THE TEXT · ATHARVAVEDA
Hymns discussed in this article
These verses give the wording and sequence examined in the article below.
ATHARVAVEDA · BOOK III IN FOCUS
For concord
Like-heartedness, like-mindedness, non-hostility do I make for you; do ye show affection (hary) the one toward the other, as the inviolable [cow] toward her calf when born.
Be the son submissive to the father, like-minded with the mother; let the wife to the husband speak words (vā́c) full of honey, wealful.
Let not brother hate brother, nor sister sister; becoming accordant (samyáñc), of like courses, speak ye words auspiciously (bhadráyā).
That incantation in virtue of which the gods do not go apart, nor hate one another mutually, we perform in your house, concord for [your] men (púruṣa).
Read the remaining 3 verses of III.30
Having superiors (jyā́yasvant), intentful, be ye not divided, accomplishing together, moving on with joint labor (sádhura); come hither speaking what is agreeable one to another; I make you united (sadhrīcī́na), like-minded.
Your drinking (prapā́) [be] the same, in common your share of food; in the same harness (yóktra) do I join ⌊yuj⌋ you together; worship ye Agni united, like spokes about a nave.
United, like-minded I make you, of one bunch, all of you, by [my] conciliation; [be] like the gods defending immortality (amṛ́ta); late and early be well-willing yours.
Whitney–Lanman translation as printed (1905) · Read III.30 at Wikisource ↗
ATHARVAVEDA · BOOK II IN FOCUS
To secure a woman's love
As the wind here shakes the grass off the earth, so do I shake thy mind, that thou mayest be one loving me, that thou mayest be one not going away from me.
May ye, O Açvins, both lead together and bring [her] together with him who loves her. The fortunes (bhága) of you (two) have come together, together [your] intents, together [your] courses (vratá).
What the eagles [are] wanting to say, the free from disease [are] wanting to say—there let her come to my call, as the tip to the neck of the arrow (kúlmala).
What [was] within, [be] that without; what [was] without, [be] that within; of the maidens of many forms seize thou the mind, O herb.
Read the remaining 1 verse of II.30
Hither hath this woman come, desiring a husband; desiring a wife have I come; like a loud-neighing (krand) horse, together with fortune have I come.
Whitney–Lanman translation as printed (1905) · Read II.30 at Wikisource ↗
ATHARVAVEDA · BOOK VI IN FOCUS
To win a man's love
Down from the head, down from the feet, thy longings (ādhī́) I draw down. Ye gods, send forth love; let yon [man] burn for me.
O Anumati, assent to (anu-man) this; O design (ā́kūti), mayest thou constrain (sam-nam) this. Ye gods, send etc. etc.
If (yát) thou runnest three leagues, five leagues, a horseman's day's journey, thence shalt thou come back; thou shalt be father of our sons.
Whitney–Lanman translation as printed (1905) · Read VI.131 at Wikisource ↗
The concord hymn does not summon one person
III.30 begins with like-mindedness and absence of hostility, then distributes its requests across relatives and a working household. Verse 5 asks the group to come together speaking agreeably; verse 6 imagines shared food, drink, and worship. Those are communal movements, not an individual arriving because one speaker called. The ancient family roles are already established, and the poem seeks their continuing coordination. Treating a household's collective concord as permission to summon a modern target on demand would change its addressee and social logic. The text gives a useful image of a shared place, but not a guarantee that a particular absent person will appear there.
II.30 actually contains a call
II.30.3 asks that a woman come to the speaker's call and compares her arrival to an arrow part joining another. Whitney notes that the first half of the verse is obscure and that translators disagree over it. The clearer surrounding verses are forceful: the speaker shakes her mind like grass in wind and tells an herb to seize it. The call is thus not a free-standing image of a courteous invitation. It belongs to a charm for gaining a woman's love and control. A reader should recognize that direct ancient parallel while refusing to soften the poem into a modern scene where someone freely agrees to visit.
VI.131 draws a man back across distance
VI.131.3 imagines a man returning even from several leagues or a horseman's day's journey, then projects him as father of the speaker's sons. Its other verses ask that he burn with love. This is a demand for return on a large spatial scale rather than response to a nearby call. It also belongs to a cluster absent from Paippalāda, according to Whitney. Set beside II.30, it shows two different ways a desired person is brought toward a speaker: an immediate call with mind-shaking, and a long return attached to a future household. III.30's settled group offers a third scene. They cannot be reduced to one ritual of reliable arrival.
The Answered Call is original
“Make a target person come to me when I call” and The Answered Call are contemporary inventions. The exact benefit names no reason for calling, no agreement to be available, and no evidence about the other person's ability to come. The ancient poems can clarify the difference between inviting someone, commanding them, and imagining their return from afar. Their coercive passages also make the requested agency visible. A person may answer a call because they want to, may explain why they cannot, or may not answer. None of the cited verses establishes which will happen today; they voice historical wishes rather than report modern outcomes.
WORKED READING
Read three different movements
In III.30.5 a group comes together in agreeable speech and work. In II.30.3 a woman is told to come to one man's call; the nearby verses shake and seize her mind. In VI.131.3 a man is imagined returning from a long journey. The movement changes from group coordination to targeted summons to distant return. That sequence matters more than the shared English word come. A modern expectation that one person will appear whenever called belongs to none of these scenes, and the most direct ancient parallel, II.30, is explicitly bound to coercive imagery.