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 IX IN FOCUS
To Kāma: for various blessings
The rival-slaying bull Kāma do I desire to aid (? çikṣ) with ghee, with oblation, with sacrificial butter; do thou, praised with great heroism, make my rivals to fall downward.
What of my mind or my sight is not agreeable (priyá), what of me gnaws, does not enjoy (abhi-nand), that evil-dreaming do I fasten on my rival; praising Kāma, may I shoot up.
Evil-dreaming, O Kāma, and difficulty, O Kāma, want of progeny, homelessness, ruin do thou, formidable, masterful, fasten on him who shall seek to devise (cikits-) distresses for us.
Thrust, O Kāma; thrust forth, O Kāma; let them who are my rivals go to ruin; of them, thrust to lowest darknesses, do thou, O Agni, burn out the abodes (vā́stu).
Read the remaining 21 verses of IX.2
That daughter of thine, O Kāma, is called a milch-cow, what utterance (vā́c) the poets name virā́j; with that do thou avoid them that are my rivals; let breath, cattle, life avoid them.
With the strength of Kāma, of Indra, of king Varuṇa, of Vishṇu, with the impulse of Savitar ('the impeller'), with the priestship (hotrá) of Agni I thrust forth my rivals, as a skilful pole-man (? çambín) a boat on the waters (udaká).
Let Kāma, my valiant (vājín) formidable overseer, make for me freedom from rivals; let the all-gods be my refuge; let all the gods come to this call of mine.
Enjoying this sacrificial butter rich in ghee, do ye, with Kāma as chief (-jyéṣṭha), revel here, making for me freedom from rivals.
Becoming, O Kāma, in alliance (sarátham) with Indra-and-Agni, may ye make my rivals to fall downward; of them, fallen to lowest darknesses, do thou, O Agni, burn along out the abodes.
Slay thou, O Kāma, those that are my rivals; make them fall down to blind darknesses; be they all senseless (? nírindriya), sapless; let them not live any day soever.
Kāma hath slain (vadh) them that are my rivals; he hath made for me wide space, prosperity; let the four directions bow to me; let the six wide ones ⌊fem.⌋ bring ghee to me.
Let them float away downward, like a boat severed from its mooring; of them, thrust forth by missiles, there is no return again.
Agni [is] a repeller (? yava), Indra a repeller, Soma a repeller; let the repelling (? yavayā́van) gods repel (yu) him.
With his heroes not safe ⌊á-sarvavīra⌋ let him go on, thrust forth, to be hated of friends, to be avoided of his own kin; on earth also stay (ava-sā) thunderbolts; may the formidable god massacre your rivals.
This great [earth], both stirred and unstirred, bears the lightning and all the thunders; let the Āditya, arising with property, with brilliancy, thrust downward my rivals, he the powerful one.
What sufficient (udbhú) triply-guarding defense thou hast, O Kāma, worship (bráhman) as extended protection (várman), made unpierceable, with that do thou avoid them that are my rivals; let breath, cattle, life avoid them.
Wherewith the gods thrust forth the Asuras, wherewith Indra conducted the barbarians (dásyu) to lowest darkness, therewith do thou, O Kāma, thrust forth far from this world those who are my rivals.
As the gods thrust forth the Asuras, as Indra drove (bādh) the barbarians to lowest darkness, so do thou, O Kāma, thrust forth far from this world those who are my rivals.
Kāma was first born; not the gods, the Fathers, nor mortals attained (āp) him; to them art thou superior (jyā́yāṅs), always great; to thee as such, O Kāma, do I pay homage.
How great in width are heaven-and-earth; how far the waters flowed, how far fire—to them art thou etc. etc.
How great are the divergent (víṣvañc) quarters [and] directions; how great the regions (ā́çā), on-lookers of the sky—to them art thou etc. etc.
How many the humble-bees (bhṛ́n̄ga), the bats, the kurū́nus; how many have been the vághās, the tree-creepers—to them art thou etc. etc.
