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 II IN FOCUS
To counteract witchcraft: with an amulet
Spoiler's spoiler (dū́ṣi) art thou; missile's missile (hetí) art thou; weapon's weapon (mení) art thou: attain (āp) the better one, step beyond the equal (samá).
Sraktyà. art thou; re-entrant (pratisará) art thou; counter-conjuring art thou: attain the etc. etc.
Conjure (abhi-car) against him who hates us, whom we hate: attain the etc. etc.
Patron (sūrí) art thou; splendor-bestowing art thou; body-protecting art thou: attain the etc. etc.
Read the remaining 1 verse of II.11
Bright (çukrá) art thou; shining (bhrājá) art thou; heaven (svàr) art thou; light art thou: attain the etc. etc.
Whitney–Lanman translation as printed (1905) · Read II.11 at Wikisource ↗
ATHARVAVEDA · BOOK V ALSO CITED
Against witchcraft: with a plant
Read comparison hymn V.14 (13 verses)
An eagle (suparṇá) discovered thee; a hog dug thee with his snout; seek thou to injure, O herb, him that seeks to injure; smite down the witchcraft-maker.
Smite down the sorcerers, smite down the witchcraft-maker; then, whoever seeks to injure us, him do thou smite, O herb.
Having cut around out of [his] skin a strip (pariçāsá), as it were of a stag, fasten, O gods, upon the witchcraft-maker the witchcraft, like a necklace.
Lead thou away the witchcraft back to the witchcraft-maker, grasping its hand; set it straight before (samakṣám) him, that it may smite the witchcraft-maker.
Be the witchcrafts for the witchcraft-maker, the curse for him that curses; like an easy chariot let the witchcraft roll back to the witchcraft-maker.
If woman, or if man, hath made witchcraft in order to evil, it we conduct unto him, like a horse by a horse-halter.
If either thou art god-made, or if made by man, thee, being such, do we lead back, with Indra as ally.
O Agni, overpowerer of fighters, overpower the fighters; we take the witchcraft back to the witchcraft-maker by a returner.
O practiced piercer (?), pierce him; whoever made [it], him do thou smite; we do not sharpen thee up to slay (vadhá) him who has not made [it].
Go as a son to a father; like a constrictor trampled on, bite; go, O witchcraft, back to the witchcraft-maker, as it were treading down [thy] bond.
Up, like a she-antelope (eṇī́), a she-elephant (? vāraṇī́), with leaping on, like a hind, let the witchcraft go to its maker.
Straighter than an arrow let it fly, O heaven-and-earth, to meet him; let it, the witchcraft, seize again him, the witchcraft-maker, like a deer.
Let it go like fire up-stream, like water down-stream; like an easyc hariot let the witchcraft roll back to the witchcraft-maker.
Whitney–Lanman translation as printed (1905) · Read V.14 at Wikisource ↗
An object is given a speaking role
The first three pairings in verse 1—spoiler against spoiler, missile against missile, weapon against weapon—create a defensive mirror. The amulet is addressed directly as “thou,” not described from a distance. Its task is to interrupt or outmatch an incoming force on its own terms. Whitney suggests that the final refrain of the verse might address the wearer rather than the amulet, while the traditional commentator assigns it to the object. That uncertainty is revealing. A single short poem can shift between empowering a thing and empowering the person bearing it, and the grammar does not settle every step of that relationship.
The repeated line does the ritual work
Each later verse names another capacity and returns to the same instruction to attain the better one and step beyond the equal. Verse 2 identifies the object as sraktya and a “returner,” while verse 3 turns toward the person who hates the speaker. Verse 4 gives the amulet splendor and body protection; verse 5 expands into brightness, heaven, and light. This progression is not a list of unrelated benefits. It moves from answering an assault to surrounding the wearer with favorable strength. Repetition lets each named property feed the same desired superiority. The hymn is not regular metrical poetry, and its repetitive shape matters more than an imagined smooth lyric development.
Later use is not the whole text
Whitney says the Kauśikasūtra uses this hymn with the binding on of a sraktya amulet in a counter-witchcraft rite. That later direction supplies one ritual setting, yet the hymn itself names no modern materials, target identification process, or result that can be checked after the fact. It also does not appear in the Pāippalāda recension, as far as Whitney’s comparison shows. The missing parallel limits our ability to compare an alternative verse order or wording for this particular text. We can still analyze the Śaunaka hymn’s repeated language, but should not claim more manuscript agreement than the evidence supplies.
Countering differs from sending back
V.14 shares the broad fear of harmful working, but its logic is distinct. There an herb is asked to lead the constructed harm back to its alleged maker, often through images of travel. II.11 stays closer to the bearer: its central action is to make the amulet stronger than a matching threat. The contrast clarifies the modern phrase “overcoming a hater’s witchcraft.” It describes a defensive hope expressed in the poem, not a verified event and not a license to identify a real person as an occult attacker. The two hymns offer different imaginative answers to uncertainty: one armors the vulnerable body, while the other stages a return journey.
WORKED READING
Following one refrain through three settings
Compare II.11.1, .3, and .5. In the first, the amulet answers a weapon; in the third, the target is a hater; in the fifth, the vocabulary turns to light. The same “step beyond” refrain binds physical threat, social hostility, and expansive brightness. Now compare V.14.4, where the action is to lead a working back by the hand. The change from surpassing to returning is a change in ritual imagination, even when both are later called countercharms. The amulet's refrain stays stable while its opponent changes, so the object's imagined authority depends on repetition across unlike kinds of danger.