DDK HistoryF.p65 - CSIR

108 NOTES TO CHAPTER IV
6. These myths gain added significance from India’s striking off friendlier heads
: once that of the non-Aryan Vi§nu; again of his own fire-priest Dadhyanc Atharvana.
The latter had thoughtfully been fitted with a horse’s head by the twin Nasatyas, who
simply put back his original head after the contretemps. The horse’s head so cut off
was thrown into a mere called Saryanavat, whence it rises periodically to phophecy.
This is reminiscent of the horse’s head found in Danish excavations what had been a
small pond, just as the find of unbroken horse’s skeletons in Danish oak-lined pits
are related to the Indian horse-sacrifice with its ubadhya-gohaka pit wherein the
entrails and carefully disjointed bones were to be deposited, insulated from contact
with the earth by a grass lining. The horse being an Aryan beast, the later legends
cannot be easily related to decapitated non-Aryan demons.
7. The sole Rgvedic reference to the four later castes : brahmin, k$atriya, vailya,
sudra is in 10.90, itself a late addition. The castes were there engendered from the
sacrifice of a primordial man (purusa) by the ancient Sadhya gods, who seem to be
pre-Aryan, being very rarely mentioned. The hymn obviously creates religious authority
for a social state that had none except force and usage.
8. The full details of Yajurvedic horse-sacrifice have been confirmed by the
discovery of inscribed bricks with which the sacrificial altars were built. The actual
sites found near Hardwar date just about the beginning of the Christian era, but the
confirmation is valuable nevertheless.
9. In RV. 1.65,7, Agni is described as eating up the forests as a king the ibhyas.
The word ibhya was taken by Geldner to mean vassals rich enough to maintain
elephants. Such a feudal order is certainly not confirmed by the Ftgveda. In the fifth
Asokan rock edict, ibhya occurs as antithetical to brahmin, hence a very low caste ;
the same sense of low unclean boors is implied by the Ambatthasutta, (Dighanikaya
3), and by the Chandogya Upani§ad 1.10. 1-2 with its story of the famished
brahmin lJ§asti Cakrayana. The Rgvedic king then devoured only people outside the
tribe, whether by looting rich Dasas or oppressing poor autochthones of the elephant
totem who are later known as the lowly elephant drivers. MN 95 end gives the same
low meaning for ibbho; the Desindmamala equates it with vanik, trader. The Jataka
gloss uses the secondary meaning as well-to-do gahapatika, though to Buddhaghosa
gahapti meant the independent yeoman who tilled his own land in person. Only the
low person, and a rich one could fit the context of Jat 543 (Fausboll 6.214), and Jat.
544.
10. For this exegetical work appended to the IJgveda, the Aitareya Brahmana
(the translation of A. B. Keith, HOS. 25, 1920) has been used ; the particular chapter
of the Brahmana is known to be a late addition, so that the developments cannot be
Rgvedic.
11. For the $atapatha Brahmana, (exegesis to Yajurvedic ritual) Eggeling’s
translation SBE. vols. 12, 26, 41, 43, 44 (Oxford 1882-1900) is re-comtnended, for its
fine index.