Volume 1 - Sanskrit Web

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II TRANSLATION AND NOTES. BOOK I. -1. II
II.
For successful childbirth.
[AtAarvan. — sadrcam. fdusnam. pSnktam : 2. anustubh ; ^. 4-p. usniggarbhd kahimmaiy
anustubh ;
4-6. pathydpankti.~\
Verses 2-4 occur together in Paipp. i., 5 and 6 in xx., but at different points. In
Kaug. (33. i) it is quoted at the beginning of a long and intricate ceremony (filling the
whole section) for safe delivery, the first of the strlkarmani or
'
women's rites ' ;
its
details have nothing to do with the text of the hymn, and cast no light upon the latter's
difficulties. The Anukr. add to the author's name : anena mantroktdn aryaniadidevdn
ndrtsukhaprasavdyd 'bhistfiye 'starit ca sarvdbhir aprdrthayat.
Translated: Weber, iv. 404 ; Ludwig, p. 478 ; Griffith, i. 14 and 473 ; Bloomfield,
99,242. — Discussed : Roth, Ueber den Atharva-veda, p. 15.
1
At this birth, O Pushan, let Aryaman [as] efficient (ved/tds) invoker
utter vdsat for thee ; let the woman, rightly engendered, be relaxed ; let
her joints go apart in order to birth.
The translation of c implies emendation of the text to vi sisrtdtn. Roth formerly
preferred slsrtdm nary rtdprajdtah ' let a timely child come forth, O woman ' ; Weber
leaves sisratdni as pi. with indefinite subject, and understands the two following words
as a parenthesis :
" be the woman properly constructed " ; Ludwig renders as if sisrtdiiij
Roth now (as in BR.) would emend only sisrtam, and understand it of the 'flow' of
water preceding birth ; but that would be rather srii, and sr without a prefix in such a
sense seems very unlikely |_cf., however, sdrann apah, RV. iv. 17. 3J. Rtdprajdtd
might also be possessive, ' rightly engendering.' The comm. takes siitdu as from suti
Lnot siiti, fern., nor siitu, fern. : note accent and gender 'J,
and meaning the ceremony
at birth; vedhas as = Dhatar 'the creator'; rtaprajdtd && = jivad-apatyd j and
sisratdm (to the plural form of which he finds no objection) as " may she be relieved
{yinihsrtd') of the pangs of birth." The metrically irregular verse (9 + 10 : 10 + n =
40) is a paiikti solely in virtue of the [^aggregateJ number of its syllables.
2. Four [are] the directions of the sky, four also of the earth : the
gods sent together the foetus ;
let them unclose her in order to birth.
Or 'unclose it,' tdin, which SPP. reads in text and comm. (the latter omits the
word itself in the paraphrase) with the minority of his mss., but against all of ours ;
Weber and Roth prefer tdin. The word and its predecessor are quoted in the Prat,
(ii. 30), as the earliest example in the text of a combination of n and / without inserted s ;
but the form of the quotation {samairayantddlndvi) prevents our seeing wliether its
authors read tarn or tdin ; the comm. gives tarn. In d, the comm. gives the false form
urnavantu. The text in Ppp. is confused, but does not appear to intend any variants
from our reading.
3. Let Pushan (.') unclose [her or it] ; we
make the j/^'w/ go apart ; do
thou, siisand, loosen ; do thou, biskald, let go.
The translation implies a very venturesome emendation in a, pusa for sum (all the
authorities have the latter) : Pushan, referred to in vs. i as principal officiating deity,
might well be called on to do in particular what all the gods were begged to do in vs. 2
C, d. LBut see Bloomfield's comment.J The comm. gives three different etymologies
for siisd: root sit + suffix -sny root sit + root sany and su-usas. Sttsand and biskald
are possibly names of organs ; for the latter, Ppp. has puskale, probably an alteration