Page:Atharva-Veda samhita volume 2.djvu/443

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
899
TRANSLATION AND NOTES. BOOK XIX.
-xix. 2

3. Form by form, vigor (váyas) by vigor—taking hold together I embrace him: let the four quarters increase this sacrifice; I make offering with an oblation of confluence.

The comm. understands the sacrificer by enam in b. ⌊In c, cátasraḥ is metrically and otherwise superfluous.⌋

The metrical definitions given by the Anukr. for this hymn are of no value; the first two are inexact even as regards a mechanical count of syllables.


2. Praise and prayer to the waters.

[Sindhudvīpa.—pañcarcam. āpyam. ānuṣṭubham.]

Found also in Pāipp. viii. The comm. finds it used in Nakṣ. K. 20, in addressing waters brought from streams etc. for a ceremony of appeasement.

Translated: Griffith, ii. 259.


1. Weal to thee [be] the waters from the snowy mountains (hāimavatá), and weal be to thee those from the fountains; weal to thee the running waters, and weal to thee be those of the rain.

Our saniṣyadā́s in c is an emendation, and called for ⌊see Skt. Gram. § 1148. 4. k., near the end⌋; all the mss., and SPP., accent saniṣyádās. Many of the mss. accent in d. The comm. omits u in b. The pada-mss. make the absurd division sani॰syádāḥ. Ppp. makes the combinations çaṁ tā ”po and -ṣyadā ”paç ç-.


2. Weal to thee [be] the waters of the wastes, weal be to thee those of the marshes; weal to thee the waters of the canals (khanitríma), weal those brought with vessels.

Ppp. has again çaṁ tā ”po dh-; ⌊also -trimā ”paç ç-⌋. TA. (in vi. 4. 1) has a verse and a half similar to these two, and in part accordant with them (reading corruptly anū́kyās): ⌊Poona ed., p. 420, rightly anūkyā̀s⌋. Our i. 6. 4 above is still more closely analogous.


3. Digging for themselves without shovels, keen (vípra), working in the deep (gambhīrá), more healing than the healers (bhiṣáj), the waters we address.

The mss. and SPP. with them, read in b gambhīré apásaḥ, which is good enough to be exempt from emendation; the comm. seems to make a compound, gambhīreapasaḥ. The mss. and SPP. also have in d áchā vad- (p. ácha: vad-); it was altered in our text to achā́vad- (= acha॰ā́vad-) because the Atharvan everywhere else ⌊except iii. 20. 2⌋ reads the latter and not the former. Ppp. reads and combines gambhīrepsā bhiṣagbhyo bhiṣaktarā ”po a-.


4. Of the waters indeed from the sky, of the waters from the streams (srotasyà)—in the forth-washing indeed of the waters, ye become vigorous (vājín) horses.

The last pāda is very literally rendered; anything else would require some alteration of the text; it is identical with i. 4. 4 c. SPP. reads in a divyā̀nām, with very nearly all the mss.; the emendation of accent ⌊divyā́-, as in the Berlin text⌋ is unquestionably to be made. ⌊Error due to srotasyā̀nām?