Atharva-Veda Samhita/Book XIX/Hymn 7

7. To the lunar asterisms: for blessings.

[Gārgya.—pañca. mantroktanakṣatradevatyam. trāiṣṭubham: 4. bhurij.]

The hymn is wanting in Pāipp. The comm. finds it used three times (in i, 6, and 12) in the Nakṣatra Kalpa.

⌊Regarding the asterisms in general, the reader may consult Whitney's Oriental and Linguistic Studies, ii., pages 351-356, 377, and 421 and the chart following it, or else Whitney in JAOS., vi. 414, 468, and chart; further, Weber's essays, Die vedischen Nachrichten von den naxatra, Abh. der Berliner Ak., 1860 and 1861.* A list of the asterisms is given in my translation of the Karpūra-mañjarī, appended to Konow's ed., p. 214. Especially important are the nakṣatra-passages, TS. iv. 4. 10 and TB. i. 5. 2 and iii. 1. 1-2: cf. references to asterisms in AV. vi. 110 and notes, ii. 8, xiv. i. 13, etc.—Note, on the one hand, that our series begins, as does that in TS., with the old beginning in Taurus, to wit, with the Kṛttikās or Pleiades, and not (as later: see Whitney, O. and L.S., ii. 421), two asterisms further to the west, in Aries, with açvayujāu or açvinī (β and γ Arietis). Note also, on the other hand, that our series, unlike the series in TS., by including abhijit or Vega, far to the north of the ecliptic, comprises 28 asterisms, as is expressly stated below, at 8. 2 a: but whether 28 or 27 is the original Hindu number is a moot point carefully discussed by Whitney, l.c., pages 409-411.—The names of the asterisms in our hymn differ from those in TS. in a number of minor and major points: most notable among the latter is the TS. name tiṣyà for the 6th (or 8th) asterism, our puṣyá; and TS. has çroṇā́ for the 21st (or 23d), our çrávaṇa.—Bloomfield, in his part of the Grundriss, p. 35, observes that this hymn and the next are repeated in full in Nakṣatra Kalpa 10 and 26; and he infers that the date of the incorporation of these hymns into the text of the Vulgata is posterior to the time of the Nakṣatra Kalpa, because, in the contrary case, they would have been quoted by their pratīkas.⌋ *⌊See especially the second essay, pages 300, 303, 315: at p. 300, Weber gives the deities of the several asterisms.⌋

Translated: Griffith, ii. 265.

1. Seeking favor of the twenty-eight-fold (?) wondrous ones, shining in the sky together, ever-moving, hasting in the creation (bhúvana), I worship (sapary) with songs the days, the firmament (nā́ka).

The translation implies our conjectural emendation of turmíçam ⌊two of W's mss., -mich-⌋ in c to aṣṭāviṅçám (or -çā́). ⌊This is supported by the textually unimpeachable aṣṭaviṅçā́ni of 8. 2 a, and the fact that the series in this hymn is actually of 28 members, as noted in the introduction.⌋ The comm. has turmiçām, and gives for it a double etymology and explanation: either it is turmi + çā, or it is tur + miçā; in the former case, turmi is from root turv, and means "injuring" (hiṅsaka), and çā is the root çā 'sharpen,' hence "make thin"; in the latter case, tur is ⌊a root-stem from⌋ root turv, and miçā is by Vedic license for miṣā, from root miṣ "contend" (spardhāyām); in either case, the compound means "putting down oppressors," and is adjective qualifying sumatim! All the mss. accent saparyā́mi, and SPP. admits it in his text; the accent is defensible, and would be required by Brāhmaṇa usage. Our emendation in c helps the meter as well as the sense; but no stress can be laid upon the circumstance that the Anukr. appears to regard the verse as a full triṣṭubh.

2. Easy of invocation for me [be] the Kṛittikās and Rohiṇī; be Mṛigaçiras excellent, [and] Ārdrā healthful (çám) be the two Punarvasus pleasantness, Pushya what is agreeable, the Āçleshās light (bhānú), the Maghās progress (áyana) ⌊for me⌋.

The translation again implies in a the emendation me for agne, made in our text, for the improvement both of sense and of meter; SPP. reads agne; and the comm. points out that Agni is invoked here because he is the deity of Kṛttikās, and that the deities also of the other asterisms are to be regarded as included in their invocations—which is quite ingenious. The mss. in b are divided between çám and sám; in c, between púṣyas and puṣyàs; SPP. gives púṣyas, with, as he reports, nearly all his authorities; and this is doubtless the better supported reading. There seems to be no good reason for imagining that áyana in d contains any hidden reference to the solstice (in later astronomical language, ayana, by abbreviation for ayanānta 'end of a [northern or southern] progress of the sun') as occurring in Maghās.

3. Be the former Phalgunīs and Hasta here auspicious (púṇyam); be Chitrā propitious, and Svāti easy (sukhá) for me; be the two Viçākhās bestowal (rā́dhas), Anurādhā easy of invocation, Jyeshṭhā a good asterism, Mūla uninjured.