Superior art thou to him that winks, that stands; superior to the ocean art thou, O Kāma, fury—to them art thou etc. etc.
Verily no wind soever attains (āp) Kāma, not fire, sun, also not moon; to them art thou etc. etc.
What propitious excellent bodies thou hast, O Kāma, with which what thou choosest becometh real, with them do thou enter wholly into us; make evil devices (dhī́) enter away elsewhere.
Whitney–Lanman translation as printed (1905) · Read IX.2 at Wikisource ↗
ATHARVAVEDA · BOOK VII ALSO CITED
Against one's foes
Read comparison hymn VII.13 (14) (2 verses)
As the sun rising takes to itself the brilliancies (téjas) of the asterisms, so of both women and men that hate me I take to myself the splendor.
Ye, as many of my rivals as look upon me coming—as the rising sun that of sleepers, do I take to myself the splendor of them that hate me.
Whitney–Lanman translation as printed (1905) · Read VII.13 (14) at Wikisource ↗
The bull makes desire a force, not a mood
Verse 1 names Kāma as a rival-slaying bull and seeks to honor him with ghee and oblation. The animal image presents potency and force. Kāma here is not merely the speaker's private wish; he is addressed as a being capable of acting on others. The plea that rivals fall downward establishes the adversarial frame for what follows. The opening is also sacrificial, because desire is approached through offerings. A reader who expects only erotic attraction from the name Kāma would miss the text's broader, aggressive use of desire as a cosmic ally in competition.
Distress is shifted outward
Verses 2 and 3 gather what the speaker rejects: troubling thoughts, evil dreams, difficulty, lack of descendants, homelessness, and ruin. These are to be fastened upon a rival, especially one who plans distress for the speaker's side. The logic is transfer. The speaker's own threatening possibilities are relocated onto an opponent, while the speaker asks to rise. Whitney marks the first parts of verse 2 as difficult, so the details of the mental state cannot be settled with confidence. The pattern of reversal is firmer: unwanted conditions should leave one side and burden the other. Verse 4 then intensifies this with darkness and the burning of an opponent's dwelling.
A rival's fall becomes a cosmic measure
The middle of the hymn repeatedly asks Kāma to thrust rivals away, while verse 16 speaks of protection like armor. Later, verses 19 through 24 enlarge Kāma beyond ordinary gods, Fathers, mortals, directions, ocean, wind, sun, and moon. This is not a digression unrelated to the first plea. By making desire immeasurably prior and greater, the poem supplies a warrant for asking him to decide a human contest. The verse numbering in Whitney's printed text has an apparent duplicate 18 around the Asura and Dasyu comparison, another reason to discuss the sequence by image as well as by number. The hymn's scale grows from a rival at hand to an encompassing cosmic power.
The final request turns protection inward
Verse 25 asks Kāma's favorable forms to enter the speakers and evil designs to go elsewhere. That ending is less a command to kill than a wish to keep beneficial desire near and destructive intention away. Pāippalāda preserves most of the hymn but changes the order of some verses, including placement near the later cosmic praise. VII.13, by contrast, uses sunrise to make hostile people's visible splendor fade in just two verses. IX.2 operates through a long theological enlargement of Kāma. Neither poem shows that rivals actually lost standing. Their hostility is part of historical poetic speech, not a demonstrated technique to impose desire on another person.
WORKED READING
A worked reading
Compare IX.2.1, where Kāma is a bull asked to cast rivals down, with IX.2.19, where he is said to precede gods, Fathers, and mortals. The first verse asks for an effect; the later verse argues that the addressee has primordial authority to grant it. Then set VII.13 beside them: its sunrise comparison reaches a similar wish for rivals to lose brilliance without building a theology of desire. The difference lies in scale and reasoning, not merely in which deity or image is named. The primordial claim in verse nineteen is the hymn's reason for trusting the opening request, though it verifies no actual downfall.