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 1771

252
HYMNS OF THE ATHARVA-VEDA.
possibility that the stanza stood originally in some other connection where a feminine was appropriate.
Stansa 3.
The stanza, in accordance with its context, is employed in Kaus. 27, 34, along with the so-called mrigara-suktåni, in a more general remedial charm, designated by Darila as a sarvabhaishagyam.
8. sîrshakti, probably for sîrshasakti with haplology; see Proceedings of the American Oriental Society, 1893 (Journal, vol. xvi), p. xxxv. The poet puns upon the word in Pada d with sakatam, although sakti is more likely to come from sang, rather than sak.
b. The masculine yo is difficult. I have referred it to the lightning (usriyo vrlsha, or súshmah), which involves a considerable ellipsis, indicated by the parenthesis in the translation. But it seems to me possible to refer yo to kasá(k) in Pâda a, and to translate more simply, 'Release him from headache, and also from cough, which has entered every joint of him.' Namely kás, feminine, jostles with its thematic pendant kåsa, masculine, in AV. V, 22, 10 and 11 (kåsá, instrumental feminine in 10; but kåsám, accusative masculine in 11). It requires no violent stretch of the grammatical imagination to suppose that the poet unconsciously has shifted his position from the feminine in Pâda a to its masculine doublet kåsá in Pada b. The masculine form prevails in the classical period.
c. For súshmo, see the article on the word, cited above, where several close parallels to this passage are assembled.
I, 14. COMMENTARY TO PAGE 107. The history of the interpretation of this hymn is of interest. Weber, Ind. Stud. IV, 408 (cf. also V, 218); Ludwig, Der Rigveda, III, 459 ; and Zimmer, Altindisches Leben, p. 314, translated and interpreted the hymn as a marriage-hymn. Zimmer thought that the stanzas were spoken at the end of the ceremony, as the bridegroom
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