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360
HYMNS OF THE ATHARVA-VEDA.
ominous occurrence to be expiated by diverse performances, and that the cattle itself is, as a rule, to be given to the Brahmans. But there are not wanting indications that a favourable view of such events also existed, and one may suspect shrewdly that the thrifty Brahmans, who stood ever ready to gather in all sorts of odds and ends (cf. the elaborate oratio pro domo, XII, 4, in connection with the vasa), gave vigorous support to any tendency towards superstitious fear which might show its head in connection with such occurrences. Weber, Indische Studien, XVII, 298 ff., has assembled quite a number of passages which represent the Hindu attitude towards twins. Cf. also Tait. S. II, 1, 8, 4.
The hymn is rubricated thrice in the Kausika, in the thirteenth book, which is devoted to expiatory performances (pråyaskitti), in connection with all sorts of omens and portents. It is employed in chapters 109, 5; 110, 4; III, 5, on the occasion of the birth of twins from cows, mares, asses, and women. The practices consist in cooking a porridge in the milk of the mother, offering ghee, pouring the dregs of the ghee into a water-vessel and upon the porridge. Then the animal and its young are made to eat of the porridge, to drink of the water, and they are also sprinkled with the same water. The mother is then given to the Brahmans, and in the case of the human mother a ransom 'according to her value, or, in accordance with the wealth (of the father),' is paid. Cf. Weber, Omina und Portenta, p. 377 ff.
The hymn has been translated by Weber, Indische Studien, XVII, 297 ff. The Anukramanî, yâminyam ... brahma - nena yaminîm astaut pasuposhanaya.
Stansa 1.
. Since the mother of the twins was born under an arrangeinent which made a separate act of creation necessary for each individual, the birth of two at a time is apartú,'unseasonable, portentous.' Pâda b is hypermetric and may be relieved in a measure by throwing out bhůtakrlto, but
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