Page:Atharva-Veda samhita volume 2.djvu/476

xix. 23- graver objection to my view, perhaps, is the position of vs. 18, which, if I were or am right, ought to come between verse 20 and verse 23.⌋

⌊Fourthly, verses 29 and 30 doubtless refer to this Veda as a whole, to the Brahmaveda, or to the incantations (bráhman) which form its subject-matter. After writing this, I note that Bloomfield in the Grundriss, p. 40, note 7, expresses an opinion similar, but much less specific. If I am right, bráhman is to be preferred to brahmán in these two verses, as also in vss. 20-21 of the preceding hymn: cf. the TB. vs. cited under 21. 21. On the other hand, I ought not to pass in silence the fact that the Anukr., at the beginning of its treatment of book xix., seems to call book xix. the brahmakāṇḍa.⌋

⌊Finally, therefore, aside from verse 18, just discussed, and assuming that verses 16 and 17 were added (in genuine Hindu fashion) merely for schematic completeness, we have only to note that all the verses of the hymn are reasonably accounted for, save only verses 21 and 22.⌋

Translated: Griffith, ii. 280.

1. To them of four verses of the Ātharvaṇas, hail!

2. To them of five verses, hail!

3. To them of six verses, hail!

4. To them of seven verses, hail!

5. To them of eight verses, hail!

6. To them of nine verses, hail!

7. To them of ten verses, hail!

8. To them of eleven verses, hail!

9. To them of twelve verses, hail!

10. To them of thirteen verses, hail!

11. To them of fourteen verses, hail!

12. To them of fifteen verses, hail!

13. To them of sixteen verses, hail!

14. To them of seventeen verses, hail!

15. To them of eighteen verses, hail!

16. Nineteen: hail!

17. Twenty: hail!

18. To the great book (mahat-kāṇḍá), hail!