20-24 septembrie 2009 - Biblioteca Metropolitana Bucuresti

From myth to ritual. The horse of Pedu and the remedy... 477called Kālakāñja is told in the Saṁhitās and Brāhmaṇa texts (MaitrāyaṇīSaṁhitā 1.6.9; Kāṭhaka Saṁhiā 8.1; Taittirīya Brāhmaṇa 1.1.2.4-6; cf. alsoŚatapatha Brāhmaṇa 2.1.213-16). These demons piled up a fire-altar inorder to ascend by it to the heaven. Indra joined them, adding a brick ofhis own. When the demons began to climb the heaven, Indra pulled hisbrick and they tumbled down. They became spiders, all but two flew upand became the two heavenly dogs. The two heavenly dogs, otherwise thetwo dogs of Yama, are the sun and the moon. In the AVŚ (6.80), there isa reference to three Kālakāñjas. It is the central theme of the hymn. Thehymn has been utilized by the KauśS (31.18-19) in a very obscure ritualto be performed for the cure of paralysis. Here the two dogs of Yama areseen in a new role. It is interesting to see how the myth plays a vital role inthe ritual with which it has no connection in its initial stage. The famouswedding hymn in ṚV (10.85) is a ballad, describing the marriage of Sūryā,daughter of the sun. The same hymn is reproduced in the AVŚ and enlargedwith a number of additional verses (14.1-2) for the purpose of an elaborateritual absent in the tradition of the ṚV. The KauśS (75-79) rubricates theverses in a variety of rites connected with ritual. Many more instances ofthis kind can be found in the tradition of the AV. Thus we can see a journeyof an ancient myth to the ritual of the later times, where the myth has beenenacted by the performers of the respective ritual.References(A) Primary Sources: Texts and TranslationsAtharvavedasaṁhitā (Śaunakīya) edited by R. ROTH and W.D. WHITNEY 1856,Berlin: Ferd. Dümmler's Verlagsbuchhandlung.Atharvavedasaṁhitā, translated into English with Critical and ExegeticalCommentary by W.D. WHITNEY, revised and edited by Charles RockwellLANMAN, 1996. Vols. I-II, 1 st edn., 1905, Harvard Oriental Series, Vols.VII and VIII, Cambridge, Mass., 5 th reprint 1996, New Delhi: MotilalBanarsidass Publishers Pvt. Ltd.