________________
XIX, 53. COMMENTARY.
683
none of them satisfactory-are enumerated by Scherman, pp. 78, 81, and Grill, p. 193. I am inclined to believe in the kinship of our passage with RV. I, 164, 2, and also in a semi-lucid blending of the attributes of time with those of the sun. Cf. AV. XIII, 2, 39, where Rohita, a form of the sun, is identified with time; see Henry, Les Hymnes Rohitas, pp. 13, 44, and Contributions, Fourth Series, Amer. Journ. Phil. XII, p. 430. The Maitri-Upanishad states distinctly that the sun is the source of time, sûryo yonih kâlasya (VI, 14).
b. sahasrâkshá is an attribute of a great variety of divinities, and it does not, therefore, contribute to the definition of the passage, see the note on IV, 20, 4; Sâyana, sahasrakiranopetah, i. e. the sun. agára and bhuriretah are attributes of the two Ushas at AV. VIII, 9, 12. The latter, in the RV., only of heaven and earth; the former, again, of an almost complete assortment of divinities. One must not be too insistent with a later Atharvan production, the poet makes draughts upon the entire stock of mythic and cosmogonic ideas; the poetic past is his kâmadhuk; he cares not for nicety of distinction.
c. Sâyana: The Rishis mount (i. e. control) time,' svâdhînam kurvanti, svâdhînakâlâ bhavanti.
Stanza 2.
a. The MSS. have kakrấn which Roth and Whitney emend to kakra; Shankar Pandit adheres to the MS. reading. Sâyana comments upon kakrâ nu vahati (sapta ritûn anu anukramena... dhârayati). The seven wheels occur again at RV. I, 164, 3. 12, where Sâyana refers them to the seven modes of subdividing the year. But the scholiast to the present passage, again, as in st. 1, has in mind the seven seasons (sapta ritûn), i. e., the six seasons and the intercalary month. A wagon with seven wheels occurs also at RV. II, 40, 3, where it is employed by Soma and Pûshan to carry the gods. Cf. also the Brihaddevatâ, IV, 32.
b. Sâyana comments upon amritam tanv akshah, to wit:
Digitized by Google
