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 VI IN FOCUS
To win a man's love
Of the Apsarases, chariot-conquering, belonging to the chariot-conquering, [is] this the love (smará): ye gods, send forth love; let yon [man] burn for (anu-çuc) me.
Let yon [man] love (smṛ) me; being dear, let him love me: ye gods, send etc. etc.
That yon [man] may love me, not I him at any time, ye gods, send etc. etc.
Craze (un-māday-) [him], O Maruts; O atmosphere, craze [him]; O Agni, do thou craze [him]; let yon [man] burn for me.
Whitney–Lanman translation as printed (1905) · Read VI.130 at Wikisource ↗
ATHARVAVEDA · BOOK I ALSO CITED
A love-spell: with a sweet herb
Read comparison hymn I.34 (5 verses)
This plant is honey-(mádhu-)born; with honey we dig thee; forth from honey art thou engendered; ⌊so⌋ do thou make us possessed of honey.
At the tip of my tongue honey, at the root of my tongue honeyedness; mayest thou be altogether in my power (krátu), mayest thou come unto my intent (cittá).
Honeyed (mádhumant) [is] my in-stepping, honeyed my forth-going; with my voice I speak what is honeyed; may I be of honey-aspect.
Than honey am I sweeter (mádhu), than the honey-plant more honeyed; of me verily shalt thou be fond (? van), as of a honeyed branch.
About thee with an encompassing (paritatnú) sugar-cane have I gone, in order to absence of mutual hatred; that thou mayest be one loving me, that thou mayest be one not going away from me.
Whitney–Lanman translation as printed (1905) · Read I.34 at Wikisource ↗
ATHARVAVEDA · BOOK III ALSO CITED
For concord
Read comparison hymn III.30 (7 verses)
Like-heartedness, like-mindedness, non-hostility do I make for you; do ye show affection (hary) the one toward the other, as the inviolable [cow] toward her calf when born.
Be the son submissive to the father, like-minded with the mother; let the wife to the husband speak words (vā́c) full of honey, wealful.
Let not brother hate brother, nor sister sister; becoming accordant (samyáñc), of like courses, speak ye words auspiciously (bhadráyā).
That incantation in virtue of which the gods do not go apart, nor hate one another mutually, we perform in your house, concord for [your] men (púruṣa).
Having superiors (jyā́yasvant), intentful, be ye not divided, accomplishing together, moving on with joint labor (sádhura); come hither speaking what is agreeable one to another; I make you united (sadhrīcī́na), like-minded.
Your drinking (prapā́) [be] the same, in common your share of food; in the same harness (yóktra) do I join ⌊yuj⌋ you together; worship ye Agni united, like spokes about a nave.
United, like-minded I make you, of one bunch, all of you, by [my] conciliation; [be] like the gods defending immortality (amṛ́ta); late and early be well-willing yours.
Whitney–Lanman translation as printed (1905) · Read III.30 at Wikisource ↗
VI.130 speaks to gods, not to a listener
Atharvaveda VI.130 is voiced as a petition for a man's love. The opening invokes Apsarases and asks gods to send love so that the man burn for the speaker. Verses 2 and 3 repeat the request, with verse 3 startlingly asking that he love her while she does not love him. The final verse recruits Maruts, atmosphere, and Agni to intensify his condition. The hymn's engine is repeated divine dispatch and heat, not an attractive human voice. Whitney records it as part of a cluster used in a later women's rite, and he notes that VI.130–132 are absent from the Paippalāda recension. Those facts specify textual and ritual history; they do not turn the hymn into a modern voice exercise.
I.34 places sweetness on the speaker's tongue
I.34 offers a closer image for how somebody sounds. Verse 2 puts honey at the tip and root of the tongue, and verse 3 speaks of a honeyed voice alongside sweet coming and going. The speaker's utterance and bearing are the first things transformed in the poem. Yet the closing verse also seeks a beloved who will love and not leave, while verse 2 wishes the addressee to follow the speaker's intent. Its sweetness is persuasive rather than merely decorative. Whitney's notes on later uses in disputation and marriage show that its speech imagery could serve more than one social aim. It does not say that any particular timbre becomes irresistible.
Household words need a relationship
III.30.2 asks that a wife speak honeyed, beneficial words to her husband. Verse 3 turns to auspicious speech between siblings, and verse 5 asks a larger group to say what is agreeable to one another while working together. This is language embedded in ongoing household ties, not a magic quality in one person's vocal sound. It also reflects the hierarchy of its own social setting. Compared with VI.130's repeated demand that a man burn, the concord hymn ties words to a network of roles and common life. The poems therefore distinguish a sound, an utterance, and a relationship, even when a modern wish compresses them into attraction.
The modern remembered voice
“Make a target person find my voice irresistible” and The Remembered Voice are contemporary inventions. Neither VI.130 nor I.34 specifies a recording, a call, or a guaranteed reaction to vocal tone. A reader may understand the ancient honey as a metaphor for pleasant speaking and the burning refrain as a vivid expression of unequal desire. That interpretation does not establish that speech can override another person's preference. Indeed VI.130.3's asymmetry makes the ethical issue impossible to miss: the speaker wants the man's attachment without equal attachment of her own. A present-day account of being drawn to a voice should preserve the other listener's independent response.
WORKED READING
Listen for the speaker's and the beloved's voices
In I.34.3 the speaker says that their own voice will be honeyed. In III.30.2 a wife is asked to speak honeyed words in a household relationship. In VI.130.2 the speaker does not describe the man's voice at all; the verse repeats the plea that he love her. The three passages put speech in different places: self-presentation, family concord, and divine petition for desire. Even if a modern listener calls a voice irresistible, that precise effect is absent from the hymns. The comparison prevents the attractive honey image from being projected onto every passage about love.