Page:Atharva-Veda samhita.djvu/168

clx make-up of the division than does the one on p. cxlv. That seems to me wrong, because it follows the Berlin edition in treating the 18 individual paryāyas of book xv. and the 9 of book xvi. each as one hymn (see p. cxxxvi), and in having to recognize accordingly hymns of 3 verses, of 4 and 5 and so on, in this division. We certainly must recognize some larger unity than the paryāya in books xv. and xvi.; and, whether that unity be the book or the anuvāka, in either case we avoid the necessity of recognizing any hymns with a verse-total of less than 20 in this division (see table 3, second form, p. cxlv). Assuming that xv. and xvi. make each two hymns, the table is as follows:

The scale of hymn-totals for each book is thus 4, 2, 2, 2, 1, and 4; and it then appears that all the books of the division except the last are arranged on a descending scale, the three books of two hymns each being arranged among themselves on a descending scale of amount of text.⌋

⌊Order of hymns within any given book of this division.—As to this, questions can hardly be raised; or, if raised, they resolve themselves into questions in general concerning the hymn-divisions of books xiii.-xviii. and their value.⌋

⌊'''The hymn-divisions of books xiii.-xviii. and their value.'—In these books the whole matter of hymn-division seems to be secondary and of little critical value or significance (cf. p. cxxxi).—First, as to the metrical books (xiv., xviii., xiii., xvii.: that is, all but the two paryāya''-books xv. and xvi.). In them, the hymn-division is, as in book xii. of division II., coincident with the anuvāka-division. Book xiv. is divided into two hymns by both editions, not without the support of the mss.; but the Major Anukr. seems rather to indicate that the book should not be divided (for details, see pages 738-9): the hymn-division is here at any rate questionable. Book xviii., properly speaking, is not a book of hymns at all, but rather a book of verses. The Pañcapaṭalikā says that these verses are 'disposed' (vihitās) in four anuvākas (see p. 814, ¶5, and note the word paraḥ, masculine): from which we may infer that the anuvāka-division is of considerable antiquity; but the significance of the coincident hymn-division is minimized by the facts that a ritual sequence runs over the division-line between hymns 1 and 2 (see p. 814, ¶6, and p. 827, ¶2) and that the division between hymns 3 and 4 ought to come just before 3. 73 (and not just after: see p. 848, ¶8). Even with book xiii. the case is essentially not very different: see the discussions in Deussen's