Page:Sacred Books of the East - Volume 42.djvu/72

 Ixviii HYMNS OF THE ATHARVA-VEDA,

a good old age, if a Brahma«a, imbued with this know- ledge, is his purohita, the shepherd of his kingdom. The subjects of such a king are loyal and obedient (VIII, 25, 2. 3). The prescriptions regarding the purohita are fol- lowed (VIII, 25) by a magic rite, called brahmawa/^ pari- mara, designed to kill hostile kings, which might have found a place in the ritual of the Atharvan K In later texts, as a matter of fact, the rule is laid down formally that the purohita should be an Atharvavedin. Thus in Gaut. XI, 15. 17 ; Ya^;^av. I, 312 (cf. also Manu XI, ^^) ; see p. xlviii, above. Saya;/a in the Introduction to the AV., pp. 5, 6, claims outright that the office of purohita belongs to the Atharvanists (paurohityaw ka. atharvavidai^va ka- ryam), and he is able to cite in support of his claim not only the rather hysterical dicta of the Atharvan writings, but also i'lokas from a number of PurA;/as, the Nitij"astra, &c. ; cf. above, p. Ivi -. In the Da.yakumara-/^arita magic rites, as well as the marriage ceremony, are in fact per- formed at the court of a king with Atharvan rites, athar- va;/ena (atharva;/ikena) vidhina, and the statement is the more valuable as it is incidental ; see above, p. Iv.

I do not desire to enter here upon a discussion of the question of the original relation between the purohita and the brahman, whose identity is baldly assumed in many passages of the earlier Hindu literature^. I believe that they were not originally the same, but that they were bound together by certain specific ties. They are similar,

��^ Cf. the battle-charm, AV. IH, 19 : the purohita figures in it as well as in the accompanying performances, Kaus. 14, 22-23 (Darila). And RV. IV, 50, 7-9, perhaps earlier, shows the brAaspati (purohita) in essentially the same important relation to the king.

^ Cf. Deva at Katy. 6"r. XV, 7, 11, purohito yostharvavedavihitanaOT janti- kapaush/ikabhiHrakarma«a«^ karta.

^ Cf. Max Miiller, History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature, p. 485 ff. ; Weber, Ind. Stud. X, 31 ff.; Ra^suya, p. 23, note; Haug, Brahma und die Brahmanen, p. 9 ff. ; Geldner, Vedische Studien, II, 144 ff. ; Oldenberg, Die Religion des Veda, pp. 374, 395 ff. Saya;M at RV. VII, 33, 14 equates purohita and brahman, and Ait. Br. VII, 16, i exhibits Vasish/Z^a, the typical purohita, in the office of brahman at a .yrauta-rite. At RV. IV, 50, 7 ff. the activity of a purohita is sketched : the purohita, however, is called br/haspati ( = brahnaan).

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