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 destroy some one's virile power
Hew on, after ancient fashion, as it were the knot of a creeper; harm the force of the barbarian (dāsá).
We, by Indra's aid, will share among us this collected good of his; I relax the vigor (? çibhrám) of thy member (?) by Varuṇa's vow (vratá).
That the member may go off, and may be impotent (? ánāvayas) toward women, of the depending, inciting (?), peg-like, in-thrusting one, what is stretched, that do thou unstretch; what is stretched up, that do thou stretch down.
Whitney–Lanman translation as printed (1905) · Read VII.90 (95) 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 ↗
The plant knot makes severance visible
Verse 1 asks for a knot of a creeper to be hewn after ancient fashion and for an opponent's force to be harmed. The plant is a model of something that binds or connects; cutting it pictures interruption. The line is not yet the anatomically explicit speech of verse 3. Whitney notes that this verse and the first half of verse 2 correspond to part of Rigveda VIII.40.6, with a refrain added in the later setting. Reused wording can carry a new direction when placed beside a different conclusion. Here a familiar appeal toward Indra is drawn into an intimate, hostile bodily wish.
The second verse changes register midway
Its first half asks, with Indra's help, to share the opponent's gathered good. That might belong to a contest over possessions or power. The second half turns toward relaxing the vigor of a bodily member through Varuṇa's vow. Whitney calls the translation of the key term tentative; the word behind the supposed vigor is uncertain. The verse therefore stands at the seam between older praise and the subsequent sexualized attack. Treating it as a seamless ancient anatomy lesson would erase the textual difficulty. The shift is meaningful precisely because the poem asks divine support to cross from general advantage into control over another person's body.
The last verse is explicit and lexically unstable
Verse 3 wishes impotence toward women and repeatedly commands what is raised or stretched to be undone or lowered. The target is male sexual capacity, but the cluster of epithets in Whitney's translation is largely conjectural. A reader can identify the hostile direction without pretending every descriptive word has a secure meaning. The later Kauśikasūtra use against a wife's lover supplies a specific social setting, yet the verse itself does not narrate an affair, give the parties' names, or confirm wrongdoing. Its speaker acts out jealousy or rivalry through a claim over another person's body. That claim should be stated plainly rather than softened into 'relationship harmony.'
A nearby hymn targets fertility from another direction
VII.35.2-3 imagines blocking a woman's reproductive passages with a stone; VII.90 imagines disabling a man's virile capacity. These are not the same act, but both are hostile bodily speech arising from social rivalry. Their comparisons show how a catalog of 'curse' hymns can obscure the particular body and agency each one targets. Whitney says VII.90's first portions and later verses do not seem naturally joined, as with the awkward structure of VII.35. A present-day working inspired by the hymn would be invented, not an inherited ancient treatment. The text cannot establish that spoken words caused impotence in any actual person.
WORKED READING
A worked comparison
Place VII.90.1 beside VII.90.3. The first pictures a creeper's knot being cut; the third directly demands a loss of sexual function. The movement from plant image to body is the poem's crucial escalation. Compare VII.35.2-3, where a stone seals the imagined openings of a woman's reproductive body. Both verses seek control through obstruction, yet their targets and images differ. That specificity matters more than a broad label such as 'rival spell'. The cut creeper is an analogy for severance; the final verse removes any doubt that the speaker means sexual harm.