Satapatha Bramhana Part 03

Author(s): Julius Eggeling
Publisher: Oxford

Page 15

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SATAPATHA-BRAHMANA.
admirably adapted for the purpose of singing Agni's praises. For the first verse, beginning 'yagñâ-yagñâ vo agnaye,' the chief tune-book, the Grâmageya-gâna, has preserved four different tunes, all of which are ascribed to the Rishi Bharadvåga: one of them has, however, come to be generally accepted as the Yagñâyagñîya-tune κar' ¿§oxýv, and has been made use of for this and numerous other triplets 1; whilst the other tunes seem to have met with little favour, not one of them being represented in the triplets arranged for chanting in stotras, as given in the Ûha and Uhya-gânas. Neither the Yagñâyagñîya-tune, nor its original text, is however a fixed item in the chanting of the Agnishtomasâman. Thus, for the first two verses of Rig-veda VI, 48, the Vâgapeya-sacrifice substitutes verses nine and ten of the same hymn, and these are chanted, not to the Yagñâyagñîya, but to the Vâravantîya-tune, originally composed for, and named after, Rig-veda I, 27, 1 (S. V. I, 17; ed. Calc. I, p. 121) 'asvam na två våravantam.'
The Ukthya-sacrifice requires the slaughtering of a second victim, a he-goat to Indra and Agni; and to the twelve chants of the Agnishtoma it adds three more, the so-called Uktha-stotras, each of which is again followed by an Uktha-sastra recited by one of the Hotrakas, or assistants of the Hotri. As the evening service of the Agnishtoma had only two sastras, both recited by the Hotri, the addition of the three sastras of the Hotrakas would, in this respect, equalize the evening to the morning and midday savanas. The word 'uktha' is explained by later lexicographers either as a synonym of ' sâman,' or as a kind of såman3; but it is not unlikely that that meaning of the word was directly derived from this, the most common, use of the word in the term 'uktha-stotra.' The etymology of the word, at all events, would point to the
1 Each Sâman-tune is usually chanted thrice, either each time on a special verse of its own, or so that, by certain repetitions of words, two verses are made to suffice for the thrice-repeated tune.
So also does the Agnishtut ekâha, cf. Tândya Br. XVII, 5, 7.
Sâyana, to Sat. Br. IV, 3, 3, 2, explains it by 'stotra;' but see IV, 2, 3, 6-9 where it undoubtedly refers to the recited verses (rik), not to the sâman. Viz. from root 'vak' to speak. I cannot see the necessity for taking
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