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Naicasakha

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2011

Extract

The hymn RV. iii, 53, is of an obscure and difficult nature. Oldenberg sees in it only an incongruous jumble of disconnected stanzas and refuses to adopt the theories of either Hillebrandt or Geldner concerning it. The former scholar looked upon it as a collection of yājyānuvākyāḥ belonging to the horse-sacrifice; but it really seems difficult to subscribe to such an explanation. The late Professor Geldner again always maintained that the hymn represented a uniform composition which had been taken out from the complete family saga of the Viśvāmitras. In one passage he calls it an āyuṣmatāṃ kathā; and, as then at any rate he was a staunch supporter of the ākhyāna-theory of Oldenberg, he probably found littledifficulty in looking upon it as being the metrical part of a composition, the prose frame of which was wanting and could only be supplied from Sāyaṇa and other commentator literature. The present writer long ago tried to explain why he cannot accept the ākhyāna-theory. But in spite of that it seems to him that Geldner was probably, in the main, right in looking upon the hymn as one connected piece of poetry, though details partly remain very obscure.

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Articles
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1930

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References

page 335 note 1 Cf. Ṛgveda-Noten, i, 253 sqq.

page 335 note 2 Cf. Festgruss Boehtlingk, p. 43.

page 335 note 3 Cf. Vedische Studien, ii, 158 sqq.; Der RV. in Auswahl, ii, 56 sqq.; Der Rigveda, i, 353 sqq.

page 335 note 4 Cf. Die Suparṇasage, p. 1 sqq.

page 336 note 1 Nirukta, 6, 32, explains maganda as “a usurer” and pramaganda as his offspring. Sāyaṇa, however, in the introduction to his RV.-commentary simply says pramagando nāma rājā, which appears more sensible.

page 336 note 2 Cf. Vedische Mythologie, 2nd ed., i, 204 sqq.

page 337 note 1 Loc. cit., p. 246 sq.

page 337 note 2 Cf. Vedische Studien, i, 113 sq. Schroeder, v., Festschrift E. Kuhn, p. 60Google Scholar, n. 1, has dealt with the verse RV. i, 24, 7, without mentioning the paper by Geldner; however, his results are mainly the same.

page 337 note 3 On this and connected topics cf. v. Schroeder, loc cit., p. 59 sqq. The idea of the tree with its roots turned upwards apparently travelled far outside India, cf. Kagarow, , Der umgehehrte Schamanenbaum in Archiv für Religionswissenschaft, xxvii, 183 sqqGoogle Scholar.

page 337 note 4 Cf. Hill, , The Bhagavadgītā, p. 236Google Scholar, n. 1.

page 338 note 1 Cf. Hillebrandt, , Vedische Mythologie 2, i, 245 sqGoogle Scholar.

page 338 note 2 The banyan-tree is at times called the kṣīravṛkṣa, the “milk-juice tree”.

page 338 note 3 Cf. Watt, , Commercial Products, p. 537Google Scholar.

page 339 note 1 On ceremonial daubing with red or yellow colour (pūjā) cf. my article in Festschrift Jacobi, p. 276 sqq., and Ind. Ant. Ivi, and the paper by Przyluski, M., Revue de I'hist. des religions, xcvi, 347 sqqGoogle Scholar. (cf. also Poussin, M. de la Vallée, Académie Royale de Belgique: Bulletins de la Classe des Lettres, 1929, p. 37 sqq.)Google Scholar.

page 339 note 2 Viz. the Kīkaṭa's.

page 339 note 3 The gharma is, of course, the pot of heated milk used at the pravargya.

page 340 note 1 Of the words beginning with ° quite a number, as e.g. kīcaka-, kīnāśa-, kīra-, kīsta-, etc., have a decidedly un-Aryan appearance and must have been borrowed from other languages. Yāska Nirukta, vi, 32, of course, tries an impossible etymology of Kīkaṭa (= kiṃkṛta or kiṃ kriyābhiḥ),

page 340 note 2 Cf. the comprehensive article on this subject in Schrader's, Reallexikon der indogerman. Altertumskunde2, ii, 516 sqqGoogle Scholar.

page 340 note 3 Jātaka ed. Fausbøll, , i, 169Google Scholar.

page 341 note 1 Jātaka ed. Fausbøll, , i, 259 sqqGoogle Scholar.

page 341 note 2 The goat, cook and pig still are favourite animals in popular sacrifices in India.

page 342 note 1 Although devatā ti in the reading of both Fausbøll's MSS. we must no doubt read devā ti.

page 342 note 2 Jātaka ed. , Fausbøll, iii, 157 sqqGoogle Scholar.

page 343 note 1 On the lohitapañcañgulika, etc., cf. the paper by ProfessorVogel, in Verslagen en Mededeelingen der Kon. Akademie von Wetenschappen, Afd. Letterkunde, 5: iv, 218 sqq. (1920)Google Scholar. Professor Vogel on p. 221 refers to the Dhonasākhajātaha.

page 343 note 2 Jātaka ed. , Fausbøll, v, 456 sqqGoogle Scholar.

page 344 note 1 This, of course, does not mean that according to my opinion vermilion used in the pūjā-ritesis always a substitute for (human) blood.

page 344 note 2 Cf. e.g. Enthoven, Bombay Folklore, p. 291Google Scholar, etc.

page 345 note 1 On this idea cf. especially Windisch, , Buddhas Geburt und die Lehre von der Seelenwanderung, p. 12 sqqGoogle Scholar.