11. On the quarter of the world which he is going to praise. Lastly, having approached himself (his name, family, &c.) by meditation, let him sing the hymn of praise, reflecting on his desire, and avoiding all mistakes in pronunciation, &c. Quickly will the desire be then fulfilled to him, for the sake of which he may have offered his hymn of praise, yea, for which he may have offered his hymn of praise .

Footnotes

^7:1 As applied to breath, svara is explained by the commentator in the sense of moving, going out; pratyasvara, as applied to the sun, is explained as returning every day. More likely, however, svara as applied to breath means sound, Om itself being called svara (Kh. Up. I, 4, 3), and prasvara in the Rig-veda-pratisakhya, 882. As applied to the sun, svara and pratyasvara were probably taken in the sense of light and reflected light.

^8:1 The commentator supplies explanations to all these fanciful etymologies. The heaven is ut, because it is high; the sky is gi, because it gives out all the worlds (giranat); earth is tha, because it is the place (sthana) of living beings. The sun is ut, because it is high. The wind is gi, because it gives out fire, &c. (giranat); fire is tha, because it is the place (sthana) of the sacrifice. The Sama-veda is ut, because it is praised as svarga; the Yagur-veda is gi, because the gods take the oblation offered with a Yagus; the Rig-veda is tha, because the Sama verses stand in it. All this is very childish, and worse than childish, but it is interesting as a phase of human folly which is not restricted to the Brahmans of India. I take the following passage from an interesting article, 'On the Ogam Beithluisnin and on Scythian Letters,' by Dr. Charles Graves, Bishop of Limerick. 'An Irish antiquary,' he says, 'writing several hundred years ago, proposes to give an account of the origin of the names of the notes in the musical scale.

'"It is asked here, according to Saint Augustine, What is chanting, or why is it so called? Answer. From this word cantalena; and cantalena is the same thing as lenis cantus, i. e. a soft, sweet chant to God, and to the Virgin Mary, and to all the Saints. And the reason why the word puinec (puncta) is so called is because the points (or musical notes) ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la, hurt the devil and puncture him. And it is thus that these points are to be understood: viz. When Moses the son of Amram, with his people in their Exodus was crossing the Red Sea, and Pharaoh and his host were following him, this was the chant which Moses had to protect him from Pharaoh and his host--these six points in praise of the Lord:--

'"The first point of these, i. e. ut: and ut in the Greek is the same as liberat in the Latin; and that is the same as saer in the Gaelic; i.e. O God, said Moses, deliver us from the harm of the devil.