THE TEXT · ATHARVAVEDA
Hymns discussed in this article
Begin with the verses shown here. Open the other cited hymns to compare their images and aims.
ATHARVAVEDA · BOOK IV IN FOCUS
Against various superhuman foes: with an herb
By thee of old the Atharvans slew the demons, O herb; by thee did Kaçyapa slay; by thee Kaṇva, Agastya.
By thee do we expel (cat) the Apsarases, the Gandharvas; O goat-horned one, drive the demon; make all disappear by [thy] smell.
Let the Apsarases go to the stream, to the loud (?) down-blowing of the waters: Guggulū, Pīlā, Naladī, Āukṣagandhi, Pramandanī: so go away, ye Apsarases; ye have been recognized.
Where [are] the açvatthás, the nyagródhas, great trees, with crests: thither go away, ye Apsarases; ye have been recognized.
Read the remaining 8 verses of IV.37
Where [are] your swings, green and whitish; where cymbals [and] lutes sound together—thither go away, ye Apsarases; ye have been recognized.
Hither hath come this mighty one (vīryàvant) of the herbs, of the plants; let the goat-horned arāṭakī́, the sharp-horned, push out.
Of the hither-dancing, crested Gandharva, Apsaras-lord, I split the testicles, I bind fast (?) the member.
Terrible are Indra's missiles (hetí), a hundred spears of iron; with them let him push out the oblation-eating, ávakā-eating Gandharvas.
Terrible are Indra's missiles, a hundred spears of gold; with them let him push out the oblation-eating, ávakā-eating Gandharvas.
The ávakā-eating ones, scorching, making light (?) in the waters—all the piçācás, O herb, do thou slaughter and overpower.
One as it were a dog, one as it were an ape, a boy all hairy—having become as it were dear to see, the Gandharva fastens upon (sac) women; him we make disappear from here by [our] mighty (vīryàvant) incantation (bráhman).
Your wives, verily, are the Apsarases; O Gandharvas, ye are [their] husbands; run away, O immortal ones; fasten not on mortals.
Whitney–Lanman translation as printed (1905) · Read IV.37 at Wikisource ↗
ATHARVAVEDA · BOOK IV ALSO CITED
Against demons and other enemies
Read comparison hymn IV.36 (10 verses)
Them let him of real force burn forth—Agni Vāiçvānara, the bull; whoso shall abuse and seek to harm us, likewise whoso shall play the niggard toward us.
Whoso shall seek to harm us not seeking to harm, and whoso seeks to harm us seeking to harm—in the two tusks of Agni Vāiçvānara do I set him.
They who hunt in assent (? āgará), in counter-clamor (? pratikroçá), on new-moon [day], the flesh-eating ones, seeking to harm others—all those I overpower with power.
I overpower the piçācás with power; I take to myself their property; I slay all the abusers; let my design be successful.
The gods that hasten (hās) with him—they measure speed with the sun—with those cattle (paçú) that are in the streams, in the mountains, I am in concord.
I am a vexer (tápana) of the piçācás, as a tiger of them that have kine; like dogs on seeing a lion, they do not find a hiding-place (nyáñcana).
I cannot [bear] with piçācás, nor with thieves, nor with savages (? vanargú); the piçācás disappear from that village which I enter.
Whatever village this formidable power of mine enters, from that the piçācás disappear; [there] they devise not evil.
They who anger me, making a noise, as flies an elephant—them I think ill off, like mites (?) on a man (jána).
Let perdition halter him, as a horse with a horse-halter (-abhi-dhā́nī); the fool (malvá) that is angry at me, he is not loosed from the fetter.
Whitney–Lanman translation as printed (1905) · Read IV.36 at Wikisource ↗
A plant is given a history of overcoming foes
The first verse does not introduce the herb as an ordinary medicine. It says earlier Atharvans and named seers used it against demons, placing the speaker inside an inherited chain of effective words and plants. Verse 2 calls it goat-horned and asks its smell to drive Apsarases and Gandharvas away. The plant's physical description and odor are part of the argument: a perceptible object is asked to make an unseen presence leave.
Whitney notes that the epithet may reflect the shape of a fruit, yet the commentary's identification is not beyond dispute. This uncertainty matters because the verbal action is clearer than a modern botanical name. The poem gives the herb an expelling role, then repeats that demand in several registers. Treating the plant as one fixed pharmaceutical species would flatten a text whose concern is the relation between a named object, threatening beings, and a speaker seeking relief.
The middle verses relocate the beings
Verses 3–5 tell Apsarases to go elsewhere: toward a stream, tall trees, swings, cymbals, and lutes. The poem does more than command absence. It describes places and pleasures associated with the beings and returns them there. Naming several Apsarases in verse 3 also makes the threat specific. Some names are connected with fragrant materials; Whitney observes that the commentator instead understands the list as oblation substances. The same sequence can therefore be heard as identifying beings or naming ritual materials.
Verse 6 calls the horned herb a powerful arrival that pushes out what troubles the speaker. The next lines intensify into bodily violence and Indra's iron and gold missiles. Those images are aggressive rhetoric within a historical expulsion hymn. They do not establish that a modern person is occupied by a spirit, nor do they give a reliable account of mental or physical distress. The structure moves from directing the beings away to invoking overwhelming force against them.
The ending separates beings from human lives
Verse 11 describes a Gandharva adopting several forms and attaching himself to women, before the incantation says he should disappear. Verse 12 tells Gandharvas and their Apsaras partners to depart and avoid mortals. The closing is therefore a boundary statement: beings with their own companions should not fasten onto human households. This is more precise than saying the poem generally promotes wellness. It imagines a category of intrusion and a desired separation.
IV.36, which Whitney says was used with IV.37 among expulsion hymns, offers a useful neighboring comparison. Together they show how a ritual corpus can assemble several forms of protective address. Later ritual commentary also connected IV.37 with possession. That evidence shows a historical use of the hymn, while the text itself remains a layered poem about herb, scent, named beings, and displacement. The paired member benefit condenses its expulsion wish; its six-phase working is original modern symbolic writing.
The witnesses change the poem’s sequence
Pāippalāda preserves most of IV.37 in a different order and in a damaged condition; Whitney reports that it lacks verse 9. The missing verse is the gold-spear counterpart to verse 8's iron spears. In the Śaunaka arrangement, the near repetition makes Indra's attack feel doubled and cumulative. A witness without the second spear verse has a less extended military climax, even though the poem still sends threatening beings away.
Whitney also notes uncertainty in the division of verses 3–5 and several difficult readings. These are meaningful limits on any claim to a single unbroken original ritual. The refrain directing the beings away remains central, but its placement and surrounding names vary. A careful reading follows that recurring motion rather than pretending every Sanskrit word or plant identity is settled. The hymn's practical question is where a feared presence belongs, and its answer is away from the human speaker.
WORKED READING
Worked reading: a route out of the household
Begin with IV.37.2, where the goat-horned herb's smell is asked to make Apsarases and Gandharvas vanish. In verses 3–5, notice the repeated redirection toward streams, trees, swings, and music. Verse 6 gives the plant a stronger pushing motion; verses 8–9 add Indra's paired iron and gold missiles. Finally verse 12 asks the beings to leave mortals alone. The sequence develops a route from recognition to removal, not a medical explanation of symptoms. Pāippalāda's absence of verse 9 shortens the paired-missile moment. The member benefit “expelling threatening spirits” names the hymn's own imagined result, while the contemporary working is a newly written reflection on boundaries.