Page:Atharva-Veda samhita volume 2.djvu/516

9. Let Bhaga favor me with fortune (bhága), in order to breath etc. etc.

The comm. has here a lacuna, embracing the commentary to this verse and the text of the next. ⌊The verse is wanting in Ppp., as noted above.⌋

10. Let the Maruts favor me with troops, in order to breath etc. etc.

Ppp. reads this time suprabhūtaye. It is possible to make out of these prose "verses" the number of syllables demanded by the Anukr. Perhaps the modification nicṛt belongs only to vss. 7-9 (the manuscripts are discordant and unclear).

⌊Here ends the fifth anuvāka, with 12 hymns and 74 verses.⌋

46. With and to an amulet called ástṛta 'unsubdued.'

[Prajāpati.—saptakam. astṛtamaṇidāivatam. trāiṣṭubham: 1. 5-p. madhyejyotiṣmatī triṣṭubh; 2. 6-p. bhurik çakvarī; 3. 7. 5-p. pathyāpan̄kti; 4. 4-p*; 5. 5-p. atijagatī; 6. 6-p. uṣṇiggarbhā virāḍ jagatī.] *⌊The Anukr. says: indrāya tvā (vs. 4) catuṣpadā: asmin maṇāv (vs. 5); iti pañcapadā jagatī (Berlin ms., atijagatī): most unsatisfactory; and why should vs. 4 be defined as 4-p.?⌋

Found also in Pāipp. iv. (in the verse-order 1, 2, 6, 5, 3, 4, 7). Used, according to the comm., by one desiring strength, in a mahāçānti ceremony called mārudgaṇī, with a threefold amulet named astṛta, being so prescribed by Nakṣ.K. 19.

Translated: Ludwig, p. 462; Griffith, ii. 302.—See also Bergaigne-Henry, Manuel, p. 165.

1. Prajāpati bound thee first [as] unsubdued (ástṛta), in order to heroism; it do I bind for thee in order to life-time, to splendor, and to force and to strength: let the unsubdued one defend thee.

Astṛta is literally 'not laid low.' In the two occurrences above (i. 20. 4: v. 9. 7) it is accented on the final; but, as ástṛta would be the normal accent, it is left here unchanged in our text, as well as in SPP's. The pada-texts read in a badhnāt, but that is no reason why we should not understand it as abadhnāt, and our text (not SPP's) so prints it. Our text further emends at the beginning of c the tát of the mss. to táṁ, as required by the gender of astṛtas. The omission of badhnāt in a, and of várcase in the second half-verse, would make an anuṣṭubh (apart from the refrain); but the meter throughout the hymn is unusually careless of regularity, and Ppp. has both words, reading in a, b badhnātu prathama saṁbhṛtaṁ, and in d, e combining varcaso ’jase and ca astṛtas. ⌊With c, d, cf. iv. 10. 7 c, d.⌋

2. Standing upright, defend thou this man unremittingly, O unsubdued one; let not the Paṇis, the sorcerers, damage thee; as Indra the barbarians, [so] do thou shake down them that fight [us]; overpower and scatter (ví) all our rivals: let the unsubdued one defend thee.

All the mss. ⌊with unimportant variants⌋ read in a tiṣṭhanta; SPP. emends to tiṣṭhatu, because the comm. reads the latter; our tíṣṭhan suits the connection decidedly better. ⌊The vocative astṛta and the tvā are⌋ perhaps sufficient reasons for our altering the rákṣann of the mss. (also of the comm. and Ppp.) into rakṣa, and the translation follows ⌊the printed text of Berlin⌋. To humor his tiṣṭhatu, SPP. changes the