Page:Atharva-Veda samhita.djvu/181

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1. At this birth, O Pūshan, let Aryaman [as] efficient (vedhás) invoker utter váṣaṭ for thee; let the woman, rightly engendered, be relaxed; let her joints go apart in order to birth.

2. Four [are] the directions of the sky, four also of the earth: the gods sent together the fœtus; let them unclose her in order to birth.

3. Let Pūshan (?) unclose [her or it]; we make the yóni go apart; do thou, sūṣaṇā, loosen; do thou, biṣkalā, let go.

The translation implies a very venturesome emendation in a, pūṣā́ for sūṣā́ (all the authorities have the latter): Pūshan, referred to in vs. 1 as principal officiating deity, might well be called on to do in particular what all the gods were begged to do in vs. 2 c, d. ⌊But see Bloomfield's comment.⌋ The comm. gives three different etymologies for sūṣā: root sū + suffix -sā; root sū + root san; and su-uṣas. Sūṣaṇā and biṣkalā are possibly names of organs; for the latter, Ppp. has puṣkale, probably an alteration