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 1984

VI, 16. COMMENTARY.
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the patient). 5. A paste made from the sap of the plant is smeared (upon the eyes of the patient)? 6. (The patient) eats (of the sap).' We are permitted to judge from these practices that the mustard-plant, and perhaps other plants (the sâka-tree) are referred to in the hymn, but the identification is uncertain.
The fourth stanza is rubricated at Kaus. 51, 15. 16 in a practice that seems to be calculated to remove weeds from a field (alabheshagam). The practice consists in burying three tips of the silåñgala-plant (cf. Kausika, Introduction, p. xlv) into the middle of a furrow.
The hymn has been translated by Florenz, Bezzenberger's Beiträge, XII, 268 ff. The Anukramanî, mantroktadevatyam uta kändramasam.
Stanza 1. Sâyana reads avayo and anavayo, which he derives from avayati, eat,' and accordingly, with complete dependence upon the Sætra, 'O mustard that art being eaten, and, O mustard-stalk that art not eaten.' It must be admitted that there is a punning correlation between these two words and avayah in st. 2 d, which Sâyana renders, bhakshitam akaroh; it is quite likely, too, that abayu is more or less identical with the mustard-plant. But here our guesses end. Sayana glosses karambhám again after the Satra, sârshapatailamisrabhrishtam tatpatrasakam (Kaus. 30, 3).
Stanza 2. a, b. The mention by name of the father and mother of a plant is typical and formulaic; cf. the note on V, 5, 1. Shankar Pandit reads viháhlo ; Sayana, vihamlâkhyah kaskit pità. For madávatî, cf. IV, 7, 4, and the note on varanávati, IV, 7, 1.
c, d. For hi ná of the vulgata Shankar Pandit with the
Sâyana, mülakshfram abhimantrya vyâdhitasya akshini angyât.
For âla, see Kausika, Introduction, p. xlvii. But Sâyana reads annabheshagam, 'curing of food :' annasvastyayanakamah tisrah sasyavallîr abhimantrya kshetramadhye nikhanet. Cf. also Kesava.
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