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him from any situation of personal peril, and the recompense of his praises is the gift of a golden chariot by Indra, a present rather incompatible with his position as an intended victim. Hence the late Dr. Rosen was led to infer that the Vaidik hymn, except in one or two doubtful passages, bore no relation to the legend of the Rámáyana, and offered no indication of a human victim deprecating death.-"In nullo autem horum carminum (si initium hymni quatuor-vigentesimi excipias, quod sane ita intelligi potest) ne levissimum quidem indicium hominis in vitæ discrimen vocati et mortem deprecantis*."
Whatever may be the conclusions to be drawn from the legend of Sunahsephas as it appears in the Rámáyana or in the Rig-veda, there is no question of its purport as it is found in the Aitareya Brahmana which is considered to be the Brahmana portion of the Rigveda; and as the story as there told is characteristic of the style of that and similar works, the precise nature of which is yet but little known, none having been translated or printed, and as several curious circumstances are comprised in the tradition, it will not perhaps be uninteresting to have the story as it is there narrated**.
*
[Rigveda, ed. Rosen. Adnotationes p. LV.]
[Aitar. Br. VII, 13-18. Translated also by R. Roth, in A. Weber's "Indische Studien", I, 458-64 (his further remarks ib. II, 112-23), and M. Müller, in his History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature, 408-19; the original Sanskrit text ib. p. 573-88.]
ANCIENT RELIGION OF INDIA.
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