Page:Atharva-Veda samhita volume 2.djvu/336

Book XVI.

⌊Unity of subject not apparent.⌋

⌊This is the fourth book of the third grand division (books xiii.-xviii.) of the Atharvan collection. By what warrant it has found a place among the books whose distinctive feature is their unity of subject it is hard to say; and the same is in a measure true of the next book, book xvii.: but see Whitney's General Introduction; also Bloomfield's contribution to the Bühler-Kielhorn Grundriss, p. 94. The study of the ritual applications of the book distinctly fails, in my opinion, to reveal any pervading concinnity of purpose or of use.⌋

⌊In the Indische Studien, xiii. 185, Weber has suggested that parts of the book are evening prayers, to be recited before going to rest, and especially for the warding off of evil dreams (see i. 11; 5; 6; 7. 8-11); and 9. 3-4, at the end of the book, may well be taken as the words of them "that watch [have watched] for the morning" and as expressing the "joy" that "cometh in the morning," and are accordingly placed, as is usual and appropriate, at the end of the mantras concerned, in order to indicate the successful accomplishment of the purpose of those mantras. One is half tempted to give to the book the title "Against the 'terror by night'?"⌋

⌊Laying apart book vi., which has received great attention from the translators (see p. 281), it may be noted that this is the first book of the Atharvan saṁhitā of which no translation has as yet been published by the translators of single books. Here again the bhāṣya is lacking.⌋ ⌊☞ For "Paritta" as title of book, see p. 1045.⌋

The ⌊Major⌋ Anukr. calls the whole book prājāpatya: prājāpatyasya nava paryāyāḥ; and both of its two anuvākas are evidently called by the same name ⌊prājāpatyābhyām⌋ in xix. 23. 26; whether this means to ascribe the authorship of the book to Prājāpati is not certain.—⌊On the other hand, the Old Anukr. seems rather to imply by its

prājāpatyo ha catuṣkaḥ; pañcaparyāya uttaraḥ

that the name prājāpatya pertains only to the first anuvāka, 'the one of four paryāyas.' It may, however, be added that the prājāpatyasya in the first line of the printed extract below may mean the whole book or else only the first anuvāka.⌋

⌊Quotations from the Old Anukr. are given piecemeal through the mss. of the book. They may here be given in connected form as printed by SPP. in his Critical Notice, p. 23—Line 1 refers to the 'prior' and the 'last' (that is the 'latter') of the two anuvākas of the ' prājāpatyan' book: unless indeed the relation of the first two words is

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