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 eject a rival
I thrust yon man out of home, the rival who fights [us], with the oblation of ejectment; Indra hath demolished him.
Let Indra, Vritra-slayer, thrust him to the most distant distance, whence he shall not come back, through constant years (sámā).
Let him go [beyond] three distances; let him go beyond the five peoples; let him go beyond the three shining spaces, whence he shall not come back, through constant years, so long as the sun shall be in the sky.
Whitney–Lanman translation as printed (1905) · Read VI.75 at Wikisource ↗
ATHARVAVEDA · BOOK III ALSO CITED
Against enemies: with açvatthá
Read comparison hymn III.6 (8 verses)
The male (púmāṅs) [is] born out of the male—the açvatthá forth from the khadirá; let it smite my foes, whom I hate and who [hate] me.
Crush them out, O açvatthá, our violent foes, O expelling one, allied with Vṛtra-slaying Indra, with Mitra, and with Varuṇa.
As thou, O açvatthá, didst break out [the khadirá] within the great sea, so do thou break out all these, whom I hate and who [hate] me.
Thou that goest about overpowering, like a bull that has overpowered—with thee here, O açvatthá, may we overpower our rivals.
Let perdition bind them, with unreleasable fetters of death—my foes, O açvatthá, whom I hate and who [hate] me.
As, O açvatthá, ascending them of the forest-trees, thou dost put them beneath thee (ádhara), so the head of my foe do thou split apart and overcome.
Let them float forth downward, like a boat severed from its mooring (bándhana); of them, thrust forth by the expelling one, there is no returning again.
I thrust them forth with mind, forth with intent and incantation; forth with branch of tree, of açvatthá, we thrust them.
Whitney–Lanman translation as printed (1905) · Read III.6 at Wikisource ↗
Home is the first boundary
The opening verse says the speaker thrusts a rival who fights against him out of home through an oblation of ejectment, adding that Indra has demolished the opponent. The focus on home matters. This is not simply a battlefield where armies meet on neutral ground; it begins with a rival’s place in a shared or contested social space. The text does not tell us whether the “home” is a household, settlement, or claim to territory, and the relation of speaker and target remains unstated. It does reveal the speaker’s desired outcome: the rival is not to remain near the center of belonging. Ritual speech describes that exclusion as already accomplished.
Distance becomes irreversible
Verse 2 asks Indra to push the rival to the farthest distance, a place from which he cannot return for enduring years. The third verse repeats and enlarges the movement: beyond three distances, beyond five peoples, beyond three shining spaces. The concluding span lasts as long as the sun occupies the sky. Numbers here need not be converted into measured miles. They create a sense of crossing one boundary after another until ordinary geography gives way to cosmological scale. Repetition of no return makes the wish more severe than a temporary separation. The speaker seeks to cancel the rival’s route home, not merely delay his approach.
The witnesses alter the escalation
Whitney reports that Pāippalāda has the verses in the order 1, 3, 2, as do the Taittirīya Brāhmaṇa and Āpastamba parallels. In those witnesses the vast three-distance formula comes before the shorter request for lasting exile. The latter two texts also omit two portions of the received Śaunaka final verse. Order and length therefore affect how the poem builds its wish. In the Śaunaka sequence, the second verse prepares an even wider final banishment. In the parallel sequence, the cosmological sweep comes earlier and the poem can close on the more direct injunction against return. Neither version should be silently substituted for the other.
Displacement is not the same as defeat in battle
III.6 also wants enemies removed and compares them to a boat cut loose, but its central engine is the aśvattha tree outgrowing its khadira host. VI.75 does not ask a plant to model dominance; it names home, distant places, peoples, and the sun to define exclusion. The later Kauśikasūtra applies VI.75 in a hostile rite, but the poem itself is a geography of expulsion. Its desired outcome is precise in direction and indefinite in physical mechanism. Calling it a spell to expel a rival is fair only if the historical setting and witness differences remain visible. The verse gives the speaker’s wish, not evidence that a person was displaced.
WORKED READING
The effect of switching verses
Read Śaunaka VI.75.2 followed by .3: first the opponent is pushed to a place of no return, then the route crosses multiple distances, peoples, and shining regions. Now reverse those two, as Whitney reports for Pāippalāda and other parallels. The large cosmic list comes before the compact no-return wish. Both versions seek exclusion, but they make the climax feel different. III.6’s released boat supplies another image of departure, yet its cause is a tree’s displacing growth rather than a sequence of territorial boundaries. The Pāippalāda reversal changes which image sounds final: a compact ban on return or a journey stretched beyond recognizable social space.