20-24 septembrie 2009 - Biblioteca Metropolitana Bucuresti

690 JULIETA Rotarupreserved from the old (ŚatBr) to the late Vedic (KauśS) and post Vedicritual sources (Keśava, AthPaddh, SRM, PSPaddh). Furthermore, for theAtharvavedic ritualists all the pairs (in two as rice and barley, day andnight, earth and heaven, or in four, as the seasons) were a God-sent devicefor the dual identification of the mythic scenario recorded by the earliertexts, enacting the deeds of certain pairs of gods from time immemorial.Regarding the number of four commendations performed as a concludingrite of the four saṃskāras, the logic behind is as follows. Each of the fourparidāna might represent in nuce one of the four rites in which it is actuallya part: the first stepping out (wherein precisely the mantras 8.2.14-15 areused), the first feeding with solid food (which employs exactly the stanzas8.2.18-19), the name giving (wherein the whole hymn 8.2 is employed),and the first shaving. Besides the mantras employed, this representationcan be inferred from the gist of each commendation, the purport of whichconverges with the scope of the respective rite: 1) protection of the skyand earth for the child going out of the house, 2) protection of the rice andbarley and all sorts of food for the baby taking his/her first meal, otherthan breast, 3) protection of the day and night against Arāya demons thatmight attack the child that has been recently named, 4) protection of theseasons and the enduring years, so that the child whose first shaving hasbeen performed will live long (the meaning of the Atharvavedic godāna isspecifically this: obtaining long life for the one year old baby 62 ).BibliographyManuscriptsAtharvaṇīya Paddhati Berlin. Mss. Accession no. 1495 and 1496 in Verzeichnisseder Kgl. Bibliothek zu Berlin, vol. V: Verzeichniss der Sanskrit-Prakṛt-Handschriften, vol. II, editor Albrecht Weber, 86-87. Berlin.62For this subject see MOLEANU 2006: 67-80.