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 an enemy's sacrifice
Whatsoever he yonder offers with mind, and what with voice, with sacrifices, with oblation, with sacred formula (yájus), that let perdition, in concord with death, smite, his offering, before it comes true.
The sorcerers, perdition, also the demon—let them smite his truth with untruth; let the gods, sent by Indra, disturb (math) his sacrificial butter; let not that meet with success which he yonder offers.
Let the two speedy over-kings, like two falcons flying together, smite the sacrificial butter of the foeman, whosoever shows malice against us.
Turned away [are] both thine arms; I fasten up thy mouth; with the fury of divine Agni—therewith have I smitten thine oblation.
Read the remaining 1 verse of VII.70 (73)
I fasten back thine arms; I fasten up thy mouth; with the fury of terrible Agni—therewith have I smitten thine oblation.
Whitney–Lanman translation as printed (1905) · Read VII.70 (73) at Wikisource ↗
ATHARVAVEDA · BOOK V ALSO CITED
Against enemies: to Indra and other gods
Read comparison hymn V.8 (9 verses)
With fuel of víkan̄kata do thou carry the sacrificial butter to the gods; O Agni, make them revel here; let all come to my call.
O Indra, come to my call; this will I do; that hear thou; let these over-runners (? atisará) of Indra's bring to pass (sam-nam) my design; by them may we be equal to (çak) heroism, O Jātavedas, self-controller.
What he there yonder, O gods, being godless, desires to do—let not Agni carry his oblation; let not the gods go to his call; come ye only (evá) unto my call.
Overrun (ati-dhāv), ye over-runners; slay by Indra's spell (vácas); shake (math) ye as a wolf [shakes] a sheep; let him not be released from you alive; shut up his breath.
What brahmán they yonder have put forward for failure (åpabhūti), [be] he beneath thy feet, O Indra; him I cast unto death.
If they have gone forward to the gods' strongholds (-purā), have made incantation (bráhman) their defenses—if (? yát) making a body-protection, a complete protection, they have encouraged themselves (upa-vac): all that do thou make sapless.
What over-runners he yonder has made, and what he shall make, do thou, O Indra, Vṛtra-slayer, turn (ā-kṛ) them back again, that they may shatter (tṛh) yon person (jána).
As Indra, taking Udvācana, put [him] underneath his feet, so do I put down them yonder, through everlasting (çáçvat) years (sámā).
Here, O Indra, Vṛtra-slayer, do thou, formidable, pierce them in the vitals; just here do thou trample upon them; O Indra, thine ally am I; we take hold on thee, O Indra; may we be in thy favor.
Whitney–Lanman translation as printed (1905) · Read V.8 at Wikisource ↗
The first verse dismantles a complete rite
The opening catalogs an adversary's mind, voice, sacrifice, oblation, and formula. These are components of an intentional performance: inner purpose, spoken form, material gift, and sacred utterance. By naming them one after another, the speaker imagines disrupting the entire route from intention to result. The wish that death and perdition overtake the opponent before fulfillment makes timing essential. The poem is not content with later punishment for a rival; it wants the rival's appeal to fail in progress. That gives VII.70 a distinctive kind of hostility: it contests another person's access to effective ritual speech and offering.
Butter is the contested medium
Verse 2 calls on Indra-sent powers to disturb the rival's sacrificial butter and make the rite ineffective. In Vedic sacrifice, butter is a normal vehicle of offering, so to trouble it is to interrupt communication between worshiper and gods. The accusation of untruth and demonic interference frames the other side's rite as illegitimate, but the poem gives no independent evidence of deception. Its labels are partisan. The rival's piety becomes the very thing to be attacked. This is why translating the hymn into a generic 'defeat a rival' theme would miss its social sharpness: competing worship is pictured as an arena of power.
The middle verses shift from flight to restraint
Whitney treats the falcon-like figures that strike the butter in verse 3 as difficult to identify with certainty. Their force in the sequence is clearer than their precise referent: they swoop into the vulnerable offering. Verses 4 and 5 then narrow the attack toward the rival's body and action, binding arms and closing the mouth before Agni's heat reaches the oblation. The hymn moves from broad sabotage of the rite to disabling the limbs and voice that would carry it out. That progression makes the imagery cumulative. Where the first verse lists the dimensions of a sacrifice, the last verses imagine each avenue blocked.
A shorter companion reveals the same contested space
Atharvaveda V.8 also turns against a rival's offering, but VII.70 gives a fuller anatomy of failure: intention, utterance, butter, body, and divine fire. Whitney reports only its first two verses in Pāippalāda, a warning against assuming the five-verse Śaunaka sequence was always transmitted as one complete unit. Later pairing with VI.54 brings the hymn into another rite of contesting power, but that reception does not identify the original rival. A modern retelling must keep the historical boundary visible: these are poetic imprecations within a sacrificial world, not a proven recipe for stopping someone else's worship.
WORKED READING
A worked reading
Take verse 1's list—mind, voice, sacrifice, oblation, formula—and follow how the next verses answer it. Butter becomes the material target; falcon imagery supplies an attacking motion; arms and mouth are restrained; Agni is invoked against the offering. Compare V.8, another hostile treatment of a rival's oblation. VII.70 is unusually systematic because it maps the rite's potential channels and then imagines them failing one by one. The comparison clarifies why the target is ritual efficacy itself, not only the person making the offering. The falcon image supplies speed, while the inventory of mind and voice explains why speed alone cannot undo the rival rite.