Page:Atharva-Veda samhita.djvu/166

clviii the sense-hymns of the kṣudra-kāṇḍas (? or -kāṇḍa?). To the end of the eleventh kāṇḍa, the sense-hymn is the norm.' etc. ''atha kṣudra-kāṇdā- ’rthasūkta-mantrāṇām ṛṣi-dāivata-chandāṅsy ucyante. tato yāvad ekādaçakāṇḍā-’ntam arthasūkta-prakṛtis tāvad vihāya paryāyān virāḍ vā (viii. 10) prabhṛtīn iti etc. What pertinence the word kṣudra'' may have as applied to books viii.-xi. I cannot divine; but it can hardly be an accident that the very same word is used in the phrase of homage to parts of the AV. at xix. 22. 6 and 23. 21, kṣudrébhyaḥ svā́hā, and that this phrase is followed in h. 22 and in the comm's text of h. 23, by the words paryāyikébhyaḥ svā́hā, that is, by an allusion to the paryāyas, just as in the text of the Anukr. Apart from vss. 16-18 of xix. 23, vss. 1-20 refer most clearly to the first grand division; and vss. 23-28 refer just as clearly to the third. The allusion to the second ought therefore certainly to come in between vs. 20 and vs. 23, that is it ought to be found in vss. 21 and 22. We have just given reason for supposing that vs. 21 contains the expected allusion. The meaning of ekānṛcébhyaḥ of vs. 22 is as obscure as is the pertinence of kṣudrébhyaḥ; probably ekānṛcébhyaḥ is a corrupt reading. If I am right as to vs. 21, the mystery of vs. 18 becomes only deeper.⌋

Third grand division (books xiii.-xviii.): books characterized by unity of subject.—The remaining six books constitute each a whole by itself and appear to have been on that account kept undivided by the arrangers and placed in a body together at the end of the collection. The books in which the unity of subject is most clearly apparent are xiv. (the wedding verses), xviii. (the funeral verses), and xv. (extollation of the Vrātya). ⌊The unity of books xiii. and xvii., although less striking, is yet sufficiently evident, the one consisting of hymns to the Sun as The Ruddy One or Rohita, and the other being a prayer to the Sun as identified with Indra and with Vishṇu. In book xvi., the unity of subject is not apparent, although it seems to consist in large measure (see p. 792) of "Prayers against the terror by night."⌋ Book xvi. is not so long that we might not have thought it possible that it should be included as a paryāya-sūkta in one of the books of the second division; and book xvii., too, is so brief that it might well enough have been a hymn in a book.

⌊Hindu tradition assigns at least four of the books of this division each to a single seer; the whole matter is more fully set forth at p. 1038. However much or little value we may attach to these ascriptions of