Atharva-Veda Samhita/Book I/Hymn 22

22. Against yellowness (jaundice).

[Brahman.—sāuryam uta mantroktaharimadevatyam. ānuṣṭubham.]

Found in Pāipp. i. Used by Kāuç. (26. 14) in a remedial rite (against heart disease and jaundice [kāmala, Keç.; kāmila, the comm.]).

Translated: Weber, iv. 415; A. Kuhn, KZ. xiii. 113; Griffith, i. 26; Bloomfield, 7, 263.—Cf. also Zimmer, p. 388; Bloomfield, AJP. xii. 437; Bergaigne-Henry, Manuel, p. 134. Kuhn adduces analogous old Germanic charms.

1. Let them (both) go up toward the sun, thy heart-burn (-dyota) and yellowness; with the color of the red bull, with that we enclose (pari-dhā) thee.

Ppp. reads in a udetām; its c is yo rohitasya gor varṇas, which construes better with d. The abbreviated writing hṛdyot- for hṛddyot- (see my Skt. Gr. §232 a ⌊and Roth, ZDMG. xlviii. 102⌋) betrays the pada-text into dividing hṛ॰dytotáḥ (cf. tád yā́m, iv. 19. 6; so even the RV. pada-text has jarat॰víṣam from jaraddvíṣam at v. 8. 2). SPP. has properly in his text the unabbreviated form hṛddyo-. U'd॰ayatām in the AV. Index Verborum is an erratum for úd ayatām: the comm. takes the form, doubtless wrongly, as 3d sing. mid. instead of 3d du. active. Kāuç. follows the indication of c, d, and of 3 a, b, by prescribing the use of products of a red cow, hair and skin etc., in the healing rite.

2. With red colors we enclose thee, in order to length of life; that this man may be free from complaints (-rápas), also may become not yellow.

Ppp. has a different second half-verse: yathā tvam arapā 'so atho 'hārito bhava. The third pāda is iv. 13. 4 d (or RV. x. 137. 5 d). The comm. explains rapas as = pāpa.

3. They that have the red one for divinity, and the kine that are red—form after form, vigor (váyas) after vigor, with them we enclose thee.

The translation implies the easy emendation in a to róhiṇīdevatyās, in accordance with the universal use of devatya elsewhere. The 'red one' is perhaps the red star (or lunar asterism) Rohiṇī, our Aldebaran. Ppp. reads rohiṇīr devatyā, and in b rohiṇīr uta; in d it has tena tvā.

4. In the parrots, in the ropaṇā́kās, we put thy yellowness; likewise in the hā́ridravas we deposit thy yellowness.

Not one of our mss. gives at the beginning the true reading çúkesu, as found in RV. i. 50. 12 ⌊and Ppp.⌋ (and TB. iii. 7. 6²²), but it is presented by the comm., and by three of SPP's authorities. RV. and TB. have me for te both times, and accent hāridravéṣu. The names are understood by the comm. as those of birds: ropaṇākā = kāṣṭhaçuka, apparently a kind of parrot, and hāridrava = gopītanaka, apparently a yellow water-wagtail. ⌊Ppp. has in b prapaṇākāça.⌋