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278
HYMNS OF THE ATHARVA-VEDA.
25, 7. It is founded upon the conception that ants are endowed with the faculty of producing water, and that, too, healing-water, wherever they appear, and consequently whenever they are applied as a remedy. Hence they are here given to the patient to be drunk in water. For fuller statements of this belief, see the introduction to VI, 100, and Seven Hymns of the Atharva-veda, Amer. Journ. Phil. VII, pp. 482-4.
The hymn has been translated by Weber, Ind. Stud. XIII, 138 ff. ; Ludwig, Der Rigveda, III, 507 ; Grill?, pp. 17, 79 ff. The Anukramani designates it as bhaishagyàyurdhanvantaridaivatam.
Stansa 1. b. The difficult word here is avatká. In the Paippalada XIX, 8, 2 (see Böhtlingk's lexicon 8. v.) occur the two hypermetric Pâdas, avatakam mama bheshagam avatakam parivákanam. Here the metre suggests emendation to avatka, but at the same time shows pretty clearly that the word is a derivative of avatá,' spring. Såyana is very misleading. Having in mind the performances of the Satra, he identifies avatká with muñgasirah in Kaus. 25, 6, and the mountain mentioned in the stanza with the Muñgavat, to wit: atra parvatasabdena muñgavân nâma parvato vivakshitah? . . . tasmât adah viprakrishtam yat prasiddham avatkam vyâdhiparihårena rakshakam muñgasirah avadhâvati avaruhya bhämau dhâvati. This involves an impossible rendering of avadhấvati, and leaves out of sight the possibility that this hymn may have nothing to do with the muñga-reed, being concerned rather with the healing water, procured by the ants; see the introduction.
0, d. The passage as it stands in the text, and our translation, can be sustained only on the supposition that the water is added to some other substance, not indicated in the stanza. Ludwig, feeling this difficulty, enends súbheshagam to súbheshago, so that you (the patient) may have a powerful remedy.' A simpler emendation is to change
· Cl. the note on V, 32, 5.
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