Unto their upturned eyes sink massy locks, With perfumes decked, bright gleams the wondrous place Where tips of rosy nails full featly write. Now fast descending, with their hollowed hands. (2) They cleanse the dew of summer's heat away, Such be the deeds of those attendant maids On his white jasmine bow great Kāma lays Eager to conquer all the triple world, And makes his shrine within the hearts of dames VIDUSAKA. You're easily hidden now! Let's know what happened last night, for since the day the dream was seen the queen has been wrathy again and again, and cooled down again and again, so that Pingalikā, my wife, is sour one day and sweet the next. KING. Right you are! When a tendril of the karavella' plant climbs a soap-berry tree and gets sprinkled with sea-water, do you say that it stays bitter? It's no wonderful event, but yet, That starry chamberlain, the lord of night, On whom mine eyes are fixed, comes not to me; The note of omen good that joys the ear; 1 Momodica charantia, Linn., a vegetable with a large bitter fruit, which is eaten before it ripens, especially in curries. The fruit is soaked in salt and water before dressing (Balfour, ii. 971). The tender glances of yon maiden slim Stray here and there, but look on me askance ; And I may never quaff ambrosia sweet Drawn from the amorous lips of her I love. (3) VIDŪSAKA. Well, lovers are half fools, and girls mock them with their glances and their gait. is the matter! KING. Why do you ask me here? there. Tell me what the devil Ask the friend of love Each glance shot from the coign of maidens' eyes, VIDUSAKA. Say, she must be in a funk today! KING. She is, old chap, for with departing day Vicakṣaṇā came to me and told me of her plight. VIDUSAKA. With what letter? KING. Listen, Like to a tossing swing the sighs she breathes, And as a waterfall her tearful eyes; All sear her blossom of the tagara,' Yea, pale her cheek, and faint-how faint!-those limbs, Seems gross And furthermore, and great, e'en on its natal eve. Ah, let the betel climb the betel-palm, The night find union with her chosen lord; So yon sweet songstress make thy heart her own, 1 Tabernaemontana coronaria, Roxb., a shrub bearing waxy double flowers of a pure white color and a faint pleasant odor, which becomes delightfully fragrant at night (Roxburgh, 249 : Balfour, iii. 797-798). Seven Emendations of the Text of the Rig Veda.-By MAURICE BLOOMFIELD, Professor in the Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Md. 1. Emend, in RV. viii. 18. 13, ririsista yúr to ririsistayúr, as metrical equivalent of prose ririsīstāyúr=ririsista+ayúr. One of the most extraordinary bits of Rig Veda tradition is contained in viii. 18. 13, which reads as follows: yó nah káś cid ríriksati svaíḥ ṣá évai ririṣīsta yúr jánaḥ. The first two pādas are clear: The mortal who with demonic practices desires to harm us .' We can guarantee beforehand that he who is so minded will himself come to grief. The Pet. Lexs., under 4 yu, and Grassmann in his Lexicon, surmise dvayúr for yúr. This yields the following result: "May that treacherous man come to harm by his practices.' But dvayúh occurs twice in the next two stanzas; why should it have been corrupted here to yúh? And ririsista, from the reduplicated stem, ought to mean 'do harm,' injure,' rather than take harm,' be injured.' Dieser Ludwig (124) retains yúr as it stands and translates: rührige mensch leide schaden durch seine eigene weise.' Aside from the same fault in the rendering of the causative ririşīsta the word yúr remains anomalous in form and meaning. I think the passage can be cured without leaving any problematic remnants. The metrical reading of the passage is as follows: = suaíḥ sá évai ririsīstayúr jánah, where ririşiştayúr is the metrical equivalent of prose ririṣiṣṭayúr ririşista+ayúr. The syllable ṣṭā has been shortened metrically to stă because it is required to be short in the critical final cadence of the verse line, and is besides preceded by a long syllable. The translation of the entire stanza is, 'The mortal who with demonic practices desires to harm us, may that person by his own doings injure his life.' That ririsista is causative and not intransitive may be seen from RV. vi. 51. 