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 compel a woman's love
Nyastikā́ hast thou grown up, my good-fortune maker; a hundred [are] thy forth-stretchers, three and thirty thy down-stretchers. With this thousand-leafed [herb] I make dry thy heart.
Let thy heart dry up on me, then let [thy] mouth dry up; then dry thou up by loving me; then go thou about dry-mouthed.
A conciliator, a love-awakener (?), do thou, O brown, beauteous one, push together; push together both yon woman and me; make [our] heart the same.
As the mouth of one who has not drunk water dries away, so dry thou up by loving me, then go thou about dry-mouthed.
Read the remaining 1 verse of VI.139
As a mongoos, having cut apart, puts together again a snake, so, O powerful [herb], put together the divided of love.
Whitney–Lanman translation as printed (1905) · Read VI.139 at Wikisource ↗
ATHARVAVEDA · BOOK VI ALSO CITED
To win a man's love
Read comparison hymn VI.131 (3 verses)
Down from the head, down from the feet, thy longings (ādhī́) I draw down. Ye gods, send forth love; let yon [man] burn for me.
O Anumati, assent to (anu-man) this; O design (ā́kūti), mayest thou constrain (sam-nam) this. Ye gods, send etc. etc.
If (yát) thou runnest three leagues, five leagues, a horseman's day's journey, thence shalt thou come back; thou shalt be father of our sons.
Whitney–Lanman translation as printed (1905) · Read VI.131 at Wikisource ↗
ATHARVAVEDA · BOOK VII ALSO CITED
Against bad dreams
Read comparison hymn VII.100 (105) (1 verse)
I turn away from evil-dreaming, from bad dreaming, from ill-success (ábhūti); I make bráhman my inner [defense]; [I put] away the pains having the aspect of dreams.
Whitney–Lanman translation as printed (1905) · Read VII.100 (105) at Wikisource ↗
The last verse does not stand alone
VI.139.5 invokes a mongoose and a snake cut apart and rejoined. Whitney notes that the supposed animal action should not be read as ordinary natural history. The comparison's force is that separation can be reversed. Yet the charm begins by asking a plant to dry a woman's heart and mouth, and verse 4 repeats thirst as its central pressure. Verse 3 asks the two hearts to be put together. Reunion is therefore the endpoint of a sequence designed to make the desired woman suffer longing until she comes toward the petitioner. A modern dream of reunion often suggests mutual wish or emotional closure; the ancient poem gives no reason to assume either.
VI.131 brings the body home
VI.131, a neighboring women's love hymn, imagines a man returning from three or five leagues, even from as far as a horseman can ride in a day. Its third verse adds the hope that he will father the woman's sons. This is a strikingly concrete return: distance, travel, and future household life, not a meeting during sleep. The speaker's perspective also differs from the male-directed VI.139 charm. Both texts seek someone who is absent or not yet joined, but one uses a plant's inflicted thirst and a rejoining image, while the other names the journey back and the desired family outcome. That comparison keeps reunion from becoming a vague, interchangeable mood.
Dreams in VII.100 are unwanted
VII.100 (105) does address dreaming, but asks for bad dreams and dream-like pains to be carried away. It does not request a dream encounter with an absent lover. Its brevity makes the contrast unusually clear: a one-verse protective appeal cannot supply the narrative of a reunion dream. The collection's separate treatment of dreams and returning persons allows a modern writer to imagine their meeting, but the joined scene is authored today. It would be especially misleading to say VI.139's snake image proves someone will appear in a dream; the verse is a simile about putting a relationship together, with no sleeping setting or promise of nighttime contact.
The Reunion Dream is a modern extension
“Make a target person dream of our reunion” and The Reunion Dream are original contemporary creations. None of these hymns teaches control over another person's dream. The benefit also assumes a shared relationship behind the word our, while VI.139 provides mainly the petitioner's desire and little voice for the woman it targets. A dream may still help someone process separation, but the historical evidence cannot certify another person's feelings, consent, or future return. The most honest use of the texts is as a comparison of imagined repair, physical return, and the removal of disturbing dreams, each with its own stated action.
WORKED READING
Separate three kinds of return
Read VI.139.5 as a metaphor of the mongoose joining the divided snake, then go back to VI.139.1–2 to see the coercive dryness that precedes it. In VI.131.3, return has measurable distance and the prospect of children; the man comes back in the world of travel. VII.100 (105) sends painful dreams away rather than calling a lover into them. The three verses share an interest in what is absent, but they solve different problems. Their comparison can inspire a new reunion dream without turning that invented dream into an ancient claim.