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
Against demons
Within the flame, pray, make ye this sorcerer-destroying libation with ghee; from afar, O Agni, do thou burn against the demons; mayest thou not be hot toward our houses.
Rudra hath crushed (çṛ) your necks, O piçācás; let him crush in (api-çṛ) your ribs, O sorcerers; the plant of universal power hath made you go to Yama.
Fearlessness, O Mitra-and-Varuṇa, be ours here; drive ye backward the devourers with your gleam; let them not find a knower, nor a foundation (pratiṣṭhā́); mutually destroying one another let them go unto death.
Whitney–Lanman translation as printed (1905) · Read VI.32 at Wikisource ↗
ATHARVAVEDA · BOOK IV ALSO CITED
Against various superhuman foes: with an herb
Read comparison hymn IV.37 (12 verses)
By thee of old the Atharvans slew the demons, O herb; by thee did Kaçyapa slay; by thee Kaṇva, Agastya.
By thee do we expel (cat) the Apsarases, the Gandharvas; O goat-horned one, drive the demon; make all disappear by [thy] smell.
Let the Apsarases go to the stream, to the loud (?) down-blowing of the waters: Guggulū, Pīlā, Naladī, Āukṣagandhi, Pramandanī: so go away, ye Apsarases; ye have been recognized.
Where [are] the açvatthás, the nyagródhas, great trees, with crests: thither go away, ye Apsarases; ye have been recognized.
Where [are] your swings, green and whitish; where cymbals [and] lutes sound together—thither go away, ye Apsarases; ye have been recognized.
Hither hath come this mighty one (vīryàvant) of the herbs, of the plants; let the goat-horned arāṭakī́, the sharp-horned, push out.
Of the hither-dancing, crested Gandharva, Apsaras-lord, I split the testicles, I bind fast (?) the member.
Terrible are Indra's missiles (hetí), a hundred spears of iron; with them let him push out the oblation-eating, ávakā-eating Gandharvas.
Terrible are Indra's missiles, a hundred spears of gold; with them let him push out the oblation-eating, ávakā-eating Gandharvas.
The ávakā-eating ones, scorching, making light (?) in the waters—all the piçācás, O herb, do thou slaughter and overpower.
One as it were a dog, one as it were an ape, a boy all hairy—having become as it were dear to see, the Gandharva fastens upon (sac) women; him we make disappear from here by [our] mighty (vīryàvant) incantation (bráhman).
Your wives, verily, are the Apsarases; O Gandharvas, ye are [their] husbands; run away, O immortal ones; fasten not on mortals.
Whitney–Lanman translation as printed (1905) · Read IV.37 at Wikisource ↗
The first request contains a safeguard
Verse 1 names a ghee offering within a flame and asks Agni to burn against demons at a distance. The last request is equally important: the heat should not reach “our houses.” Fire is effective in the poem precisely because it can injure, so the speaker draws a line between hostile target and protected dwelling. This gives the hymn a more complex defensive logic than merely “send fire at enemies.” The power invoked must discriminate. Whitney notes Pāippalāda changes part of the final phrase, but the concern for the speaker’s household remains. The verse is shaped by proximity: the danger is imagined far off, while the home must stay untouched.
Rudra and the plant change the means
The second verse says Rudra has crushed the necks of piśācas, asks for the ribs of sorcerers to be broken, and credits a universally powerful plant with sending them to Yama. Its violent anatomy differs from verse 1’s controlled distance. It also shifts the center of action from Agni to Rudra and a plant. Whitney reports a Pāippalāda version in which the wording of the crushing line differs and Death replaces Yama in the close. These variations affect the named agent and destination without making the hostile intention benign. The received text stacks several sources of protection, each pictured as capable of removing the feared beings.
Fearlessness becomes the closing aim
Verse 3 turns to Mitra and Varuṇa and asks for fearlessness here. The gods’ gleam should push devourers back, leave them without refuge, and make them destroy one another. This is not only an outward banishment; it names the inner state the speaker wants when the threat has been pushed away. Whitney says only the first two verses appear in the Pāippalāda witness he cites, while the third has other parallels and was grouped separately in later ritual lists for freedom from fear and well-being. That difference suggests the closing may have circulated with a life beyond this three-verse sequence. In the received hymn it supplies a clear endpoint: a safe, fearless household.
Another hymn sends beings to named places
IV.37 uses an herb to send Apsarases and Gandharvas away to streams, trees, and places of music, repeatedly saying they have been recognized. VI.32 gives no such itinerary. It asks that demons be burned at a distance, crushed, denied a foundation, and turned against one another, while home remains safe. The contrast prevents a vague “banishing demons” summary from flattening distinct poems. One imagines an exit route to another environment; the other emphasizes distance from the household and a controlled boundary around divine violence. Later ritual applications differ too, but the textual images already establish the separate logic.
WORKED READING
The boundary inside verse 1
Read both requests to Agni in VI.32.1: burn the feared beings from afar, and do not heat the speaker’s houses. The second limits the first. Then read VI.32.3, where fearlessness is requested “here” while devourers are pushed away. The near and far contrast brackets the hymn. IV.37.3 provides a different solution by telling Apsarases where to go. VI.32 is less concerned with their destination than with keeping destructive heat and danger outside the household. Agni must be forceful and bounded at once: the protected house would lose its safety if the invoked fire crossed inward.