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 X IN FOCUS
Preparation and use of water-thunderbolts
Indra's force are ye; Indra's power are ye; Indra's strength are ye; Indra's heroism are ye; Indra's manliness are ye; unto a conquering junction (yóga) with brahman-junctions I join you.
Indra's force etc. etc.; unto a conquering junction, with kṣatrá-junctions I join you.
Indra's force etc. etc.; unto a conquering junction, with Indra-junctions I join you.
Indra's force etc. etc.; unto a conquering junction, with Soma-junctions I join you.
Read the remaining 46 verses of X.5
Indra's force etc. etc.; unto a conquering junction, with water-junctions I join you.
Indra's force etc. etc.; unto a conquering junction; let all existences wait upon (upa-sthā) me; joined to me are ye, O waters.
Agni's portion are ye, sperm (? çukrám) of the waters, O heavenly waters; put ye splendor in us; with the ordinance (dhā́man) of Prajāpati I set you for this world.
Indra's portion are ye, sperm of the etc. etc.
Soma's portion are ye, sperm of the etc. etc.
Varuṇa's portion are ye, sperm of the etc. etc.
Mitra-and-Varuṇa's portion are ye, sperm of the etc. etc.
Yama's portion are ye, sperm of the etc. etc.
The Fathers' portion are ye, sperm of the etc. etc.
God Savitar's portion are ye, sperm of the etc. etc.
What of you, O waters, is the portion of waters within the waters, of the nature of sacrificial formula, sacrificing to the gods, that now I let go; that let me not wash down against myself; that do we let go against him who hates us, whom we hate; him may I slay (vadh), him may I lay low, with this spell (bráhman), with this act, with this weapon (mení).
What of you, O waters, is the wave of the waters within the waters, etc. etc.
What of you, O waters, is the young (vatsá) of the waters within the waters, etc. etc.
What of you, O waters, is the bull of the waters within the waters etc. etc.
What of you, O waters, is the golden embryo of the waters within the waters, etc. etc.
What of you, O waters, is the heavenly spotted stone of the waters within the waters, etc. etc.
What of you, O waters, are the fires of the waters within the waters, of the nature of sacrificial formula, sacrificing to the gods, them now I let go; them let me not wash down against myself; them we let go against him who hates us, etc. etc.
What untruth soever we have spoken since a three years' period,—let the waters protect me from all that difficulty, from distress.
I send you forth to the ocean; go ye unto your own lair; uninjured, of completed years (?); and let nothing whatever ail (am) us.
Free from defilement (-riprá) [are] the waters; [let them carry] away from us defilement, forth from us sin, mishap (duritá), they of good aspect; let them carry forth evil dreaming, forth filth.
Vishṇu's stride art thou, rival-slaying, earth-sharpened (-sáṁçita), Agni-brightened; after earth I stride out; from earth we disportion him who hates us, whom we hate; let him not live; him let breath quit.
Vishṇu's stride art thou, rival-slaying, atmosphere-sharpened, Vayu-brightened; after atmosphere I stride out; from atmosphere we disportion him who etc. etc.
Vishṇu's stride art thou, rival-slaying, sky-sharpened, sun-brightened; after the sky I stride out; from the sky we disportion him who etc. etc.
Vishṇu's stride art thou, rival-slaying, quarter-sharpened, mind-brightened; after the quarters I stride out; from the quarters we disportion him who etc. etc.
Vishṇu's stride art thou, rival-slaying, region-sharpened, wind-brightened; after the regions I stride out; from the regions we disportion him who etc. etc.
Vishṇu's stride art thou, rival-slaying, verse-(ṛ́c-)sharpened, chant-(sā́man-)brightened; after the verses I stride out; from the verses we disportion him who etc. etc.
Vishṇu's stride art thou, rival-slaying, sacrifice-sharpened, bráhman-brightened; after the sacrifice I stride out; from the sacrifice we disportion him who etc. etc.
Vishṇu's stride art thou, rival-slaying, herb-sharpened, sóma-brightened; after the herbs I stride out; from the herbs we disportion him who etc. etc.
Vishṇu's stride art thou, rival-slaying, water-sharpened, Varuṇa-brightened; after the waters I stride out; from the waters we disportion him who etc. etc.
Vishṇu's stride art thou, rival-slaying, plowing-sharpened, food-brightened; after plowing I stride out; from plowing we disportion him who etc. etc.
Vishṇu's stride art thou, rival-slaying, breath-sharpened, man-(púruṣa-)brightened; after breath I stride out; from breath we disportion him who etc. etc.
Ours [is] what is conquered, ours what has shot up; I have withstood (abhi-sthā) all fighters, niggards; now do I involve (ni-veṣṭ) the splendor, brightness, breath, life-time of him of such-and-such lineage, son of such-and-such mother; now do I make him fall (pad) downward.
I turn after the sun's turn (āvṛ́t), after his turn to the right; let it yield (yam) me property; [let] it [yield] me Brahman-splendor.
