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
To Agni: against enemies
O Agni, thrust forth my rivals that are born; thrust back, O Jātavedas, those unborn; put underfoot those that want to fight [me]; may we be guiltless for thee unto Aditi.
Whitney–Lanman translation as printed (1905) · Read VII.34 (35) at Wikisource ↗
ATHARVAVEDA · BOOK VII ALSO CITED
Against a rival (woman)
Read comparison hymn VII.35 (36) (3 verses)
Overpower away with power [our] other rivals; thrust back, O Jātavedas, those unborn; fill this royalty unto good fortune; let all the gods revel after him.
These hundred veins that are thine, and the thousand tubes—of them all of thine I have covered the opening with a stone.
The upper part of thy womb I make the lower; let there not be progeny to thee, nor birth; I make thee barren (asū́), without progeny; I make a stone thy cover.
Whitney–Lanman translation as printed (1905) · Read VII.35 (36) at Wikisource ↗
Agni is asked to guard two moments
The first half distinguishes rivals who have appeared from rivals still unborn. Agni must thrust the former out and push the latter back. These verbs imagine a boundary defended against both existing and future challenge. Yet an unborn rival is not an identifiable person in the poem. It is a category of anticipated competition. The line reaches beyond one dispute into a fantasy of enduring position: the speaker would be secure even before the next opponent comes into being. Its temporal sweep is more striking because it is compressed into a few words. The hymn does not say how that broad wish could be enacted or verified.
Fighters move from a distance to underfoot
The following phrase places antagonistic fighters beneath the speaker's feet. Agni's pushing away becomes a vertical picture of rank, with the speaker visibly above those who contest him. It is tempting to imagine a literal battlefield, but no battle is described. The word for fighters may serve a broader conflict image, since the poem gives no arms, terrain, or troop movement. As in many Atharvan imprecations, desired dominance is spoken as if it can be imposed by the utterance. The reader should keep the mode of speech clear: this is a petition for a relation of power, not a report that opponents were found lying below someone.
Aditi introduces a question of guilt
The close asks that the speaker be guiltless before Aditi. That changes the moral register of the verse. After calling for opponents to be displaced, the voice wants a clean standing in a divine order. It does not explain why guilt might arise, nor show that the speaker was innocent. The wish for victory and the wish for absolution sit side by side without a narrative to reconcile them. This tension makes VII.34 more complex than a simple hostile command. The poem displays the speaker's concern with the legitimacy of power at the very moment he requests power over others.
A shared opening receives different endings
Whitney reports only the opening half in Pāippalāda; other Vedic parallels likewise share the first portion but continue differently. The Aditi appeal therefore belongs to the particular Śaunaka form and should not be projected into every parallel. VII.35 opens with a similar fire-and-rivals phrase before turning toward royalty and, in later verses, a woman's reproductive body. The Kauśikasūtra links these passages in a fertility setting. That later application helps explain their reception, but a modern working made from either passage would be an invented adaptation. The different endings remain evidence that a portable phrase could serve distinct arguments.
WORKED READING
The shared first half and its changing finish
Set VII.34 beside VII.35.1. Their openings ask Agni or Jātavedas to push rivals away. VII.34 then imagines fighters underfoot and asks for innocence before Aditi; VII.35 moves toward royal fortune before its following verses target fertility. The comparison shows that a shared opening does not make two whole hymns equivalent. The closing line determines whether the forceful phrase ends in a plea for guiltlessness or in a quite different social and bodily concern. Aditi's closing role in VII.34 makes the request for dominance answer a separate anxiety about guilt, absent from the neighboring ending.