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XIX, 34.
671
sense, the first gangidó, 'wakeful,' being parallel with rákshitâ in the second Pâda.
COMMENTARY.
Stanza 2.
a. The MSS. at the basis of Roth and Whitney's edition read gâgritsyas tripañkâsîh, and the editors, inspired doubtless by RV. X, 34, 8, have emended akshakrityas tripañkâsîh, the sorceries with dice, fifty-three in number.' But the parallelism of the Rig-veda passage is every way doubtful (Zimmer, Altindisches Leben, p. 284; Weber, Über die Königsweihe, Transactions of the Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences, 1893, p. 72 of the reprint); the bold emendation is at any rate not warranted by any too desperate condition of the text. The majority of the MSS. used in Shankar Pandit's edition (both Samhitâ and Padapâtha) have gâgritsyás, which the editor, with Sâyana, has changed to ya() gritsyas; this might mean 'the thieving female demons' (Sâyana, yâ gritsyah gardhanasîlâ yâs ... krityâh); cf. gritsâh at Våg. S. XVI, 25, and Mahîdhara's scholium. Notwithstanding that gritsyas is the unanimous lectio difficillima of the MSS., perchance yet destined to be sustained, I have restored simply yah krityah1; cf. for the juxtaposition of kritya and krityâkrít (Påda b), AV. IV, 17, 4; V, 14, 3. 4. 5. 8. 10. 12. 13; X, 1, 6. 31; XIX, 45, I. The Padapâtha divides tripañka-asî, 'devouring fifteenfold,' which would comport well with the reading gritsyas. The meaning 'consisting of fifty-three' assumed for pañkâsá, 2. in the Pet. Lex., in our translation, and by Sâyana (tryadhikapañkâsatsamkhyâkâh), thus rests upon a fragile basis; perhaps the Padapâtha is right; or, perhaps, the word means simply 'fifteenfold,' an adjectivised tripanka-sas, with the well-known adverbial suffix -sas, 'fold 2'
1 Sâyana describes the kritya concretely as a figure, or the like, made of mud, wood, &c., mriddârvâdinâ nirmitaputtalyâdi.
Cf. the Avestan fractional numeral adjectives thrishva- 'a third,' kathrushva- ' a fourth,' &c., which, in our opinion, are adjectivised locatives plural, thrishu, &c., ' that which is in three.'
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