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 III IN FOCUS
Against a rival wife: with a plant
I dig this herb, of plants the strongest, with which one drives off (bādh) her rival; with which one wins completely (sam-vid) her husband.
O thou of outstretched leaves, fortunate, god-quickened, powerful, do thou thrust away my rival, make my husband wholly mine.
Since he has not named (grah) thy name, thou also stayest (ram) not with him as husband; unto distant distance make we my rival go.
Superior [am] I, O superior one; superior, indeed, to them (f.) that are superior; below [is] she that is my rival; lower [is] she than they (f.) that are lower.
Read the remaining 2 verses of III.18
I am overpowering; likewise art thou very powerful; we both, becoming full of power, will overpower my rival.
I have put on (abhí) for thee the overpowering one (f.); I have put to (úpa) for thee the very powerful one; after me let thy mind run forth as a cow after her calf, run as water on its track.
Whitney–Lanman translation as printed (1905) · Read III.18 at Wikisource ↗
ATHARVAVEDA · BOOK III ALSO CITED
For concord
Read comparison hymn III.30 (7 verses)
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).
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 ↗
The herb is a partner in rivalry
Verse 1 begins with digging up the strongest plant for the explicit purpose of pushing away a rival and winning the husband entirely. Verse 2 addresses the herb’s spread leaves, good fortune, divine vitality, and power, asking it to thrust the rival aside. The plant is neither decorative nor merely a token of affection. It is represented as the speaker’s ally in a contest over a household relationship. The first two verses join physical handling of a plant to a claim about social position. They do not tell us how the other woman understood that household or what the husband wanted; the source preserves the single interested voice of the speaker.
Rank becomes the poem’s grammar
Verse 4 repeats words for being above and below: the speaker will be superior to superior women while her rival will be lower than lower women. Verse 5 doubles the speaker’s strength with the herb’s strength. This is not only jealousy described as feeling. It is an attempted reordering of rank. The repeated language seeks to make hierarchy sound inevitable, with the speaker and plant aligned on one side. Verse 3 is harder to interpret. Whitney discusses substantially different Rigvedic wording and says no satisfactory solution has been found for the Atharvavedic half-verse. Any confident psychological story built on that verse would outrun the surviving text.
A mind is asked to follow
The closing verse uses images of a cow following its calf and water following its course to ask that the husband’s mind run after the speaker. Both comparisons make pursuit seem natural, but the command is still an attempt to direct another person’s attention. Whitney notes that a later ritual text applies the opening actions differently and that the prepositions in the Rigvedic version fit that application better than those in the received Atharvaveda. The point for reading is that a familiar image can carry different ritual placements. It is also possible to see the poem’s tension: natural movement is invoked to authorize a desired dominance that is anything but mutual.
The witnesses rearrange the contest
Rigveda X.145 preserves the hymn with verses 3 and 4 exchanged. The Pāippalāda recension contains only three of the six verses, ordered as Śaunaka 4, 2, 1. These are meaningful differences, not spelling trivia. In the short Pāippalāda sequence the emphatic ranking verse leads; in the received Śaunaka version the digging of the herb leads. III.30 offers an instructive internal contrast: it asks household members to share hearts and speech, rather than declaring one wife beneath another. Both belong to the collection’s social imagination. Neither should be flattened into a universal Atharvavedic teaching about relationships.
WORKED READING
How order changes the first impression
Read III.18 first in Śaunaka order: verse 1 introduces the herb and its purpose, and verse 4 later states the speaker’s superior rank. Now imagine encountering the Pāippalāda order Whitney reports, beginning with that rank claim before the herb verses. The same rivalry enters through status rather than material action. Compare III.30’s opening wish for concord among family members. That hymn imagines a shared household voice; III.18 imagines securing one position by pushing another down. That reversal in verse order matters because rank, rather than the herb, can become the first fact the listener hears about the dispute.