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III, 5. COMMENTARY.
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Stanga 2. Recurs with marked variants at Tait. S. III, 3, 9, 2; Maitr. S. II, 5, 10.
Stangas 5, 6. The expression ayám rágå várunah in st. 5 a is too pointed to signify merely that king Varuna :' váruna is used here with false etymological intent as chooser;' the word plays upon the sense of ahvat, and vrinatâm in st. 2. Similarly várunaih in the next stanza means (Indra), with the remaining gods (Varuna, Mitra, &c.), all choosing the king, and again, with double entente: 'Come on, O king, thou hast come to an agreement with the leaders of thy people who are the electors' (cf. III, 5, 7). All this is thoroughly Atharvanesque.
Stansa 7. Cf. Vait. SQ. 13, 2, where this stanza is employed in connection with a personified Pathya Svasti, the wife of Pushan (ib. 15, 3), 'the prosperous path,' as an embodiment of success and well-being. Cf. also ib. 24, 8; 37, 20, and the Pet. Lex. under pathyà 3. In Pada d most MSS., both of the Samhita and Padapatha, read vasa, 'rule;' some MSS., Sâyana, and the Western authorities, vasa, 'dwell.' Cf. AV. XII, 4, 27. For the interchange of s and s, see the present writer in the Proc. Amer. Or. Soc., May, 1886 (Journ., vol. xiii, p. cxvii ff.). Cf. also the note on V, 19, 5.
III, 5. COMMENTARY TO PAGE 114.
The parna-tree figures in many sacerdotal performances, being identical with the palasa (butea frondosa). Its branches and especially its wood are employed directly, and in the form of utensils, at most sacrifices (cf. Zimmer, Altindisches Leben, p. 59); its sanctity is accentuated by myths which derive the plant directly from heaven, and that, too, in connection with the descent of the soma (cf. st. 4). A divine archer, who guards the soma, shoots at
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