Page:Atharva-Veda samhita.djvu/161

Rh appears as a secondary determinant. It conflicts with the primary determinant in only one case, that of book vi., and is accordingly there subordinated to the primary one, so that book vi. (norm: 3) is placed after books i.-v. (norms: 4- 8).⌋

⌊Departures from the norms by excess.—The cases of excess are most numerous in book v. (see p. 220), and concern over $$\tfrac{14}{15}$$ of all the hymns. On the other hand, the cases of conformity to the norm are most numerous in books vi. and i. and concern about $$\tfrac{6}{7}$$ of the hymns in each book. For books ii., iv., vii., and iii. respectively, the approximate vulgar fraction of cases of conformity is ⅗, ½, ½, and ⅖. For each of the seven books, in the order of closeness of conformity to the verse-norm, the more precise fraction is as follows: for book vi., it is .859; for i., it is .857; for ii., it is .61; for iv., it is .52; for vii., it is .47; for iii., it is .42; and for v., it is .06.⌋

⌊Critical significance of those departures.—From the foregoing paragraph it appears that the order of books arranged by their degree of conformity (vi., i., ii.), agrees with their order as arranged by their verse-norms (3, 4, 5), for the books of shorter hymns. This is as it should be; for if the distinction of popular and hieratic hymns is to be made for this division, the briefest would doubtless fall into the prior class, the class less liable to expansion by secondary addition.⌋

We are not without important indications that the hymns may have been more or less tampered with since their collection and arrangement, so as now to show a greater number of verses than originally belonged to them. Thus some hymns have been expanded by formulized variations of some of their verses; and others by the separation of a single verse into more than one, with the addition of a refrain. ⌊Yet others have suffered expansion by downright interpolations or by additions at the end; while some of abnormal length may represent the juxtaposition of two unrelated pieces.⌋

Illustrative examples of critical reduction to the norm.—⌊The instances that follow should be taken merely as illustrations. To discuss the cases systematically and thoroughly would require a careful study of every case of excess with reference to the structure of the hymn concerned and to its form and extent in the parallel texts,—in short, a special investigation. ⌋