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542
HYMNS OF THE ATHARVA-VEDA.
Stanza 3. a. Sayana, upasadah upasattarah (cf. III, 12,6 c) upagantârah karmakarâh. This is essentially correct. The western translators take the word as an abstract noun, "stores ;' Ludwig, ansätze' (?' aufspeicherungen ').
VII, 9. COMMENTARY TO PAGE 159. The prayer is addressed to Pashan, the sun that watches over the ways, and is accompanied by characteristic practices at Kaus. 52, 12-14: They who seek lost property have their hands and feet washed and anointed; their right hands are then scoured, and they are started upon the search. The same performance is undertaken with dregs of the ghee, and the right hands are again scoured offi. Then twenty-one pebbles are thrown scatteringly upon a cross-roads. The last practice is an interesting instance of attractio similium : the scattering of the pebbles upon the cross-roads symbolises the lost objects, and at the same time counteracts their lost condition. The second stanza is enlisted in the first abhayagana, a series designed to secure immunity from danger, in the Ganamâlâ, Ath. Paris, 32, 12 (cf. Kaus. 16, 8). See also Vait. Sû. 8, 13. Stanza i is repeated in RV. X, 17, 6=Tait. Br. II, 8, 5, 3 ; st. 4 in RV. VI, 54, 9=Våg. S. XXXIV, 41=Tait. Br. II, 5, 5, 5. Previously rendered by Henry, Le livre VII de l'Atharvavéda, pp. 4, 52.
Stanza 4. Professor Henry cites the following interesting Alsatian charm :
Hailcher antonius von pâtuâ Schick mer was i verlôre hå
Ter teifel wert's en sîne kloye hå. Holy Antony of Padua, send to me what I have lost; the devil must have it in his claws.
1 The word nimrigya at the beginning of Satra 14 seems to belong to the end of Sätra 13.
: For the cross-roads, see the note in the introduction to VI, 111.
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