Page:Atharva-Veda samhita volume 2.djvu/349



⌊This is the fifth book of the third grand division (books xiii.-xviii.) of the Atharvan collection, and its unity of subject (as indicated by the title, above, which is slightly modified from Whitney's, p. 806) is sufficiently apparent. It is the only book of the entire collection that consists of a single anuvāka. At xix. 23. 27, it is called the Viṣāsahi (viṣāsahyāí svā́hā: note the singular number); and the Old Anukr., as noted below at page 812, gives it the same designation. As was true of the preceding book (see page 792), no translation of this book has been published by the translators of single books; but from here on to the end of xx. 37 we have the bhāṣya.

⌊The hymn consists of just 30 verses: and so again we find the decad-division,—here into three precise decads. This, however, is a mechanical division. Structurally, the hymn is composed of five parts, as follows.⌋