I turn toward the quarters full of light; let them yield me property, let them etc. etc.
I turn toward the seven seers; let them yield etc. etc.
I turn toward the bráhman; let it yield etc. etc.
I turn toward the Brahmans; let them yield etc. etc.
Whom we hunt, him will we lay low with deadly weapons; by our spell (bráhman) have we made him fall (pad) into the opened mouth of the most exalted one.
The missile hath closed upon him with the two tusks of Vāiçvānara; let this offering (ā́huti) devour him, the very powerful divine fuel.
King Varuṇa's bond art thou; do thou bind so-and-so, of such-and-such lineage, son of such-and-such mother, in food, in breath.
What food of thine, O Lord of earth (bhū́), dwells upon the earth (pṛthivī́)—of that, O lord of earth, do thou furnish unto us, O Prajāpati.
The heavenly waters have I honored; with sap have we been mingled; rich in milk, O Agni, have I come; unite me here with splendor.
Unite me, O Agni, with splendor, with progeny, with life-time; may the gods know me as such; may Indra know, together with the seers.
What, O Agni, the pair utter in curses today, what harshness of speech the reciters produce: the shaft that is born of fury of the mind—with that pierce thou the sorcerers in the heart.
Crush away the sorcerers with heat; crush away, O Agni, the demon with flame; crush away with burning the false worshipers; crush away the greatly gleaming ones that feed on lives.
I, knowing, hurl at this man, to split his head, the four-pointed (-bhṛṣṭí) thunderbolt of the waters; let it crush all his limbs: to this on my part let all the gods assent.
Whitney–Lanman translation as printed (1905) · Read X.5 at Wikisource ↗
ATHARVAVEDA · BOOK VII ALSO CITED
Against enemies
Read comparison hymn VII.114 (119) (2 verses)
I take from thy entrails (vakṣáṇā), I take from thy heart, from the aspect of thy face, I take all thy splendor.
Forth from here let anxieties go, forth regrets (? anudhyā́), and forth imprecations; let Agni smite the she-demoniacs; let Soma smite the abusers (f.).
Whitney–Lanman translation as printed (1905) · Read VII.114 (119) at Wikisource ↗
Waters are first joined to victory
Verses 1 through 6 repeatedly name the waters as Indra's force and join them to a conquering purpose. Verses 15 through 21 release aspects of water against one who hates the speakers, while asking that the waters not wash back upon their own side. The latter request is a directional safeguard within the poem's logic. It imagines a force that must be aimed away from the speakers. The water is not simply a cleansing substance here. Its wave, young one, bull, embryo, stone, and fires are invoked as potential hostile powers. This wide imagery forms the background against which verse 36's personal target later appears.
The strides divide the world against the foe
Verses 25 through 35 call each passage a rival-slaying stride of Viṣṇu and move through earth, atmosphere, sky, sacrifice, herbs, water, plowing, and breath. Each domain becomes a place from which the enemy is separated. The repetition makes the foe lose position in successive layers of the world. Verse 35 ends at breath, sharpening the transition to verse 36's direct list of what the speaker would take from a particular person. The poem does not name a modern diagnosis or a real loss of life force. It uses cosmic movement to prepare a claim of total advantage over an opponent.
Verse 36 narrows the address to lineage
The speaker now says what is conquered belongs to his side, claims to have withstood fighters, and encloses the splendor, brightness, breath, and lifetime of a person designated by lineage and mother. This is a formulaic way of specifying an opponent, not evidence that the person is historically identifiable from the surviving text. Whitney notes uncertainty about whether verse 36 belongs with the strides or stands as its own division. That uncertainty should stay visible. The verse intensifies the earlier exclusion by gathering prestige and life into one list, then demanding that the target fall downward. The rhetorical claim remains unverified.
A shorter hymn extracts splendor differently
VII.114.1 also claims to take another person's splendor, but it names the heart, entrails, and face. X.5.36 wraps splendor together with breath and lifetime after a huge sequence of water and cosmic strides. One imagines extraction from bodily sites; the other encloses qualities around a named foe. Pāippalāda has the first main divisions of X.5 but only portions of its late division elsewhere, so not every reader inherited the same full progression. A contemporary water working based on the hymn is newly composed; the ancient lines cannot promise loss of health or status to anyone.
WORKED READING
A worked comparison
Compare X.5.35 and 36. The last stride is sharpened by breath and moves from breath against the rival; the next verse names splendor, brightness, breath, and lifetime as things to enclose around a particular opponent. The adjacency links cosmic exclusion to bodily depletion, even if verse 36's editorial division is uncertain. Then compare VII.114.1, where splendor is taken from heart and face. Both are coercive claims, but X.5 embeds the taking in a large water-and-stride sequence that VII.114 does not have. The adjacent verses compress a huge spatial stride into a claim about an individual's breath; that change of scale is the interpretive hinge.