Page:Atharva-Veda samhita volume 2.djvu/479

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TRANSLATION AND NOTES. BOOK XIX.
-xix. 24
”yuṣe and soma mā ”yuṣe, his vocative indra⌋ agreeing with HGS. and giving an easier and better text; ⌊his goes easily as an appositive with imám, but the following enam is quite out of joint with it⌋.


3. Wrap ye this man [as] Soma in order to life-time, to great instruction (çrótra), that [it] may conduct him unto old age; may he long watch over instruction.

It is perhaps only by an accident that vs. 2 is omitted in Ppp.; at any rate, this verse shows what would have been read for verse 2 by it; it has somam, not soma, in a;* and naya, with the comm., in c; further, in a it gives pare ’maṁ. *⌊Strictly speaking, it has somamāyuṣe, with a possibility for the same objectionable division as appears under vs. 2, which see.⌋


4. Wrap, set ye him for us with splendor; make him one to die of old age; [make] long life-time; Bṛihaspati furnished (pra-yam) this garment to king Soma for wrapping himself.

This is a repetition of ii. 13. 2, above. The comm. mentions that the verse has been already explained where it first occurred, but adds: "the sense, however, is compendiously this," and proceeds to give the same exposition over again, word for word (unless, indeed, the editor is responsible for the repetition). For the parallel passages etc., see the note to ii. 13. 2.


5. Go thou safely () unto old age; wrap thyself in the garment; become thou protector of the people (?) against imprecation; and live thou a hundred numerous autumns; and wrap further about (upa-sam-vyā) thee abundance of wealth.

⌊The verse is found in PGS. (i. 4. 12), HGS. (i. 4. 2), and MP. (ii. 2. 7). In a, PGS. omits , while HGS.MP. have jarā́ṁ gacchāsi; in b, all three texts read kṛṣṭīnā́m and abhiçastipā́vā; all three end c with suvarcās; and PGS. has for d rayiṁ ca putrān anu saṁvyayasva, adding āyuṣmatī ’dam paridhatsva vāsaḥ.⌋ In b, the translation follows Ppp. ⌊and the three texts just cited⌋ in reading kṛṣṭīnā́m 'people' instead of the absurd gṛṣṭīnā́m 'heifers,' which is given by all the mss. and the comm., both here and in the nearly accordant verse ii. 13. 3: see note to ii. 13. 3 ⌊and cf. Roth, ZDMG. xlviii. 110⌋. The comm. is driven by the reading gṛṣ- into taking abhiçasti- from ças 'cut': abhito viçasanaṁ hiṅsā. ⌊Our abhiçastipā́ u, at the end of b in vss. 5 and 6, would seem, in view of the -pā́vā of the other texts, to be a faulty assimilation to the end of d in vs. 4, páridhātavā́ u, such as may be found elsewhere.⌋


6. Thou hast wrapped thyself in this garment in order to well-being; thou hast become protector of thine allies (?) against imprecation; and live thou a hundred numerous autumns; living, pleasant (cā́ru), thou shalt share out good things.

The translation implies in b ábhūr āpīnā́m ⌊see below⌋, or else an analysis of the ms. reading vāpīnā́m ⌊misprinted vap- in foot-note of Berlin ed.⌋ into u and āpīnā́m (the pada-mss. have ábhūḥ: vāpīnā́m). The vaçā́nām of our text* is a conjecture provoked by the gṛṣṭīnā́m of vs. 5; as that is got rid of, this naturally falls away also. The comm. has again gṛṣṭīnām, and this time interprets abhiçasti- as a fear on the part of the 'heifers' of losing their skins (tvagādānabhīti ⌊cf. note to ii. 13. 3⌋)! The Ppp.