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 VII IN FOCUS
To Amāvāsyā (night or goddess of new moon)
What portion (bhāgadhéya) the gods made for thee, O Amāvāsyā, dwelling together with might, therewith fill our offering, O thou of all choice things; assign to us, O fortunate one, wealth rich in heroes.
I myself am Amāvāsyā; on me, in me dwell these well-doers; in me came together all, of both classes, the gods and the sādhyás, with Indra as chief (jyéṣṭa).
The night hath come, assembler of good things, causing sustenance, prosperity, [and] good to enter in; we would worship Amāvāsyā with oblation; yielding (duh) sustenance with milk is she come to us.
O Amāvāsyā, no other than thou, encompassing, gave birth to all these forms; what desiring we make libation to thee, be that ours; may we be lords of wealth.
Whitney–Lanman translation as printed (1905) · Read VII.79 (84) at Wikisource ↗
ATHARVAVEDA · BOOK VII ALSO CITED
To the night or goddess of full moon (pāurṇamāsī́)
Read comparison hymn VII.80 (85) (4 verses)
Full behind, also full in front, up from the middle hath she of the full moon been victorious; in her, dwelling together with the gods, with greatness, may we revel together with food (íṣ) on the back of the firmament.
We sacrifice to the vigorous bull of the full moon; let him give us unexhausted unfailing wealth.
O Prajāpati, no other than thou, encompassing, gave birth to all these forms; what desiring we make libation to thee, be that ours; may we be lords of wealth.
She of the full moon was the first worshipful one in the depths (?) of days, of nights. They who, O worshipful one, gratify (ardháya-) thee with offerings, those well-doers are entered into thy firmament.
Whitney–Lanman translation as printed (1905) · Read VII.80 (85) at Wikisource ↗
A divine portion becomes a human request
The first verse recalls a portion assigned to Amāvāsyā by the gods and asks her to fill the present offering with it. Only then does the speaker request wealth. This order matters. Provision flows through a relationship already imagined among divine beings before reaching the human household. The phrase about wealth rich in heroes ties resources to people capable of continuing and defending a community, not to currency alone.
Whitney records a parallel in the Taittirīya Saṁhitā with differences in the verbs for what the gods did and how the offering is filled. He also notes a wordplay on dwelling together in the goddess's name. A reader can hear the poem making the moon a place of assembly. The variant details are small, but they show that the verbal construction of the divine portion was not entirely identical across witnesses.
The moon speaks in the first person
Verse 2 abruptly speaks as Amāvāsyā herself: well-doers dwell in her, and gods and Sādhyas gather within her with Indra as chief. The shift from addressing a goddess to hearing her own voice gives the night a cosmic interior. The lunar occasion becomes a space large enough for divine company. This is a surprising turn in a poem often flattened into a simple prosperity charm.
Whitney discusses uncertainty in the word at the start of a later line, including a possible reading that would strengthen the wordplay on the moon's name. The difficulty warns against building a precise metaphysics out of every syllable in translation. What is clear at the structural level is the change in speaker. A petition for goods becomes a claim about what gathers inside the named night.
Night enters bearing milk and stores
Verse 3 returns to an outside speaker and describes the night as an assembler of good things. Sustenance, prosperity, and goodness are asked to enter with her, and she is imagined yielding nourishment with milk. The image belongs to a pastoral economy where food and thriving animals are unmistakable forms of wealth. The new moon is thus a timed arrival of provision rather than a magical vacuum waiting to be filled.
The Taittirīya parallel is similar in broad meaning but different enough in wording that Whitney declines to call it the same verse. Pāippalāda also reads some details differently. These relationships matter when comparing historical witnesses: the motif of goods assembling can persist even while the exact verbal scene shifts. The article's paired benefit follows that recurring theme of sustenance without erasing the textual variation.
The closing line is shared with the full moon
The fourth verse asks that what the speakers desire through offering become theirs and that they be lords of wealth. Its form recurs in the next hymn to the full moon, where Prajāpati receives the address instead. Whitney notes that some manuscript and commentator divisions move this verse into the following hymn. A boundary between lunar poems is therefore part of the evidence, not a fixed wall.
Placed in VII.79, the verse ends the new moon request with a claim of wealth. Placed beside VII.80, it becomes a hinge joining two lunar occasions through nearly identical language. The six-phase member working attached here is original contemporary writing, not a reconstruction of the parvan sacrifice in which the hymn was later used. The close reading shows prosperity imagined as an assembly of divine portion, human offering, and household nourishment.
WORKED READING
Worked reading: a verse crosses the lunar boundary
Read VII.79.1 for the divine portion given to Amāvāsyā, then VII.79.3 for the night bringing sustenance and milk. Those lines make a coherent new moon provision poem. Now compare VII.79.4 with VII.80.3. The petition for desired goods and lordship of wealth is nearly the same, but the addressee becomes Prajāpati in the full moon hymn. Whitney also notes that some witnesses place the verse across the hymn boundary. The comparison shows how one wealth request can serve as an ending in one arrangement and a shared formula across two lunar rites in another. It is more informative than assuming the moon phase alone determines every line's meaning.