The History of Indian Literature c8.426

c8.426

¹⁶⁰ The arrangement in books i.–vii. is according to the number of verses in the different pieces; these have, on an average, four verses in book i., five in ii., six in iii., seven in iv., eight to eighteen in v., three in vi., and only one in vii. Books viii.–xiii. contain longer pieces. As to the contents, they are indiscriminately mixed up. Books xiv.–xviii., on the contrary, have all a uniform subject-matter; xiv. treats of marriage, xv. of the glorification of Vrátya, xvi., xvii. of certain conjurations, xviii. of burial and the festival of the Manes. Book xix. is a mixture of supplementary pieces, part of its text being in a rather corrupt condition; book xx. contains,—with one peculiar exception, the so-called *kuntápasúkta*,—only complete hymns addressed to Indra, which are borrowed directly and without change from the Rigveda. Neither of these two last books is noticed in the Atharva-Prátiśákhya (see note 167), and therefore they did not belong to the original text at the time of this work.