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IV, 16. COMMENTARY.
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very subjective! Ludwig does not construe Pada b as a comparison, but translates 'gutes rad, gute felge, gute nabe hat der wagen.' Evidently, he also has in mind an exoteric origin of the stanza.
Stansa 7. Cf. RV. VI, 54, 7. The stanza consists of two elevensyllable and two octosyllabic Padas. The first Pada may be righted by reading patituá, or possibly yadi va kartám, &c. (cf. yádi vâ in Pâda b). The Anukramanî baldly counts thirty-six syllables as they stand, without resolution, and designates the stanza as brihati.
0, d. The subject of sám dadhat seems to me (as to Grill) to be Dhâtar, the fashioner in st. 2; ribhů belongs to the comparison, as in X, 1, 8. The Ribhus are known to have constructed the chariot of the Asvins, but they are not counted among the divine physicians (Rudra, the Asvins, the waters, and Sarasvati). Kuhn and Ludwig make ribhů the subject of sám dadhat, but the former regards it as an epithet of Dhâtar.
IV, 16. COMMENTARY TO PAGE 88. Professor von Roth, who first treated this hymn in his well-known essay, entitled 'Abhandlung über den Atharvaveda' (Tübingen, 1856), remarks on p. 30: ‘There is no other hymn in the entire Vedic literature which presents divine omniscience in terms so emphatic, and yet this beautiful fabric has been degraded to serve as an introduction to an imprecation. One may surmise, however, in this case as well as in the case of many other parts of this Veda, that fragments of older hymns have been utilised to deck out charms for sorcery.'
We may remark, however, that the stanzas of this hymn do not occur in any other connection, and there is no tangible evidence that they were constructed for any other purpose than that before us. Certainly the Atharvavedins had nothing better in view, and accordingly the hymn is rubricated in the sixth book of the Kausika which is
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