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 I IN FOCUS
A love-spell: with a sweet herb
This plant is honey-(mádhu-)born; with honey we dig thee; forth from honey art thou engendered; ⌊so⌋ do thou make us possessed of honey.
At the tip of my tongue honey, at the root of my tongue honeyedness; mayest thou be altogether in my power (krátu), mayest thou come unto my intent (cittá).
Honeyed (mádhumant) [is] my in-stepping, honeyed my forth-going; with my voice I speak what is honeyed; may I be of honey-aspect.
Than honey am I sweeter (mádhu), than the honey-plant more honeyed; of me verily shalt thou be fond (? van), as of a honeyed branch.
Read the remaining 1 verse of I.34
About thee with an encompassing (paritatnú) sugar-cane have I gone, in order to absence of mutual hatred; that thou mayest be one loving me, that thou mayest be one not going away from me.
Whitney–Lanman translation as printed (1905) · Read I.34 at Wikisource ↗
ATHARVAVEDA · BOOK III ALSO CITED
To command a woman's love
Read comparison hymn III.25 (6 verses)
Let the up-thruster thrust (tud) thee up; do not abide (dhṛ) in thine own lair; the arrow of love (kā́ma) that is terrible, therewith I pierce thee in the heart.
The arrow feathered with longing (ādhī́), tipped with love, necked with resolve (? saṁkalpá-)—having made that well-straightened, let love pierce thee in the heart.
The well-straightened arrow of love which dries the spleen, forward-winged, consuming (vyòṣa)—therewith I pierce thee in the heart.
Pierced with consuming pain (çúc), dry-mouthed, do thou come creeping to me, gentle, with fury allayed, entirely [mine], pleasant-spoken, submissive.
I goad thee hither with a goad (ā́janī), away from mother, likewise from father, that thou mayest be in my power (krátu), mayest come unto my intent.
Do ye, O Mitra-and-Varuṇa, cast out the intents from her heart; then, making her powerless, make her [to be] in my own control.
Whitney–Lanman translation as printed (1905) · Read III.25 at Wikisource ↗
ATHARVAVEDA · BOOK III ALSO CITED
Against a rival wife: with a plant
Read comparison hymn III.18 (6 verses)
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.
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 ↗
I.34 begins with a plant, not a person
The honey-associated plant of I.34 is dug up in the first verse. The speaker then places sweetness on the tongue and extends it to stepping in, going out, voice, and appearance. In verse 4 the speaker claims to be sweeter than honey and hopes to be liked. The sequence is striking because the desirable quality moves from a material object to the whole social body. It is not primarily a hymn about someone hearing a particular name, and the word smile is not its outcome. It imagines the speaker becoming pleasing in multiple encounters. Whitney also records later uses in disputation and marriage, showing that sweetness did not belong to romance alone.
III.25 turns the mouth into a symptom
The contrast is severe. III.25.4 wants the woman pierced with pain and dry-mouthed, coming toward the speaker with her fury quieted and her speech pleasant. The pleasant words are produced inside a demand for submission. In I.34.3, by contrast, the speaker's own voice is honeyed before the desired person's response is described. A modern reader searching for smiles should not equate those two routes to agreeable speech. The original texts preserve a distinction between preparing one's presentation and imagining another person brought to a distressed, compliant state. The second is coercive even if its final adjective sounds gentle.
Names can also serve rivalry
III.18, a hymn against a rival wife, offers a useful warning about taking the appearance of ordinary language as ordinary affection. Its plant is asked to push a rival away and secure a husband. In verse 3, naming appears amid a disputed reading about the rival and her place with the husband. Whitney notes that the related Rigveda version orders two verses differently, and the Paippalāda preserves only three of the six in a different order. The point is not that every spoken name carries such a rivalry. It is that textual details and social setting determine what a love-related utterance is doing; a modern smile cannot be imported into the hymn as a hidden instruction.
The new benefit and its limit
“Make a target person smile when they hear my name” and The Smile at a Name are modern imaginative creations. Neither source promises a visible reaction from a named individual, and a smile is too ambiguous to serve as proof of another person's feelings. The ancient honey image can illuminate a wish to be remembered pleasantly, but the reader must still distinguish a hope about their own manner from control of a second person's face or thoughts. The III.25 comparison is especially valuable here because it prevents the word sweet from washing away the anthology's explicit coercion. These are historical poems with distinct social aims, not outcome data for present-day romance.
WORKED READING
Two mouths in two hymns
Read I.34.2–4 as one progression. Honey moves from tongue to spoken voice and finally to appearance, all features of the speaker. Then read III.25.4, where the addressed woman's dry mouth and pleasant speech become signs of the speaker's victory. The details reverse who must change: I.34 first transforms the speaker's presentation; III.25 demands that the other person suffer and speak as wanted. A smile at a name is neither verse's actual claim. This close comparison explains why an agreeable result cannot be detached from the very different route each hymn imagines.