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 a rival (woman)
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 ↗
ATHARVAVEDA · BOOK VII ALSO CITED
To Agni: against enemies
Read comparison hymn VII.34 (35) (1 verse)
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 ↗
An opening that seems to belong next door
Verse 1 repeats a fire-and-rivals opening close to VII.34. It asks Jātavedas to thrust born rivals away and unborn rivals back, then turns toward the good fortune of a realm and the gods' favor. That is a political register, not yet a direct address to the woman of verses 2 and 3. Other Vedic parallels share the first half but differ in their continuations. The Pāippalāda form of VII.35's first verse changes its closing, according to Whitney. The opening therefore has a history of being joined to different outcomes, and it should not be forced to predict the bodily attack that follows.
A numbered body becomes a sealed passage
Verse 2 speaks of a hundred veins and a thousand tubes, then imagines covering all their openings with a stone. The numbers make a body feel complex and abundant, while the stone reverses that abundance by closing passage. This is an imagined act of coercion against a woman's reproductive capacity, not a benign health request. The verse does not explain the anatomy in modern terms, and it would be misleading to read its numbers as measured biology. Its rhetoric is totalization: every route the speaker imagines should be shut. The stone supplies a hard, visible object for that wish of obstruction.
The third verse makes the intention explicit
Verse 3 turns the womb upside down in speech, denies progeny and birth, and repeats the stone as a cover. The movement from the many imagined tubes of verse 2 to the direct command over the womb removes any doubt about the hostile intention. Whitney notes a manuscript division between readings in one line concerning birth or a son, but the overall target of fertility remains clear. The speaker's voice claims power over someone else's body. Modern readers need not accept that claim to understand the historical text. Nor does the poem provide evidence that any person became infertile because it was spoken.
The discontinuity is part of the evidence
Whitney describes the mismatch between verse 1 and verses 2 and 3 as so strong that the unit is difficult to understand as one coherent original hymn. Yet the manuscript authorities do not disagree about its received division. That tension is productive: textual history can preserve an awkward combination rather than a smooth authorial plan. VII.34 helps isolate the shared first-verse formula, while VII.35's later verses show its relocation into a hostile women's rite in later use. A contemporary ritual attached to this page is an invented adaptation. It should never be presented as the exact ancient practice or as proof of an effect on fertility.
WORKED READING
A worked comparison
Read VII.34's single verse beside VII.35.1: each begins by asking fire to push away rivals. VII.34 closes with fighters beneath the speaker and guiltlessness before Aditi; VII.35.1 closes with royal fortune. Then VII.35.2-3 pivot to closing a woman's reproductive openings with a stone. The comparison identifies a shared portable opening and a disturbing change of target inside the received three-verse unit. Its unevenness is evidence to analyze, not a flaw to hide. The stone image makes the later verses a bodily coercion, much more specific and disturbing than the portable rival formula at their opening.