the somasacrifice: it is altogether foreign to the spirit of the original
See Garbe, in the preface of his edition of the text, p. 5; Weber, Verzeichniss der Sanskrit und Prakrit Handschriften, II, 83; Kausika, Introduction, P. xxxiii.
* One of these, hymn 137, appears in the present volume, p. 197 ff.
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