[7] The spirit was of course Brahmá whose head Śiva cut off.
[8] It appears from an article in Mélusine by A Bart, entitled An Ancient Manual of Sorcery, and consisting mainly of passages translated from Burnell’s Sámavidhána Bráhmaṇa, that this power can be acquired in the following way, “After a fast of three nights, take a plant of soma (Asclepias acida;) recite a certain formula and eat of the plant a thousand times, you will be able to repeat anything after hearing it once. Or bruise the flowers in water, and drink the mixture for a year. Or drink soma, that is to say the fermented juice of the plant for a month. Or do it always.” (Mélusine, 1878, p. 107; II, 7, 4–7.)
In the Milinda Pañho, (Pali Miscellany by V. Trenckner, Part. I, p. 14,) the child Nágasena learns the whole of the three Vedas by hearing them repeated once.
[9] A grammatical treatise on the rules regulating the euphonic combination of letters and their pronunciation peculiar to one of the different Śákhás or branches of the Vedas.—M. W. s. v.
[10] i. e., died.
[11] Here we have a pun which it is impossible to render in English. Anátha means without natural protectors and also poor.
[12] Taking chháyá in the sense of śobhá. It might mean “affording no shelter to the inmates.”
[13] Dr. Brockhaus translates the line—Von diesem wurde ich meinem Manne vermählt, um seinem Hauswesen vorzustehen.
[14] Like the Roman fascinum. guhya = phallus.
[15] I read tat for táh according to a conjecture of Professor E. B. Cowell’s. He informs me on the authority of Dr. Rost that the only variants are sá for táḥ and yoshitá for yoshitaḥ. Dr. Rost would take evamkrite as the dative of evamkrit. If táh be retained it may be taken as a repetition “having thus prepared it, I say, the women give it.” Professor Cowell would translate (if táḥ be retained) “the women then do not need to receive anything to relieve their fatigue during the cold and hot weather.”