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VIII, 8. COMMENTARY.
583
branch of red asvattha is fixed (in the ground), enveloped with a blue and a red thread, and then removed to the south while stanza 24 d is being recited. The entire practice is redolent of fierce hostility: cf. in general the introduction (paribhâshâ) to the abhikârika (witchcraft) practices in Kaus. 47, 1 ff.
The hymn has been rendered by Ludwig, Der Rigveda, III, 527 ff.; Henry, Les livres VIII et IX de l'Atharvavéda, pp. 23, 61 ff. Cf. also Muir, Original Sanskrit Texts, V, pp. 87, 405, note.
Stanza 1.
The root manth is employed in connection with Indra's feats only on the occasion of his churning the head of the demon Namuki: the present statement is doubtless a reminiscence of that performance. See Contributions, Third Series, Journ. Amer. Or. Soc. XV, 156 ff. The Sûtra, however, takes manth in its more common sense of churning a fire, and embodies it in a corresponding performance on the part of the ritualist: see the introduction above.
Stanza 2.
It may be reasonably doubted whether the ritual, which takes pûtiraggú in its literal and etymological sense (Kaus. 16, 10, above), has fathomed the meaning of the word. But it is a reasonable construction, and we are, for the present, driven to accept it. In the second hemistich amítra is metrically superfluous: it may readily have crept in as a gloss from st. 1 d.
Stanza 3.
The plants are chosen with reference to the punning etymologies that may be extracted from them. Even the juxtaposition of asvattha and srinihi is intentional. For tâgádbhánga, see Kausika, Introduction, p. xliv. Its problematic accentuation (Padapâtha, tâgádbhángal) is prob
For the blue and the red threads, see the note on the stanza.
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