Page:Atharva-Veda samhita.djvu/156

cxlviii whole a general aspect decidedly different from that of books viii— xviii., as is indeed apparent enough from the table of hymn-titles, pages 1024-37; they are, in fact, by all odds the most characteristic part of the Atharva-Veda, and this is tacitly admitted by the translators of selected hymns (see p. cvii), their selections being taken in largest measure (cf. p. 281) from this division. In the second place, the books of this division are sharply distinguished from those of the others by the basis of their internal arrangement, which basis is in part that of a clearly demonstrable verse-norm, a norm, that is to say, which, for each separate book, governs the number of verses in the hymns of that book. ⌋

⌊Evidence of fact as to the existence of the verse-norms.—A most pervading implicit distinction is made by the Major Anukramaṇī between this division and the next in its actual method of giving or intimating the length of the hymns. In division II., on the one hand, the number of verses is stated expressly and separately for every hymn. In division I., on the other hand, the treatise merely intimates by its silence that the number for any given hymn conforms to the norm assumed for that book, and the number is expressly stated only when it constitutes a departure from that norm. Thus for the 142 hymns of book vi., an express statement as to the length is made only for the 20 hymns (given at p. 281, lines 17-18) which exceed the norm of three. —For convenience of reference, the norms may here be tabulated:

⌊Express testimony of both Anukramaṇīs as to the verse-norms.—The Major Anukr. (at the beginning of its treatment of book ii.: see p. 142) expressly states that the normal number of verses for a hymn of book i. is four, and that the norm increases by one for each successive book of the first five books: pūrvakāṇḍasya caturṛcaprakṛtir ity evam uttarottarakāṇḍeṣu ṣaṣṭhaṁ yāvad ekāikādhikā etc. Than this, nothing could be more clear or explicit. Again, at the beginning of its treatment of book iii., it says that in this book it is to be understood that six verses are the norm, and that any other number is a departure therefrom: atra