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 1998

VI, 42.
COMMENTARY.
479
yasaso hetutvât. It seems difficult to construe yásas as a nominative, in co-ordination with hávis, but cf. the bhutám havís, VI, 781. We may, of course, either emend to yasohavír, or take yáso as an instrumental; cf. Lanman, Journ. Amer. Or. Soc. X, 562. But, I believe, the construction as it stands is technical.
b. Sâyana has for súbhritam the rather more acceptable reading suvritam (sushthu vartamânam).
Stanza 2.
a. yásobhir seems to refer directly to the havis in st. 1; see the introduction. Sâyana, evasively, kîrtibhik.
VI, 42. COMMENTARY TO PAGE 136.
According to the text of the mantra this is a charm to appease wrath in general. But the Kausika, 36, 28-31, Ideals with it in the course of the so-called 'women's rites (strîkarmâni, 32, 27-36 end), and the commentators are agreed in regarding it as an instance of conflict between two persons of opposite sex. According to Kesava and Sâyana the charm is practised by a woman against an angry man (her husband, or lover); Dârila, on the other hand, more naturally ascribes the acts to a man trying to appease an angry woman. These nicer specifications are therefore in all probability secondary. The practice is as follows: The person who desires to appease wrath takes up a stone while reciting st. 1. He places the stone upon the ground while reciting st. 2. He spits around the stone while reciting st. 3. Finally he lays an arrow on a bow while standing in the shadow (of the wrathful person). The last executes the sentiment of st. 1, with rather vague symbolism. The hymn is also recited, at Vait. Sû. 12, 13, by
1 So also abhîvarténa havíshâ, RV. X, 174, 1. Ordinarily these havís are accompanied by an adjective, e. g. samsrâvyàm havís, II, 26, 3; nairbâdhyàm havís, VI, 75, 1. Cf. also VI, 64, 2; VI, 87, 3, and Ludwig, Der Rigveda, III, 371 ff.
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