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 1753

234
HYMNS OF THE ATHARVA-VEDA.
sive urine, and even flow of blood, i.e. against excessive or unnatural flows from the body in general. The practices are as follows: 25, 6. While reciting the two hymns I, 2 and II, 3 the (practising priest) ties the head of a stalk of muñga-reed (saccharum munja) with a cord (made from the same plant, as an amulet, upon the patient'). 7. Having ground up a natural lump of earth, and earth from an ant-mound, he gives (a solution of this to the patient) to drink. 8. He smears him with ghee. 9. He blows upon (the rectum of the patient 3).'
The hymn has been translated and analysed by Weber, Ind. Stud. IV, pp. 394-5; and the present writer, in 'Seven Hymns of the Atharva-veda,' Amer. Journ. Phil. VII, pp. 467-9. Cf. also Florenz in Bezzenberger's Beiträge, XIV, pp. 178 ff.; and, as a specimen of an interpretation which assumes that no Vedic passage has previously been correctly understood, Regnaud, L'Atharva-Véda et la méthode d'interprétation de M. Bloomfield, pp. 8–10.
Stanza 1. &. Parganya is the god of rain (hence his epithet bhữridhảyas), and his outpourings upon the earth seem to be compared with a shower of arrows; hence in RV. VI, 75, 15 the arrow is said to come from the semen of Parganya (pargányaretasa fshvai). Possibly, however, the arrow is Parganya's child, because arrow-reeds (sara) grow in consequence of the rain. It seems further that the discharges from the body are compared with Parganya's rain, and are therefore under his control ; cf. I, 3, 1 below. Hence the
· The passage in brackets is derived from the Commentaries.
· For the role of the ant-mound, see the note on II, 3, 4, and more especially VI, 100.
. So according to Dârila, apâne dhamati; Kesava and Sayana, in accordance with their more liberal construction, cause the blowing to be performed upon the particular opening in the body from which the excessive discharge flows (Sâyana, apânasisnanadlvranamukhânâm dhamanam). For apâna, a euphemism for 'rectum,' see Kausika, Introduction, p. lv, bottom.
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