History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v7.c89.85

v7.c89.85

'what will happen in future'. Yāska paraphrases 'adbhuta' by the word 'abhūta' (that has not taken place) and remarks that the word 'adbhuta' in popular speech also means 'something that has not happened before'. Ṛg. I. 25. 11¹¹⁸¹ says 'the intelligent man expects from this (Varuṇa) all wonders (or portentous happenings), whether already performed or to be performed'. Ṛg. X. 105. 7 is perhaps a little clearer than the preceding. '(May Indra reduce our sins) Indra who is golden-bearded, who has tawny horses, whose jaw is never broken and who made against the *dasyu* for easily killing him a thunder-bolt like the sky that is wonderful (or full of portents)'. The word usually employed in the Gṛhyasūtras is *adbhuta* and the śāntis are called 'adbhutaśāntis'. Adbhuta is a word of very general import. It includes not only such serious phenomena as earth-quakes, eclipses, comets, falling stars but such compara-tively minor yet unexpected or unusual happenings as a cow yielding blood-red milk or a cow sucking the udder of another cow. The ancient writer Vṛddha-Garga defines 'adbhuta' as any occurrence that had not occurred before or a total change coming over what has occurred before.¹¹⁸² The 67th Ātharvaṇa-pariśiṣṭa is called Adbhutaśānti (pp. 432-435). It distributes 'adbhutas' into seven groups relating to Indra, Varuṇa, Yama, Agni, Kubera, Viṣṇu and Vāyu and names some adbhutas under each such as a rainbow at night (relating to Indra), a vulture or owl alighting on a man's house or a kapota entering it (relating to Yama), smoke without fire (relating to Agni), eclipse on the nakṣatra of a man's birth (relating to Viṣṇu) and prescribes as śānti the *japa* of Atharvaśiras, making brāhmaṇas say 'svasti,' honouring and feeding brāhmaṇas. That pariśiṣṭa is based on the Adbhutabrāhmaṇa of the Sāmaveda.