Page:Atharva-Veda samhita volume 2.djvu/431

887 (citam), they should pat (kuṭṭay) it with splints of wood or with bricks, [going around it, as they pat it,] to the left.'—If this be right and if kuṭṭay is the comm's version of the word after iti in sūtra 11, then I suspect that Bloomfield has not hit the right reading in the printed text. Whitney's 'on finishing the pile' would call for saṁsthāpya; but saṁçnathya is much nearer to the meaning of kuṭṭay and also to the probable intention of Bl's mss., and I would accordingly read saṁçnathya in place of the printed saṁçritya. Root çnath means 'thrust, push,' in their ordinary and in their obscene senses, and here, with sam, 'to make [the mound] compact or firm by striking or beating or patting,' as a modern gravemaker pats the mound with his spade to give it shape and firmness.⌋

56. Wear (bhṛ) thou this gold, which thy father wore before; of thy father, going to heaven (svargá), do thou wipe off the right hand.

57. Both those who are living and those who are dead; those who are born and those who are worshipful—for them let there go a brook of ghee, honey-streamed, overflowing.

58. There purifies itself the conspicuous bull of the prayers, the sun of days, lengthener out of dawns, of the sky (dív); the breath of the rivers hath made the jars to resound loudly; entering Indra's heart with skill.

This is a verse out of one of the most formidable hymns of the RV. soma-book (RV. ix. 86. 19), and occurring also twice in SV. (i. 559; ii. 171). In b, RV. reads sómo áhnaḥ pratarītó ’ṣáso diváḥ; in c, krāṇā́ and avīvaçat; in d, hā́rdi and manīṣíbhis; with this SV. in general agrees, but has, with AV., áhnām and uṣásām in b, and acikradat in c; it is peculiar in reading prāṇā́ (p. pra॰ānā́) at beginning of c; a corruption, doubtless, which is carried out to greater intelligibility in our prāṇás. The