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IV, 17. COMMENTARY.
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Stansa 3. Identical with I, 28, 3. The Pet. Lexs., Zimmer, and Grill regard müram = mûlam, “root (of an injurious plant).' Sayana, můrkhåpradam. Padas c, d perhaps rather, she who has taken in hand the (magic substances) created to rob strength...!
Stanza 4. Cf. V, 31, 1, and the note on Kaus. 39, 31. The unburned vessel seems to symbolise the fragility, destructibility (Sat. Br. XII, 1, 3, 23) of the person upon whom enchantments are practised. At Sat. Br. XIV, 9, 4, 11 = Brih. År. VI, 4, 12 it figures in a sorcery practice against a wife's paramour. The compound nilalohitá is also connected with sorcery from the first. It occurs in RV. X, 85, 28 = AV. XIV, 1, 26 = Apast. Mantrabr. I, 6, 8 (Åpast. Grih. II, 5, 23)=Baudh. Grih. I, 8; AV. VIII, 8, 24. The Atharvan ritual, Kaus. 16, 20 (rubricating AV. VIII, 8, 24d); 32, 17; 40, 4; 48, 40 ; 83, 4, leaves little room for doubt that in its view a dark blue and a red thread are here intended. This is also the tradition of Åpast. Grih. II, 5, 23, and similarly Sankh. Grih. I, 12, 8 prescribes, in connection with RV. X, 85, 28, a red and black cord upon which amulets are fastened. Only Baudh. I, 8 treats the compound as a symbolic representation of night and day; see Winternitz, Das Altindische Hochzeitsrituell, pp. 6, 12, 67. It is, of course, possible to conclude that this is the true source of the symbolism: day and night rendered concrete by these two colours. Såyana seems to have lost his grip upon Atharvan tradition when he says to our passage, 'the fire which is black from the rise of smoke and red from its flame.' Zimmer and Grill both co-ordinate nilalohité with amé pátre, 'an das ungebrannte' and 'am rotgebrannten,' obviously against the spirit of the Atharvan tradition. Cf. also the introduction to VII, 116, and Tait. S. IV, 5, 10, 1.
0. Raw meat is eaten by demons, and therefore realises symbolically their presence; see V, 29, 6; VIII, 6, 23.
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