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THE RGVEDA-SAMHITÄKÄRA AND FATHER ESTELLER
105
them" in the two stanzas mentioned above. Thus starting from the requirements of metre Fr. E: has gone far away in detecting the causes for the so-called changes made by the SK.
In order to explain this last passage as it stands Geldner proposed that the singers identified themselves with the Rbhus. But Fr. E avers that "Geldner is surely wrong." I would understand the passage the way I did the other two above viz. by interpreting in this context the word bráhma as rátham. The singers say : For Agni the Rbhus had fashioned a hymn (like a chariot).
Consider one more example where Fr. E detects the hand of the SK making changes in the received text not for the sake of sandhi, nor for metre, nor even due to misunderstanding, but for reasons which one can never believe. 13 RV 1.122.3 reads as mamáttu nah párijmā vasarhá mamáttu váto apám výsanvān! śiśitam indraparvata yuvám nas tán no visve varivasyantu deváh// As regards the third pada Fr. E says that it is metrically perfect. Yet he thinks that the SK has reshuffled the original word-order which Fr. E' sees' as yuvam nah indraparvatā sišitam. Here are Fr.E's reasons:
(1) "In 3c the style and change of address recommend the transposition..." I do not quite know what Fr. E means by this. Perhaps he seems to suggest that in the first two pädas Väyu and Väta are addressed but in the third päda Indra and Parvata are addressed. If the first two pādas begin with a verb, the rşi-kavi could not have begun the third pada with a verb when there was a change in the deities addressed. Or, he seems to suggest that in the first two quarters the deites are addressed indirectly while in the third the deities are addressed directly. Hence if the first two quarters begin with a verb the third cannot.
(2) Here is one more reason to support the above. If the SK had allowed the text to remain as proposed by Fr. E then the words indraparvata śiśitam, recited the sarhitā way, might have led those who came after the SK to misurder. stand them as indrāparvata aśiśitam. The SK wanted to save the posterity from this calamity and hence he changed the word-order."
(3) And there is one more final reason. In effecting this change the SK tried to imitate not only the first two pādas of this stanza by beginning it with a verb ( but then why not begin the fourth one also with varivasyantu ?) but also many other verses in the Rgveda which begin with siśthi and sisite (see Vedic Concordance).
I do not think it necessary to take these reasons seriously. I cannot, however, resist the temptation of venturing a guess that if the päda in question
25 ABORI 51.66. 28 For similar reshuffles of word-order to avoid confusion see JASB 41-42 (New Ser.) 29, and for the change of form p. 32.
Madhu Vidyā/125
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