The Arctic Home in the Vedas c12.61

c12.61

¹ A similar phrase is found also in the Atharva Veda (XII, 3, 34 and 41). The hymn describes the preparation of *Brahmaudana*, or the porridge given as a fee to the Brâhmans, and in the 34th verse it is stated that "*The treasurer shall fetch it in sixty autumns, (shaṣṭyâm sharatsu nidhipâ abhîchhât*)." But, as remarked by Prof. Bloomfield (*vide* his translation of A.V. with notes in S. B. E. Series, Vol. XLII, p. 651), the meaning of the phrase "sixty autumns" is obscure; and the only other alternative possible is to take *shaṣṭyâm* as the locative of *shaṣṭi* (feminine form, in long *î*, of *shaṣṭa*) meaning "the 60th"; and interpret the original phrase to mean "On the 60th (*tithi*) in autumns." The word *shaṣṭa* cannot be used in classical Sanskrit as an ordinal numeral according to Pâṇini (V, 2, 58); but the rule does not seem to hold strictly in Vedic Sanskrit (See Whitney’s Grammar, § 487). Even in the post-Vedic literature we meet with such ordinal forms as *shaṣṭa, aṣṭita*, &c. Thus the colophon of the 60th chapter of the Sabhâ- and the Udyoga-parvan of the Mahâbhârata (Roy’s Cal. Ed.) reads thus:—*Iti...shaṣṭaḥ adhyâyaḥ*, shewing that *shaṣṭa* was used at the time as an ordinal numeral, (See Pet. Lex. s. v. *shaṣṭa*). The *Brahmaudana* is, according to this interpretation, to be cooked on the 60th day in autumns, *i. e.*, at the end of *Sharad* every year.