7, closely parallel to our passage: svayám ripús tanvàṁ ririṣiṣta, May the rascal injure his own person.' It will be observed that ririşīsta in viii. 18. 13, and ririşīsta in vi. 51.7 are metrical doublets in different positions in the verse-line. They also illustrate the domination of metrical need over quantity. A neat parallel, too, from a similar sphere, that is, concerning an impious man, is RV. viii. 97. 3, svaíḥ sá évair mumurat pósyaṁ vásu, May he by his own doings destroy the thrift of his property.' Here we notice the causative mumurat as the parallel to the causatives ririṣīṣṭa and ririsista. 6 The emendation in the passage under discussion consists therefore only of making a continuous batch of syllables out of the Samhita's ririṣiṣṭa yúr, namely, ririşīstay úr, and considering it the metrical equivalent for prose ririṣiṣṭāyúr. We are familiar with these strenuous changes of quantity for meter's sake in single words like adīdipam and calacala; in two words like piba-piba. In my articles On ṛciṣama, an epithet of Indra," and, "The god Indra and the Sama-Veda," I think I have shown that quantitative metathesis for meter's sake can take place across the seam of a compound. I now note virāṣāṭ for viraṣāt, holding men,' RV. i. 35. 6, in the final cadence of a triṣṭubh: . . . bhúvane virāṣát. Probably also duvasanáso, metrical for duvasanáso in RV. iv. 6. 10, śyenáso ná duvasanásó ártham, like eagles going to a distance.' Here the metrical change takes place in the syllable before the final cadence, also a critical place where a short syllable is needed. We may suspect also the word janayanāḥ in AV. xii. 1. 47. It occurs in the line, yé te pánthano bahávo janáyanaḥ, and the Padapatha analyzes it as jana +áyanah. But this class of compounds generally have yāna for their second member, e. g. devayána, pitṛyána, rathayána, whereas áyana is prevailingly compounded with prepositions, áyana, udáyana, upayana, nyáyana, parayana, prayana, etc. It certainly looks as though yé te pánthano bahávo janáyanah was substituted in a metrically 3 1JAOS. xxi. 50 ff. Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes, xvii. 156 ff. 3 Note in the AV. itself, iii. 15. 2: vi. 55. 1, yé pánthāno bahávo devayānāḥ; in TS. 2. 3. 14. 4, yé te ‘ryaman bahávo devayānāḥ; in TS. 5. 7. 2. 3, yé catváraḥ patháyo devayānāḥ. too conscientious mood for yé te pánthāno bahávo janayánāḥ. As far as is known, the metrical shortening of a long vowel, when the result of samdhi in the seam of a compound, is shown here for the first time in ririsistăyúr for ririsistäyúr. 2. Emend, in RV. i. 30. 16, sá no to sáno=sánas, in the sense of success.' RV. i. 30. 16, in the main a good stanza, reads as follows: sáśvad índrah pópruthadbhir jigaya 'Ever does Indra with mightily foaming, neighing, snorting steeds conquer wealth.' Thus the first hemistich. Supposing now that we substitute for the second tautological sá no in the fourth pada some accusative, say a word for 'success,' then the second hemistich runs as follows: 'He the wonder-working god has given us a golden chariot; he the successful (sanitá) has given us success (sáno) unto succeeding (sanaye).' This, I believe, is the way the pada once stood. For the second sá no we must assume, without changing the sound in any way, an accusative neuter sáno sánas, an as-stem, which, so far as I know, is not otherwise quotable. Therefore the Padapatha misunderstood the word, and divided it into sá no. The impression that all this is as I have assumed is strengthened not a little by such a passage as ApS. xvi. 29. 2, sanir asi sanyãi tvä saneyam, 'Success art thou, unto succeeding may I obtain thee.' Here sanyai tva saneyam paraphrases fairly well (barring the change of person) the words sanaye sáno 'dāt, as I have proposed to restore the RV. passage. A parallel version of the same formula, sanir asi sanitasi saneyam, TS. i. 6. 4. 4 ; AS. i. 11. 1; ŚŚ. i. 15. 12, contains the additional sanitã of the RV. passage. 3. Emend, in RV. iii. 5. 5, ripó to rupó, in the sense of 'ascents.' An evil fate has attended the tradition and explanation of a feminine stem rúp which occurs three times in the Rig Veda, and after a necessary correction a fourth time. In RV. iii. 5. 5 occurs a stanza, addressed to Agni, which is quite clear in form and meaning except for the single word ripó. |