Page:Atharva-Veda samhita volume 2.djvu/496

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xix. 34-
BOOK XIX. THE ATHARVA-VEDA-SAṀHITĀ.
952
Ppp. is corrupt, and brings no help; it has sarva vyunaktu tej-. ⌊Did not SPP. understand his reading thus: 'Let the amulet separate them all from their téjas (ablative)'? The instrum. téjasā, which good authorities give, would also be a proper construction with root vic: 'Let the amulet part them all with their efficiency (téjas),' i.e. rob the wizards of their power to make their witchcrafts efficacious against us. Whitney's reading and rendering are wholly satisfactory in themselves: but vinaktu téjasas or -sā seems to me no less so; and it has much stronger support (directly or indirectly) from the mss., and even from Ppp., than has RW's vínaṣṭatejasas.—After writing the above, I notice that Bloomfield, p. 672, interprets SPP's reading quite differently: the way in which he construes vic does not seem to me admissible.⌋


3. Sapless the artificial noise, sapless the seven that fall apart; away from here, O jan̄giḍá, make fall (çat) misery, as an archer (ástṛ) an arrow.

The first half-verse is perhaps corrupt, as it is certainly unintelligible. The pada-text makes in a the astonishing division kṛtrím: anna॰adám; many of the saṁhitā-mss. read kṛtṛ́m-. All the mss. accent vísrasas, and SPP. with them; our text emends to visrásas. The minor Pet. Lex. suggests that the saptá visrúhas of RV. vi. 7. 6 may be meant: ingenious, but not comforting, as no one has any idea what the latter signifies. The comm's guess is this: mūrdhaniṣṭheṣu...saptasu cchidreṣv abhicarato ’tpāditāḥ sapta niṣyandāḥ. In a, b, the reading of Ppp. is rasaṁ kṛtrimaṁ nāḍam arasas s-. In c the mss. have much unimportant variation of accent. At the end, Ppp. gives sādhayā. The translation gives to çātaya the meaning ascribed to it by the Hindu grammarians, since it suits the connection; the comm. renders the word by tanūkuru, of which it is hard to see the reason or sense.


4. A spoiler of witchcraft verily is this, likewise a spoiler of niggardry; likewise may the powerful jan̄giḍá lengthen out our life-times.

The majority of mss. leave ayám in a unaccented; and they divide pretty evenly between tāriṣat and tārṣat at the end; ⌊cf. under iv. 10. 6⌋. Ppp. reads kṛtyādūṣaṇa vāyam atho ‘rāt-. With the verse compare ii. 4. 6, which is nearly the same.


5. Let that greatness of the jan̄giḍá protect us all about, wherewith [it] overpowered the víṣkandha with force, [being] a counteracting force (?).

Sáṁskandha occurs nowhere else, and is in the translation assumed to be a word made as the opposite and contrary of víṣkandha; it may, of course, be only a variation of the latter, another evil of the same sort, as understood by the Pet. Lexx. and the comm. (yena rogeṇa skandhaḥ saṁnataḥ saṁlagno bhavati sa rogaḥ saṁskandhaḥ). The majority of the mss. read in c sāsáha (p. sasaha ⌊with various accent⌋); but sāsahé (as in our text) is in accordance with the nearly invariable use of the root in AV. as middle, ⌊and is read by one of SPP's mss.⌋. Ppp. reads sāsahā, and combines in d ojo ‘jasā. The comm. reads and explains in c viṣkandham ojasā saha (favoring sāsaha).


6. Thrice the gods generated thee that art settled (ni-sthā) upon the earth; and Brahmans of old know thee thus as An̄giras by name.

All the mss. read at the beginning tṛṣṭvā́ (p. the same); but even SPP. emends to tríṣ ṭvā, as we had done; the comm. has the latter. Ppp. gives niṣ ṭvā. The comm. reads tiṣṭhantam in b instead of niṣṭhitam. Some of the mss. are discordant as to the accent of an̄girās in c.