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 curses
Hither hath come forth, having harnessed his chariot, the thousand-eyed curse, seeking after my curser, as a wolf the house of a sheepowner.
Avoid us, O curse, as a burning fire a pond; smite our curser here, as the bolt from heaven a tree.
Whoever shall curse us not cursing, and whoever shall curse us cursing, him, withered (?), I cast forth for death, as a bone (?) for a dog.
Whitney–Lanman translation as printed (1905) · Read VI.37 at Wikisource ↗
ATHARVAVEDA · BOOK V ALSO CITED
Against witchcraft: with a plant
Read comparison hymn V.14 (13 verses)
An eagle (suparṇá) discovered thee; a hog dug thee with his snout; seek thou to injure, O herb, him that seeks to injure; smite down the witchcraft-maker.
Smite down the sorcerers, smite down the witchcraft-maker; then, whoever seeks to injure us, him do thou smite, O herb.
Having cut around out of [his] skin a strip (pariçāsá), as it were of a stag, fasten, O gods, upon the witchcraft-maker the witchcraft, like a necklace.
Lead thou away the witchcraft back to the witchcraft-maker, grasping its hand; set it straight before (samakṣám) him, that it may smite the witchcraft-maker.
Be the witchcrafts for the witchcraft-maker, the curse for him that curses; like an easy chariot let the witchcraft roll back to the witchcraft-maker.
If woman, or if man, hath made witchcraft in order to evil, it we conduct unto him, like a horse by a horse-halter.
If either thou art god-made, or if made by man, thee, being such, do we lead back, with Indra as ally.
O Agni, overpowerer of fighters, overpower the fighters; we take the witchcraft back to the witchcraft-maker by a returner.
O practiced piercer (?), pierce him; whoever made [it], him do thou smite; we do not sharpen thee up to slay (vadhá) him who has not made [it].
Go as a son to a father; like a constrictor trampled on, bite; go, O witchcraft, back to the witchcraft-maker, as it were treading down [thy] bond.
Up, like a she-antelope (eṇī́), a she-elephant (? vāraṇī́), with leaping on, like a hind, let the witchcraft go to its maker.
Straighter than an arrow let it fly, O heaven-and-earth, to meet him; let it, the witchcraft, seize again him, the witchcraft-maker, like a deer.
Let it go like fire up-stream, like water down-stream; like an easyc hariot let the witchcraft roll back to the witchcraft-maker.
Whitney–Lanman translation as printed (1905) · Read V.14 at Wikisource ↗
The opening makes a word mobile
A curse is normally something spoken and heard. Verse 1 gives it eyes, a harnessed chariot, and an appetite for the curser, likened to a wolf approaching a sheepowner’s house. This is an aggressive reversal of direction. The speaker does not ask the curse to vanish into silence; he imagines it finding an alternate destination. The thousand eyes also imply that it can track a target without human guidance. Such imagery makes the return seem inevitable inside the poem, but it supplies no evidence that a spoken imprecation acquired an independent life. The verse offers a personification that can be followed across the poem’s short trajectory.
The second verse defines the protected side
Verse 2 orders the curse away from the speaker’s group, using a striking simile of burning fire and a pond, then asks it to strike the curser like a heavenly bolt striking a tree. Avoidance and impact are joined in one breath. This is why “sending back” is more precise than simply “stopping” a curse. The speaker wants distance for himself and force for an alleged originator. Whitney notes manuscript uncertainty in the word rendered pond, which matters to the exact picture of fire avoiding water. The larger spatial relation remains secure: the curse must not touch us, but must move toward the one who pronounced it.
The ending widens possible culpability
The third verse speaks of anyone who curses the speaker’s side, whether the speaker’s own side is itself cursing or not. That admission complicates a simple innocence narrative. It allows conflict to be reciprocal while still asking for the other curser’s destruction. The verse ends with an image Whitney translates only tentatively, involving a bone or food for a dog. Both principal nouns are uncertain in his notes, and Pāippalāda gives the verse a different second half. A reader can confidently describe the retaliatory intention, but should avoid building a detailed reconstructed action on the disputed dog image. The hymn’s rhetorical certainty is greater than its textual certainty at that point.
Spoken curse versus made object
V.14 also sends danger back toward an alleged maker, but there the kṛtyā is a constructed working led by the hand, by chariot, and by other moving images across thirteen verses. VI.37’s returning force is itself a curse, condensed into three units and animated from the first line. V.14.9 explicitly withholds attack from the nonmaker; VI.37.3 instead broadens the class of relevant cursers even if the speaker has cursed too. Both texts dramatize reversal, yet they do not formulate responsibility in the same way. The distinction matters whenever “return to sender” is used as though it named one uniform ancient formula.
WORKED READING
A journey in two steps
Compare VI.37.1 and .2. The first gives the curse a chariot and eyes so it can pursue; the second instructs it to avoid the speaker and strike the curser. The first creates the moving agent, and the second assigns its route. In V.14.4 the harmful construction is led back by the hand. That comparison reveals different kinds of agency: VI.37’s spoken curse drives itself, while V.14’s made working is escorted home by the countercharm. The second verse's order to miss the speaker supplies a necessary safeguard for a mobile curse that the first verse has already animated.