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320
HYMNS OF THE ATHARVA-VEDA.
kshatrapa ; cf. Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes, III, 161; IV, 186, 200,
Stansa 6.
Repeated in V, 23, 12. The Mantrabr. II, 7, 3 presents a passage which concerns stanzas 4-6 of our hymn, hatah kriminam kshudrako hatå måtå hatá pita, athai-shâm bhinnakah kumbho ya eshâm vishadhầnakah.
a, b. Sâyana, without regard to the oxytone accent of vesás (nomen agentis), renders vesáso..párivesasah as follows, nivesasthânâni mukhyagrihah . . . paritah sthitah samîpagrihåh. Weber renders the two words by 'diener' and 'umdienenden;' Grill by 'hörige' and 'zugehörige;' Ludwig and Hillebrandt by "hörige' and 'der hörigen hörige.'
Stanza 6. The metre of the stanza is quite irregular; the Anukramanî describes it at katushpan nivridushnik. The first and third Pâdas are catalectic; in the second Pada yabhyam is yábhiâm, or the like; the fourth Pada may also be sustained as a catalectic anushtubh by substituting tava for te, or resolving te into tar or taya.
0, d. The Paippalåda reads, atho bhinadmi tam kumbham yasmin te nihatam (! for nihitam?) visham ; cf. also the parallel stanza RV. I, 191, 15. Såyana substitutes shukambham for kushumbham, and he has the support of some MSS. His comment is avayavavisesha, 'some part of the body.' Ludwig translates kushumbham by 'tail,' but the parallel passages of the Paippalåda and Mantrabr. obviously point to some word like 'receptacle.' This word as well as kusumbha and kusumbha, 'water-pitcher of hermits,' seem to me to be extensions of kumbha by popular etymology, introducing the influence of kosha, kosa, 'basket,' and perhaps in the case of kusumbha the stem sumbhá., 'purify.' Direct etymological analysis of such words is difficult because they become so readily the play-ball of kindred notions; cf. Weber, 1. c. 204.
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