Volume 1 - Sanskrit Web

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213 TRANSLATION AND NOTES. BOOK IV. -iv. 37
8. Terrible are Indra's missiles {heti), a hundred spears of iron ; with
them let him push out the oblation-eating, ax'^^a-eating Gandharvas.
Half our mss., and the large majority of SPP's, read at the end of this verse rsata
both editions give rsatu, as in the next verse. Avakd is defined as a certain grass-lilce
marsh-plant, Blyxa octandra, the same with qdivala or (aivdlaj the comm. defines it
as jaloparisthdh (divalavi^esah, but attempts no explanation of why the Gandharvas
should be supposed to eat it. He reads in b qataprsils (one feels tempted to emend
rather to qatdbhrstis), and in c abhihraddn (for haviraddti). The Anukr. talces no
notice of the redundant syllable in c (also in 9 c).
9. Terrible are Indra's missiles, a hundred spears of gold ; with them
let him push out the oblation-eating, aVa,^«-eating Gandharvas.
This very slightly varied repetition of vs. 8 is wanting in Ppp. All the mss. have
rsaiu at the end here.
— all the piqacds, O herb, do thou slaughter and overpower.
10. The dvakd-&^\\vLg ones, scorching, making light (?) in the waters
All our pada--m%%. read in b jyotaya°mamakan as a compound, and it seems very
strange that SPP. gives in both forms of ttxX jyotaya mdmakan, as two independent
words, and reports nothing different as found in any of his authorities ; it is perhaps an
oversight on his part.
Either reading being plainly untranslatable, the rendering given
implies emendation to jyotayamdnakan, as the simplest and most probable alteration
several cases of such expansions of a participle in mdna by an added -ka occur \_Skt.
Gram. § 1222 g, f ; cf. Bloomfield's note J,
one of them (^pravartamdnakd) even in RV.
Ppp. reads as follows : avakd^am abhi^dco bicchi dydtayanidnakdm : gandharvdn
sarvdn osadhe krnu tasvapardyanah j this supports the proposed reading in its most
essential feature, -mdna- for -mama-., and further favors the version of the comm., dyotlor
jyot-. R., in the Festgruss an Bohtlingk (p. 97), had ingeniously conjectured the
word as a name for the will-o'-the-wisp, deriving it ixoxt\. jyoiaya mdm 'give me light,'
by an added suffix -aka. The comm. paraphrases by matsambandhino gandharvdn
udakesu prakdqaya. |_Cf. Whitney, Festgruss an Roth, p. 91 ; also note to ii. 3. i.J
1 1. One as it were a dog, one as it were an ape, a boy all hairy— having
become as it were dear to see, the Gandharva fastens upon (sac) women
him we make disappear from here by [our] mighty (virydvant) incantation
(brdhmati).
In our edition, striyam at the end of d is a misprint for striyas, which all the mss.
have, with no avasana-xa^xV following, though distinctly called for by the sense, and
therefore supplied by us ; Ppp., however, reads striyam, with sajate before it ; and it
omits the last pada, f :
which omission would furnish an excuse for the absence of interpunction
after striyas.
12. Your wives, verily, are the Apsarases ; O Gandharvas, ye are
[their] husbands ; run away, O immortal ones ; fasten not on mortals.
All the pada-xm%. commit in c the palpable error of dividing dhdvatdmartydQi) into
dhdTata: martydh, as if the a which follows dhavat- were one of the common prolongations
of a final vowel in samhitd ; the comm., however, understands amartydh,
and SPP. admits this by emendation into his pada-XtiA. Ppp. has for c apakramat
purusdd amartyd, which supports amartyds in our text.