Page:Atharva-Veda samhita.djvu/138

cxxx coincident with the hymn. The like is true in books xiii., xiv., xvii., and xviii. (p. 814). In the table, these five books are marked with a star. But furthermore: if, as seems likely (see p. cxxx, below), books xv. and xvi. are to be reckoned each as a book of two hymns (and not as of 18 and 9 respectively), then all the books from xii. on, to xviii., are to be starred, and regarded as having their anuvākas and hymns conterminous.⌋

⌊It is noted at p. 898, ¶2, that in book xix. there appears an attempt to make the anuvāka-divisions coincide with the sense-divisions or divisions between the subject-groups. I do not know whether the same is true in books i.-xviii., not having examined them with regard to this point; it is true in the case of the last anuvāka of book ix. (= RV. i. 164 = AV. ix. 9 and 10), where, as the RV. shows, the true unit is the anuvāka and not the AV. hymn. On the other hand, Whitney observes (at p. 194) that an anuvāka-division falls in the middle of the Mṛgāra-group, and (at p. 247) that another falls between v. 15 and 16 with entire disregard of the close connection of the two hymns.⌋

⌊Their relation to the hymn-divisions in books xiii.-xviii.—In these books and in xii., the anuvāka is, as noted above, admittedly conterminous with the hymn everywhere except in the two paryāya-books, xv. and xvi. In the colophon to xiv. 1, a ms. of Whitney's speaks of the hymn as an anuvāka-sūkta; and it is possible that, for book xiv., at least, the author of the Anukr. did not recognize the hymn-divisions (see p. 739). That they signify very much less in books xiii.-xviii. than they do in the earlier books is very clear (see the third paragraph of p. cxxxi, and the third of p. clx); so clear, that it is not unlikely that they are of entirely secondary origin.⌋

⌊It is at the beginning of book xii. that the anuvāka-divisions begin to coincide with the hymn-divisions; and it is precisely at the corresponding point in the Anukr. (the beginning of paṭala viii.) that the author of that treatise apparently intends to say athā ’nuvākā ucyante. From book xii. on, therefore, it would seem that the saṁhitā was thought of by him as a collection of anuvākas, or that the subordinate division below the kāṇḍa which was alone worthy of practical recognition, was in his opinion the anuvāka and not the sūkta.⌋

⌊If this be right, then it would seem as if, in the series of books xii.-xviii., the books xv. and xvi. ought not to be exceptions. In them, also, the groups of individual paryāyas or paryāya-groups should be conterminous with the anuvākas. Book xv. will fall, accordingly, into two groups of 7 and 11 paryāyas respectively; and book xvi. into two groups of 4 and 5. This method of grouping the paryāyas receives some support from the fact that hymn xix. 23 refers to book xv. as "two anuvākas" (see note to xix. 23. 25), and from the fact that the Pañcapaṭalikā