Page:Atharva-Veda samhita volume 2.djvu/525

981 read pīṣásya or pīṅsásya (or ṣīṣásya); SPP. accepts pīṅsásya; the comm. gives piṣasya, which is doubtless only a bad spelling of our piçásya; ⌊lion and stag are mentioned by these names together at RV. i. 64. 8;⌋ Ppp. has nipasya; and, at end of b, varcādhe. In c, all the authorities, including Ppp. ⌊but not the comm.⌋, offer bradhnám; the translation implies correction to budhnám,* which is the reading of the commentator (he explains it as = mūlam) ⌊and adds, açvavīryasya vego hi mūlam; in vi. 38. 4 we had the horse's vā́ja and man's māyú combined; and TB. (ii. 7. 7$1$) in the corresponding passage reads krándye for vā́je. The comm. explains māyúm as çabdam āhvānādilakṣaṇam. Ppp. has kṛṇuṣī for -ṣe. ⌊The majority of the authorities read vibhātī́ḥ at the end.⌋ *⌊Cf. áçvabudhna, RV. x. 8. 3; and Aufrecht on áçvabudhya, ZDMG. xxiv. 206.⌋

5. Propitious to me [be] night and [the time] after sunrise; be the mother of cold (himá) easy of invocation for us; notice, O well-portioned one, this song of praise, with which I greet thee in all the quarters.

6. Our song of praise, O shining (vibhā́van) night, like a king thou enjoyest; may we be having all heroes, may we become having all possessions, through (ánu) the out-shining dawns.

7. Pleasant names thou assumest:—whoso desire to damage my riches, them, O night, do thou burn continually, so that no thief be found, so that he be not found again.

The translation follows our text, which is considerably altered from that of the mss. All of them, with the comm. and SPP., have at the beginning çámyā, for which our rāmyā́ is, so far as the written form is concerned, a very easy emendation. The comm. explains: "thou wearest the name çamyā = çatruçamanasamarthā": one of his usual absurdities. Ppp. reads for a, b çramyā ha nāma taruṣe vimṛcchantī yo janāṅ. There seems to be no good reason why dadhiṣé should be accented. Nearly all the mss. give dhánāḥ at end of b; the comm. understands dhanā, and SPP. reads it. For c the pada-text is rā́trī: hitā́ ⌊or hi: tā́⌋: naḥ: suta॰pā́! The comm. understands instead rā́trī ’hí tā́n asutapā́, and SPP. follows him, making a new pada-text to correspond (rā́tri: ihí: tā́n: asu॰tapā́). The comm. explains asutapā as either "burning their life-breaths" (asu-tapa) or "badly burning" (a-su-tapa). Ppp. gives no help, reading ⌊for our c,