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
Against enemies
I take from thy entrails (vakṣáṇā), I take from thy heart, from the aspect of thy face, I take all thy splendor.
Forth from here let anxieties go, forth regrets (? anudhyā́), and forth imprecations; let Agni smite the she-demoniacs; let Soma smite the abusers (f.).
Whitney–Lanman translation as printed (1905) · Read VII.114 (119) at Wikisource ↗
ATHARVAVEDA · BOOK VII ALSO CITED
Against one's foes
Read comparison hymn VII.13 (14) (2 verses)
As the sun rising takes to itself the brilliancies (téjas) of the asterisms, so of both women and men that hate me I take to myself the splendor.
Ye, as many of my rivals as look upon me coming—as the rising sun that of sleepers, do I take to myself the splendor of them that hate me.
Whitney–Lanman translation as printed (1905) · Read VII.13 (14) at Wikisource ↗
The first verse travels across the body
The opening repeats the speaker's claim to take splendor. It moves from inner bodily regions through the heart to the visible face, ending with the total claim to all of the opponent's brilliance. The repeated first-person verb makes the speaker the agent, unlike VII.13 where sunrise supplies the main analogy. The bodily route matters because varcas is not pictured as only a social reputation floating outside the person. It is imagined as lodged within and shown upon the body. That does not make the verse a physiological theory. It is an aggressive metaphor for depriving an opponent of a valued quality.
The other recension changes the second half
Whitney reports the first verse in Pāippalāda with a different second half and some variation in the heart phrase. The transmitted claim to splendor is therefore not word-for-word uniform. The more stable observation is the verse's repeated taking; the less stable detail is exactly how the closing formulates the face and the speaker's advantage. This distinction matters when a modern headline turns a complex witness into a polished promise about charisma. The text offers a wished-for transfer in one recension and related but altered wording in another. It does not tell us that an opponent's visible standing actually changed.
Verse 2 releases trouble instead of taking brightness
The next verse orders anxieties, regrets, and imprecations away, then calls on Agni and Soma to strike harmful female figures. Its direction is outward removal of trouble from the speakers, not inward taking of a rival's varcas. Whitney points out that this verse appears in a healing use and may belong with the following hymn, while the first verse sits naturally with preceding VII.113. The manuscript division still presents them together. The resulting mismatch should not be 'fixed' by silently omitting one verse; it shows how short Atharvan pieces could be arranged at a seam between hostile and protective contexts.
Sunrise offers a different model of lost brilliance
VII.13 compares rivals' fading splendor to stars vanishing when the sun rises. It relies on a change in visibility, not a hand-like taking from entrails, heart, and face. The two poems show the collection's flexibility with varcas: it can be eclipsed in the sky or extracted from an imagined body. Neither is a neutral report of a rival's public reputation. VII.114's second verse then reminds us that a nearby concern is relief from troubling speech, not simply prestige. A present-day working attached to this topic is invented; the ancient poem contains a coercive first-person claim and a distinct petition for release from harm.
WORKED READING
A worked comparison
Read VII.114.1 alongside VII.13.1. One speaker says that he takes splendor from an opponent's inside and face; the other claims rivals fade as stars do at sunrise. The desired loss is similar, but the mechanism of imagination differs: extraction versus eclipse. Then read VII.114.2. Its request that anxieties and curses depart no longer follows the first verse's bodily route. That three-way comparison exposes the seam inside VII.114 and prevents its two verses from being forced into one continuous spell procedure. Verse two's anxieties are not the same object as verse one's stolen brilliance; their juxtaposition is a feature of the received unit.