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II, 9. COMMENTARY.
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marakshasa. The practices connected with the hymn at Kaus. 27, 5. 6 are as follows: 5. While reciting AV. II, 9 a talisman consisting of splinters (from ten kinds of wood is fastened upon the patient). 6. Ten friends (of the patient) while muttering the hymn rub him down. The commentators (cf. Kaus. 13, 5; 26, 40) understand the word såkala to mean'a talisman made of ten kinds of holy wood,' and these are derived from the list of holy trees catalogued at Kaus. 8, 15. Cf. also the splinters from the holy) kampilawood, Kaus. 27, 7 (see the introduction to II, 10), used against kshetriyá (hereditary disease). For similar Germanic uses of nine kinds of wood to allay disease, see Wuttke, Der Deutsche Volksaberglaube der Gegenwart, $$ 121, 538 ; Mannhardt, Baumkultus der Germanen, p. 18.
The hymn has been translated by Weber, Ind. Stud. XIII, 153 ff.; Ludwig, Der Rigveda, III, 506; Grill, pp. 8, 82 ff.; cf. also the author in Amer. Journ. Phil. VII, 478, and Bergaigne et Henry, Manuel Védique, p. 137. The hymn figures in the takmanâsanagana of the Ganamala, Ath. Paris. 32, 7 (see Kaus. 26, 1 note); the Anukramanî describes it as vanaspatyam yakshmanasanadaivatam. The Paippalåda presents the hymn, the stanzas arranged as follows: 1, 5, 4, 2, 3.
Stanza 1. The metre is irregular, parkti (Anukr., virât prastarapankti). The Paippalada has the first half as follows: dasavriksha muñkemam ahimsro gråhyås ka.
Stanza 8. a. For ádhitir the Paippalada reads adhitam. Sayana, the Vedas, which he has read formerly, or their meaning, which is to be remembered, he has recalled!' Cf. Khånd. Up. VI, 7. Ludwig emends adhîter, and translates 'from insensibleness he has come away,' but the translation conflicts with the meaning of adhi gå; cf. RV. II, 4, 8.
0, d. The Satra embodies the indefinite large numbers 100 and 1000 in the amulet of ten kinds of wood, and the
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