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 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 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 taste of VI.139 is dryness
The many-leaved plant of VI.139 is addressed as a means of drying a chosen woman's heart. Her mouth, too, is to become dry while she wanders after the speaker. Verse 4 reinforces the comparison with a person deprived of water. The imagery is coherent and severe; it makes discomfort the engine of attachment. Verse 3 seeks a shared heart and verse 5 depicts a divided thing joined, but that desired end does not erase the means. A sweet dream reading would lift the final union image away from the poem's bodily cost. There is no word in the hymn for sleep, a pleasant dream, or a scene the woman enjoys in bed.
Honey belongs to another love logic
I.34 repeatedly invokes honey and sweetness, placing them on the speaker's tongue and extending them to speech, movement, and appearance. This language may be closer to what a modern reader calls sweet romance. Yet it is an appeal to make the petitioner lovable in waking social exchange, including a wish that the desired other not depart. The honey does not flavor a sleeping vision. Read against VI.139, I.34 shows that the collection can imagine attraction through a pleasing self-presentation as well as through another person's discomfort. The two rhetorical routes should not be blended into a single benign ancient spell simply because they both concern love.
The actual dream text wards trouble
VII.100 (105) consists of a request to turn away bad dreams, ill success, and dream-like pains. It does not manufacture a good dream to replace the bad one, much less place a particular person inside it. Its action is defensive and directed toward the speaker's relief. The presence of this short hymn is valuable precisely because it gives a check against wishful combination: the anthology certainly knows dreams, but the dream passage does not say what the modern benefit requires. VI.139 lacks sleep; I.34 lacks sleep; VII.100 lacks a love meeting. Taking one appealing noun from each would manufacture a new text that none of the three preserves.
The Sweet Dream is newly composed
“Make a target person see me in a sweet dream” and The Sweet Dream are modern creations. Their promise is not supplied by the plant, honey, or bad-dream hymns. The new image may be used as a literary way of expressing hope that affection feels welcome, but it should not be presented as an ancient method for directing someone else's sleep. A remembered dream cannot establish that an outside working caused it or that the dreamer wishes for a relationship. The historically useful insight is subtler: sweetness in I.34 modifies the speaker's presence, thirst in VI.139 presses upon another body, and VII.100 tries to remove distress from one's own sleep.
WORKED READING
Test the word sweet against each verse
Set VI.139.4's waterless dry mouth beside I.34's honeyed tongue. One metaphor deprives a desired woman; the other coats the petitioner's speech in sweetness. Then read the only verse of VII.100 (105), where bad dreams are dispatched rather than rewritten as pleasant ones. The modern phrase sweet dream borrows the taste of one hymn and the sleeping frame of another while assigning VI.139 as its anchor. The comparison reveals exactly where the combination becomes new, and why the discomfort in the plant charm must remain visible.