A History of Indian Literature v1.c8.s3.108

v1.c8.s3.108

* Roth¹ says with regard to this hymn: “There is no other song in the whole of Vedic literature, which expresses the divine omniscience in such impressive words, and yet this beautiful work of art has been degraded into the exordium of an exorcism. Still, here as with many other portions of this Veda, we may surmise that available fragments of older hymns were used for the purpose of re-furbishing magic formulæ. As a fragment of this kind the first five or even six verses of our hymn may be considered." I fully agree to these words. The supposition of Bloomfield,¹ that the whole poem, just as it is, was composed from the first for magic purposes, does not seem to me at all probable.