Page:Atharva-Veda samhita volume 2.djvu/358

Rh the whole book (Sb., 1895, pages 815-819); and then, for each anuvāka, a special introduction followed by a translation with running comment. Each special introduction treats of the ritual uses of the anuvāka concerned and of the provenience of the various verses or groups of verses which enter into its composition and also of some general matters relating to that anuvāka.⌋

⌊Divisions of the book.—The material of this book is divided by our text into 4 anuvākas and this division coincides with the division into 4 hymns. (Compare the anuvāka-division of books xii. and xiii. and xiv.) A conspectus for book xviii. follows:

Of the "decads," anuvākas 1, 2, 3, and 4 contain respectively 6, 6, 7, and 9. The sum is 28 "decad"-sūktas. These 4 anuvākas and 28 sūktas are recognized by the Major Anukr., as noted below, next ¶. The sum of verses is 283, as is also stated by the same treatise, if we disregard an apparent misreading, ibidem.⌋

⌊The Major Anukr. begins its treatment of the book thus: o cit sakhāyam (xviii. 1. 1) iti caturanuvākam aṣṭāviṅçatisūktakaṁ tryaçītidviçatanavatyarcaṁ (? read -dviçatarcam) yamadevatyaṁ trāiṣṭubhaṁ kāṇḍam atharvā mantroktabahudevatyaṁ ca.⌋

⌊That is to say: 'The book that begins with o cit sakhāyam has four anuvākas and twenty-eight sūktas and two-hundred-and-eighty-three verses and is in triṣṭubh meter; the seer is Atharvan; and the deities are Yama and many others mentioned in its mantras. ' ⌋

⌊The Pañcapaṭalikā.—The excerpts from the Old Anukr. are given piecemeal at the end of each anuvāka and may here be reconstructed into a metrical couplet:

That is to say: 'Sixty-one; and sixty; the next [anuvāka] three-over-seventy; and ninety-less-one: are the verses disposed among the Yama-hymns.' These excerpts are quoted in part and verbatim by the Major Anukr.⌋

⌊It would thus appear from the Old Anukr. that the division into anuvākas is indeed of considerable antiquity. On the other hand, we cannot claim much intrinsic significance for the coincident division into hymns: at all events, the fact that a ritual sequence runs over the division-line between hymns 1 and 2 (see my note to 1. 49) makes against such significance; and my suggestion (p. 848) as to a possible misdivision between hymns 3 and 4 points the same way.⌋

The whole book is wanting in Pāipp., although a very few of the verses (namely, 1. 46; 2. 13, 17; 3. 56; 4. 49) are found here and there in its text. In the Vāit, which has no chapter devoted to funeral rites, only fifteen scattered passages ⌊covering about a score of verses⌋ are used; but in the Kāuç., most of the verses from 1. 40 on to the end of the book are quoted, solely in the chapter (adhyāya xi.: sections or kanḍikās 80-89) which deals with funeral rites and rites to the Fathers or Manes.