Camakam, anuvāka 11 — the numbers, and the last twelve words
The popular claimOne and three and five up to thirty-three; four and eight up to forty-eight. Then twelve names, and the Rudram ends.
The Camakam ends by counting. It is the anuvāka a listener most notices, because after ten sections of nouns the chanters begin to say numbers.
The odd sequence
Ekā ca me tisraś ca me pañca ca me sapta ca me nava ca ma ekādaśa ca me trayodaśa ca me pañcadaśa ca me saptadaśa ca me navadaśa ca ma ekaviṁśatiś ca me trayoviṁśatiś ca me pañcaviṁśatiś ca me saptaviṁśatiś ca me navaviṁśatiś ca ma ekatriṁśac ca me trayastriṁśac ca me. — One, three, five, seven, nine, eleven, thirteen, fifteen, seventeen, nineteen, twenty-one, twenty-three, twenty-five, twenty-seven, twenty-nine, thirty-one, thirty-three — each "for me".
Seventeen odd numbers ending at thirty-three. Sāyaṇa's reading: thirty-three is the number of the gods — eight Vasus, eleven Rudras, twelve Ādityas, and two more — and the odd numbers are the stomas, the fixed counts of verses in which the Sāmaveda's chants are arranged (the trivṛt of nine, the pañcadaśa of fifteen, the saptadaśa of seventeen, the ekaviṁśa of twenty-one, and so on). The petition asks for every stoma, and so for every chant. Bhaṭṭabhāskara adds that the odd numbers are the days of the sattra, the long sacrificial sessions.
The even sequence
Catasraś ca me'ṣṭau ca me dvādaśa ca me ṣoḍaśa ca me viṁśatiś ca me caturviṁśatiś ca me'ṣṭāviṁśatiś ca me dvātriṁśac ca me ṣaṭtriṁśac ca me catvāriṁśac ca me catuścatvāriṁśac ca me'ṣṭācatvāriṁśac ca me. — Four, eight, twelve, sixteen, twenty, twenty-four, twenty-eight, thirty-two, thirty-six, forty, forty-four, forty-eight — each "for me".
Twelve multiples of four ending at forty-eight. Sāyaṇa: these are the metres, counted by syllables — gāyatrī twenty-four, uṣṇih twenty-eight, anuṣṭubh thirty-two, bṛhatī thirty-six, paṅkti forty, triṣṭubh forty-four, jagatī forty-eight — with the shorter counts as their parts. The odd numbers were the chants; the even numbers are the verse-forms. Between them the two sequences ask for the whole of Vedic poetry by its arithmetic.
Why numbers
A Vedic ritualist did not distinguish the number from what it counted. To ask for seventeen was to ask for the seventeen-fold stoma; to ask for forty-four was to ask for the triṣṭubh. The last anuvāka is not abstract. It is the most compressed form of the petition: every chant, every metre, by count.
The twelve closing words
Vājaś ca prasavaś cāpijaś ca kratuś ca suvaś ca mūrdhā ca vyaśniyaś cāntyāyanaś cāntyaś ca bhauvanaś ca bhuvanaś cādhipatiś ca. — Food, and impulse, and the after-born, and will, and the sun, and the summit, and the one born of space, and the one who goes to the end, and the last, and the one of the world, and the world, and the overlord.
Twelve nouns, joined by ca, with no me. The Camakam's refrain drops away for its last sentence. Vāja and prasava — the first two words of the first anuvāka, returned. Apija — Sāyaṇa: the one born after, or the one born from water; kratu — the first anuvāka's will; suvar — the sun, heaven; mūrdhan — the summit, the head; vyaśniya — born of the sky, or, by another reading, the pervader; antyāyana — the one who goes to the end; antya — the last; bhauvana — of the world, the son of the world; bhuvana — the world; adhipati — the overlord.
Sāyaṇa reads the twelve as twelve names of the year — the twelve months, or the twelve forms of Prajāpati as time. Bhaṭṭabhāskara reads them as the sacrifice's own aspects. Abhinava Śaṅkara reads them as the Supreme in twelve names. The three readings do not agree, and this page reports all three. What the text does is plain: it ends the petition by naming what it has been asking of — from food and impulse at the start to the overlord at the end — and stops saying me.
What follows
In recitation the Camakam is followed by a closing — idā devahūḥ, the śānti — and the Rudram is done. In a single Rudram the whole Camakam has come after the whole Namakam; in an Ekādaśinī, this eleventh anuvāka follows the eleventh Namakam, and the count is complete.
What this page does not say
It does not choose between the three commentators on the last twelve words, and it does not claim the number-readings are the only ones — the sattra reading and the stoma reading both exist and both are old. It opens the two sequences and the twelve names so that a listener who has heard the Camakam end in numbers knows what the numbers counted, and hears the me fall silent at the end.
Source — Taittiriya Samhita 4.7.11 (Camakam, eleventh anuvaka), Krishna Yajurveda; Sayana's bhashya on the Taittiriya; Bhattabhaskara's and Abhinava Shankara's commentaries on the closing; Shatapatha Brahmana on the number of the gods (thirty-three)
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