Journal of the American Oriental Society (Volume 23)

Book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1902. Excerpt: ... Note on hrhdcchandas, AV. iii. 12. 3. By Dr. Arthur 'W. Ryder, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. This awai A.tyo/x vov has not been satisfactorily explained. Sayana's gloss reads as follows: prabhutdcchddand mahadbhip chandobhir veddir upetd va. This cannot be accepted in its entirety, though it seems to me to contain a faint glimmering of the truth. The PW. renders 'mit hohem Dach versehen, ' assuming that -chandas has here the same meaning as chad is, chadman. The occidental translators' follow this suggestion, though most of them express misgivings. This rendering, though ingenious, is hardly to be accepted so long as no external evidence can be produced to show that chandas ever has the meaning 'roof.' Weber (IS. xvii. 236) has already pointed out that the root chad nowhere appears in nasalized form. All of Whitney's and Shankar Pandit's MSS. read -chandah; and the assumption of a meaning elsewhere unknown is rendered unnecessary by the fact that the ordinary meaning of chandas gives a satisfactory sense. The literal meaning of brhdcchandas would seem to be 'whose meter is the brhatl.' We have three parallels in AV. vi. 48. Indeed, the expression contained in the first words of our verse is strikingly similar to that of the three verses of that hymn. Compare AV. iii. 12. 3. dharuny dsi pale brhdcchanddh with AV. vi. 48. 1. pi/end 'si gdyatrdcchandah 2. rbh-ur asi jdgacchandah 3. vfsa 'si trisp'ipchandah' The verse iii. 12. 3, with the resolution dharuni asi, counts 36 syllables; it is then mechanically a brhatl, and is so reckoned by the Anukramani. The intrinsic fitness of the connection 1 Ludwig, Rigveda, iii. 463; Zimmer, AIL., p. 150; Weber, IS. xvii. 236; Grill, Hundert Lieder2, p. 59; Griffith, Hymns of the AtharvaVeda, i. 97; Bloomfield, SBE. xlii. pp. 140, 345; ...