Volume 1 - Sanskrit Web

L l6- BOOK I. THE ATHARVA-VEDA-SAMHITA. l8
4. If our cow thou slayest, if [our] horse, if [our] man {purusa), we
pierce thee there with lead, that thou be no slayer of our heroes.
Ppp. has for c stsetia vidhyamas tvd.
The 5 hymns of this anuvaka L3-J,
as of the next, have just the norm, 20 verses,
and the quotation from the old Anukr. (given at the end of hymn 21) is inf^akav ato
'nyau. At the end of the present hymn is read vingatyd kuru, which is perhaps the
statement as to the assumption of a norm.
The first prapathaka ends here.
17. To stop the vessels of the body.
{^Brahman. — yosiddevatyam. inustubham : i. b/iurij ; 4. j-p. drsl gdyatri.']
Found in Paipp. xix. (in the verse-order 3,4, r, 2). Used once by Kau^. (26. 10 :
the quotation appears to belong to what follows it, not to what precedes), in a remedial
rite, apparently for stopping the flow of blood (the comm. says, as result of a knife
wound and the like, and also of disordered menses).
Translated: Weber, iv. 41 1 ; Ludwig, p. 508 ; Grill, 16, 76; Griffith, i. 21 ; Bloomfield,
22, 257. — Cf. Hillebrandt, Veda-Chrestomathie, p. 46.
1. Yon women [yostt) that go, veins with red garments, like brotherless
sisters (jdmi) — let them stop (st/id), with their splendor smitten.
Ppp. makes yositas and jdmayas change places, and has sarvds (better) for hirds
in b. The comm. takes yositas as gen. sing., and hence naturally understands rajovahananddyas
to be meant in the verse ; he renders hirds by sirds ; and he explains that
brotherless sisters pitrkule samtdnakarmane pindaddndya ca tisthanti. The Anukr.
refuses to sanction the contraction -tare 'va in c.
2. Stop, lower one 1 stop, upper one ! do thou too stop, midmost one J
if the smallest stops, shall stop forsooth the great tube (dhanidni).
The accent of tisthati seems to show ca to be the equivalent of cet here.
3. Of the hundred tubes, of the thousand veins, have stopped forsooth
these midmost ones ;
In d, emendation to dntyds
the ends have rested {ram) together.
'
the end ones ' would be an improvement ; but Ppp.
also has antds : sakam antd 'ramsata; its c is corrupt {asthii nibaddhdmdvd') ; and it
inserts te after qatasya in a.
4. About you hath gone {krani) a great gravelly sandbank {dhanu)%
stop [and] be quiet, I
pray (su kam).
The comm. sees in dhanu only the meaning "bow," and interprets it "bent like a
bow " : namely, a vessel containing the urine ; in sikatds he sees an allusion to the
menses, or to gravel in the bladder. Kau^. (26. 10) speaks of sprinkling on dust and
gravel as a means of stanching the flow of blood ;
more probably, as Weber first suggested,
a bag filled with sand was used :
in neither case can the menses be had in view.
Ppp. reads siktdmayi bunfi sthirai; carasthidam. The third pada is identical with
RV. i. i9i.6d ; the comm. (as Sayana to the latter) fails to recognize the root il \ and
he renders Kxprerayata, as if root ir were in question.