Page:Atharva-Veda samhita.djvu/167

Rh quasi-authorship, they are certainly of some significance as a clear mark of differentiation between this division and the other two.⌋

⌊'''Division III. represented in Pāippalāda by a single book, book xviii.'''—An item of evidence important in its relation to the Vulgate division III. as a separate unity is afforded by the treatment of that division in the Kashmirian recension: the Vulgate books xiii.-xviii., namely, are all grouped by the makers of the Pāippalāda text into a single book, book xviii., and appear there either in extenso or else by representative citations. The relations of the Vulgate division to the Pāipp. book are set forth in detail at p. 1014, which see.⌋

⌊'''Names of these books as given by hymn xix. 23.'''—It is a most significant fact, and one entirely in harmony with the classification of books xiii.-xviii. on the basis of unity of subject, that they should be mentioned in hymn xix. 23 by what appear to be their recognized names. It is therefore here proper to rehearse those names as given in verses 23-28 of the hymn (see pages 931, ¶5, and 933). They are: for book xiii., 'the ruddy ones,' róhitebhyas, plural; for xiv., 'the two Sūryās,' sūryā́bhyām, or the two [anuvākas] of the book beginning with the hymn of Sūryā's wedding; for xv., 'the two [anuvākas] about the vrā́tya,' vrātyā́bhyām (accent!); for xvi., 'the two [anuvākas] of Prajāpati,' prājāpatyā́bhyām; for xvii., 'the Viṣāsahi,' singular; and for xviii., 'the auspicious ones,' man̄galikébhyas, euphemism for the inauspicious funeral verses.⌋

⌊Order of books within the division.—The verse-totals for the books are, by the Berlin numeration, 188, 139, 141, 93, 30, and 283, and, by the Bombay numeration, 188, 139, 220, 103, 30, and 283 (above, p. cxxxvii). But for the disturbing influence of the numerous brief paryāya-verses of book xv. upon the third member of these series, they would both coincide in their general aspect with the series based on the amount of text in pages of the Berlin edition, namely, 13, 12, 10, 5, 3, and 21 (as given above, p. cxliii). From the last series, it appears that these books, except the last, are arranged in a descending scale of length, therein differing from divisions I. and II. in which the scale was an ascending one. In all three divisions, the final book is an exceptional one: in the first, it is a scanty lot of after-gleanings; in the second, it contains the five longest hymns, each about twice as long as the average of the four books preceding; and in the third, again, it contains very long hymns, which are, moreover, an extensive and peculiar collection of verses, unified indeed (like those of book xiv.) in large measure by the ritual uses to which they are put, but on the whole quite different in origin and character from most of the rest (see the introductions to the hymns of book xviii.).⌋

⌊Table of verse-totals for the hymns of division III.—The following table is made like that on p. clvi, and may give a better idea of the