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472
HYMNS OF THE ATHARVA-VEDA.
Stanza 1. d. For hriddyota, see the note on I, 22, 1.
VI, 25. COMMENTARY TO PAGE 19. Adalbert Kuhn, in Zeitschrift für vergleichende Sprachforschung, XIII, 128 ff., treated the hymn under the head of Seven and seventy-fold disease,' comparing with it Germanic formulas directed against fever and other diseases; these are often described as being of seventy-seven varieties. Florenz, Bezzenberger's Beiträge, XII, 281 ff., suggests that some febrile disease, accompanied by eruptions, is in question. In Contributions, Second Series, Amer. Journ. Phil. XI, 327 ff., we assumed that the hymn with its ritual represent a charm against a disease, similar to the scrofulous swellings called apaklt (VI, 83; VII, 74, 1-2; 76, 1-2), and this is now fully corroborated by Kesava and Såyana who define the present charm as a cure for gandamâlâ, 'scrofula. Cf. also the interesting 'Manskunder' (mányáh and skándhyâh in sts. 1, 3 of the hymn), defined as 'tumours of the neck' in the previously quoted passage of Wise, Hindu System of Medicine, p. 316. The Anukramanî, mantroktamanyâvinâsanadevatyam.
The practices are stated at Kaus. 30, 14-16, as follows: 14. While reciting the hymn, fifty-five leaves of the parasu 1 (plant or tree?) are kindled by means of pieces of wood. 15. (The sap of the leaves) which has boiled forth into a cup is smeared with a stick of wood (upon the sores). 16. (The sores are then smeared) with a (pulverized) shell, and with the saliva of a dog, and subjected to the bites of leeches, gnats, and so forth (cf. Kesava's
The word parasởparnan is not altogether clear, Dârila's and Kesava's (gopåsalikâm?) glosses being corrupt. Kaus. 47, 25 presents the obviously parallel parasupala sa which Kesava glosses by parsuvrikshapatram, and this we have adopted as the sense here. But Darila at 47, 25 has kutharamukham, 'the blade of an axel' Cf. the note on Kaus. 47, 25 in the introduction to II, 12.
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