There are sundry difficulties in this verse, in part attempted to be removed by emendation in our edition. It is very strange to find in a the former Phalgunīs distinctly mentioned, and the latter (uttara) as distinctly left out; it would be easy to put the dvayā́ of 5 b in place of pū́rvā here;* or one wonders whether uttara is not somehow hidden in the awkwardly redundant átra. All the mss. (both saṁh. and pada) agree in the ungrammatical ⌊ending -tí of⌋ svātí, and SPP. accordingly admits svātí into his text: ours emends to svātís: svātī́ would have been equally acceptable, and is supported by two of SPP's çrotriyas ⌊V. and K.⌋ and by the comm. The masc. sukhás (p. su॰kháḥ) can hardly be tolerated; we ought to have sukhám, or else, with the comm., sukhā́. All the mss. read in c rā́dhe, as if there were an adjective rā́dha; SPP. and the comm. read rā́dhe, the latter explaining it as another name for viçākhe (not a word defining the expected blessing!): this involves an anachronism,† and would be in the highest degree improbable even if it did not: rā́dho is a very easy and plausible improvement. Finally, all the mss. have in d áriṣṭa mū́lam ⌊cf. note to xviii. 2. 3⌋, which SPP. adopts, in spite of its utter ungrammaticalness; the comm., with his usual disregard of pada-text and accent, appears to understand ariṣṭamūlam, a compound. *⌊Or rather to put dvayé? The comm. renders pū́rvā by pūrve, for which pū́rvā is a bad reading or a worse solecism. But the position of ca, too, is very suspicious.⌋ †⌊I suppose Whitney's implication is that rādhā, as a name for the 14th (or 16th) asterism viçākhā, is a later one, based on a misunderstanding of the name of the 15th (or 17th) asterism, anurādhā, which word simply means 'success' (cf. ánv eṣām arātsmé ’ti: tád anūrādhā́ḥ, TB. i. 5. 2⁸), but was thought of as meaning the one 'after (anu) or following rādhā.'⌋

4. Let the former Ashāḍhās give me food; let the latter ones bring refreshment; let Abhijit give me what is auspicious; let Çravaṇa [and] the Çravishṭhās make good prosperity.

Here are more bad readings: in a, the mss. give pū́rvā rāsatām, and SPP. accepts the reading, as if rāsatām could be 3d du. act., which, in view of all the circumstances, is absurd; our emendation to -ntām is unavoidable.* In b, the mss. vary between dehy útt- ⌊all of Whitney's and most of SPP's⌋ and devy útt-, and SPP. adopts the latter, because the comm. has it; but then the comm. makes no difficulty of understanding it as = devyas; it is merely, in his opinion, a Vedic substitution of sing. for pl.; and it is to be hoped that no modern scholar would follow him in that. The emendation of our text to yé hy úttare,† considering that all our mss. (and all but two of SPP's authorities) have úttare (p. út॰tare), was a naturally suggested and easy one; but we need instead yā́ hy úttarā ā́, feminine words, like the pū́rvās ⌊the pada-mss. and the Anukr. read pū́rvā in a; SPP. reads úttarās, with the comm. and two of his reciters. The meter of d would be better if we had çróṇas for çrávaṇas; but the Anukr. acknowledges the redundancy of the verse.

*⌊SPP. seems rather to view rāsatām in a as of the plural number, 3d person imperative middle, = dadatu (the ms. of the comm. has in fact dadātu, singular): and plural 3d it might be (from the s-aorist tense-stem rās, used as a secondary root: Gram. §896), thus conforming in number with vahantu. On the other hand, we cannot take rāsatām in c otherwise than as of the singular number, 3d person imperative middle of the a-conjugation, present-stem rāsa: and the identical form in a ought, one would think, to be of the same value. If we take it as singular, and read aṣāḍhā́ as fem. and sing, so as to conform with pū́rvā (p. pū́rvā), then pāda b is intolerably out of congruity with a in the matters of gender and number.—I offer the following suggestions for what they may be worth. First, in spite of the (unauthoritative) pada-reading út॰tare, I would take the úttarā ā́ of the living reciters K.V. as representing a correct metrical utterance of úttarā́ (= út॰tarā: ā́). Secondly, for vahantu I would read vahātu (cf. svadātu, nudātu, muñcātu): this seems to me better than a possible vahāti, and does as little violence to the tradition as the rāsantām and yé hy úttare suggested above. If our vahantu is a corruption, it may well be a faulty assimilation (cf. end of ¶4 of note on xviii. 4. 87) of vahātu to the ending of vs. 5 d.—My text then would be as follows: ánnam pū́rvā (p. -vā) rāsatām (as 3d sing.) me aṣāḍhórjam (p. -ḍhā́: ū́r-) devy úttarā́ vahātu (p. devī́: úttarā: ā́: vahātu): 'may the Former Ashāḍhā give me food; may the Latter, the divine one, bring refreshment.'⌋ †⌊'appears from the Collation Book that RW. meant in fact to print yé hy útta-: but the Berlin ed. has actually yé hy ùtta-, an accent-mark having perhaps slipped to the left, over hyu from over tta.⌋

5. Let Çatabhishaj [bring] to me what is great widely; let the double Proshṭhapadās [bring] to me good protection (suçárman); let Revatī and the two Açvayuj [bring] fortune to me; let the Bharaṇīs bring to me wealth.

There are no difficulties or variants in this verse.