Grihya Sutras

SR No.: 007685
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Hermann Oldenberg
Publisher: Oxford
Publication Year: 1886
Total Pages: 2642
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 49 MB

Page 1373

316
VEDIC HYMNS.
Verse 10. Note 1 Vishtåráh does not occur again, and Lanman is therefore quite justified in assigning to it the meaning of straw (p. 339). He paraphrases : 'Let their customs carry them where they may, yet when I sacrifice, they wait quietly on the straw, i.e. the altar, for it.' He reads in the Pada text vi-staré for vi-staráh. Vishtarin, which occurs AV. IV, 34, 1, does not throw much light on the exact meaning of vishtåra in this place. If we retain vishtåráh, the nominative, we must assign to it the meaning of crowd, and refer it to the Maruts.
Verse 11. Note 1. Pârâvata is a turtle-dove (VS. XXIV, 25), and it is just possible that the Maruts might have been compared to them. But pârâvata is used in VIII, 100, 6, as an epithet of vasu, wealth, and in VIII, 34, 18, we read of råtis (not râtris), i.e. gifts of Pârâvata. The river Sarasvatî is called pârâvataghni, killing Pârâvata, VI, 61, 2, and in the Paskav. Br. IX, 4, 11, we hear that Turasravas and the Päravatas offered their Somas together. I am therefore inclined to take Påråvata, lit. distant people, extranei, strangers, as a name of an Aryan border clan with whom the Vedic Aryas were sometimes at war, sometimes at peace. In that case the frontier-river, the Sarasvatî, might be called the destroyer or enemy of the Pârâvatas. As their wealth and gifts have been mentioned, to compare the Maruts with the Paravatas may mean no more than that the Maruts also are rich and generous. Ludwig thinks of the lapuñtal, which seems more doubtful. For a different interpretation see Delbrück, Syntax, p. 531.
Verse 12. Note 1. I take khandahstúbh in the sense of stepping (according to) a measure, as explained in my Preface(1st ed.), p. cii, though I do not doubt that that meaning was afterwards forgotten, and replaced by the technical meaning of stubh, to shout. See Böhtlingk-Roth, s.v. stubh, and
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