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 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 ↗
ATHARVAVEDA · BOOK VI ALSO CITED
To win a man's love
Read comparison hymn VI.130 (4 verses)
Of the Apsarases, chariot-conquering, belonging to the chariot-conquering, [is] this the love (smará): ye gods, send forth love; let yon [man] burn for (anu-çuc) me.
Let yon [man] love (smṛ) me; being dear, let him love me: ye gods, send etc. etc.
That yon [man] may love me, not I him at any time, ye gods, send etc. etc.
Craze (un-māday-) [him], O Maruts; O atmosphere, craze [him]; O Agni, do thou craze [him]; let yon [man] burn for me.
Whitney–Lanman translation as printed (1905) · Read VI.130 at Wikisource ↗
ATHARVAVEDA · BOOK VI ALSO CITED
To win a woman's love
Read comparison hymn VI.8 (3 verses)
As the creeper (líbujā) has completely embraced the tree, so do thou embrace me—that thou mayest be one loving me, that thou mayest be one not going away from me.
As the eagle, flying forth, beats down his wings upon the earth, so do I beat down thy mind—that thou etc. etc.
As the sun goeth at once about heaven-and-earth here, so do I go about thy mind—that thou etc. etc.
Whitney–Lanman translation as printed (1905) · Read VI.8 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 ↗
A woman speaks of return in VI.131
VI.131 continues the nearby sequence of petitions for a man's love. Its first verse draws his longings down from head to feet, and its refrain asks divine powers to send love so that he burn for the speaker. The last verse imagines him traveling three or five leagues, even a horseman's day's journey, yet returning and becoming father of her sons. Distance is measured in travel and folded into a desired household future. It is not a statement that absence feels tender. The speaker wants the man's return regardless of how far he goes. Whitney notes that this hymn, like VI.130 and VI.132, is absent from the Paippalāda recension and appears with them in later ritual use.
VI.130 intensifies rather than measures longing
VI.130 has no journey. It repeatedly asks that a man burn with love, calling on gods and then on cosmic powers. Verse 3 makes the desire pointedly unequal: he should love her while she does not love him. This is an important corrective to a modern label such as missing someone, which may imply mutual affection across temporary separation. In the ancient hymn, the speaker's requested result is a deliberately one-sided intensity. The verses supply no evidence of a voluntary message, reunion plan, or tenderness produced by distance. Their heat is a metaphor for overwhelming desire, not a report of what an absent man actually feels.
Nondeparture is not the same as missing
VI.8 repeats a plea that the beloved love the speaker and not go away. It attaches that same plea to three comparisons: a vine's embrace of a tree, an eagle's wings beating downward, and the sun's circling movement. The poem tries to secure presence, whereas VI.131 imagines someone who leaves and must return. The shift from prevention to recall is a meaningful difference, even though both resist separation. III.30's household concord offers another social scale: shared work and food presume continuing life together. None of these poems pauses to describe the mixed sadness and affection that a present-day person might call missing a partner.
The contemporary kind distance
“Make a target person miss me when we are apart” and The Kind Distance are original modern formulations. No cited hymn tests another person's feelings during absence or guarantees that separation will strengthen affection. A current reader can take from the texts a vocabulary of travel, staying, and burning longing, while declining to confuse those images with evidence about someone they know. The contrast also asks whether a return is desired by both people. VI.131's returning man is imagined by a speaker with a future in mind; his own voice is not heard. Contemporary mutuality must be established in life, not inferred from a spell's requested outcome.
WORKED READING
One departure, two responses
Set VI.8.1 beside VI.131.3. The first compares a vine's embrace to a beloved who does not leave; the second names substantial travel and commands a man's return from it. Read VI.130.3 next, where the speaker explicitly wants unequal desire. Together, the verses show that stopping departure, ordering return, and intensifying love are related but distinct aims. The modern phrase “miss me” is more modest and psychologically specific than any of them. It describes a feeling someone might freely report, while the ancient verses voice petitions whose imagined targets do not answer.