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 1949

430
HYMNS OF THE ATHARVA-VEDA.
The sense seems to be: as surely as the antelope, shy though she be, mates with the buck, so surely shall the spell strike him who prepares it. Cf. IV, 4, 7=VI, 101, 3, and VII, 115, 2. But abhiskándam is dr. dey.: we have followed Grill in referring it to the mounting buck. The Pet. Lex. regards it as a gerund, and Whitney, Index Verborum, emends to abhiskándan, a masculine participle, yielding a very problematic construction. Zimmer, 'wie die scheue Antilope, die Gazelle dem Angreifer (entflieht, so du, o Kranker, dem Zauber).'
V, 18. COMMENTARY TO PAGE 169.
The object of the two hymns V, 18 and 19 is clearly to present in the most drastic language the danger which arises from the oppression of Brahmans, and usurpation of their property? Especially the cow of the Brahman, given to him as his sacrificial stipend (dakshina ; cf. XII, 4), is sacred and inviolable. The point is accentuated by the practices connected with them. The two hymns are rubricated at Kaus. 48, 13 ff. under the name brahmagavyau (i.e. the two brahmagavî-hymns). The practices are intended to compass the death of him that robs or slays the cow of a Brahman; they are as follows: 13. (The Brahman) recites the two brahmagavi-hymns against (the robbers)?. 14. He recites them while the activity (of killing and cutting up the cow is being performed). 15. vikritati (Dâr. Úvadhye havihkritesty arthah). 16. (He recites the hymns) over the excrement within the entrails . 17. And
" This is the agyeyatâ, 'freedom from oppression,' of the Brahman; cf. Weber, Ind. Stud. X, 60 ff.
* Dârila and Kesava add to this the related hymn XII, 5 (mixed prose and verse).
* Excessively doubtful; Dârila has the following as text and scholion : kah kriyâ anvâha, abadhye, dveshyam manasi (Cod. anasi) kritva saptamînirdesât. Cf. XII, 5, 39, where the excrement of the cow is described as fit for sorcery-practices.
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