Atharva-Veda Samhita/Book II/Hymn 12

12. ⌊Against such as would thwart my incantations.⌋

[Bharadvāja.—aṣṭarcam. nānādevatyam. trāiṣṭubham: 2. jagatī; 7, 8. anuṣṭubh.]

Found in Pāipp. ii., but in the verse-order 1, 3, 2, 4-6, 8, 7. The hymn is called by Kāuç. (47. 12) bharadvājapravraskam 'Bharadvāja's hewer-off' ⌊or 'cleaver'⌋ (from expressions in the verses), and is to accompany the cutting of a staff for use in rites of witchcraft (as at 47. 14, 16, 18; 48. 22); and its several verses are applied through an extended incantation (47. 25-57) against an enemy; the details of it throw no light upon their interpretation.

Translated: E. Schlagintweit, die Gottesurtheile der Indier (München, 1866, Abh. der bayer. Akad. der Wiss.), p. 13 ff.; Weber, xiii. 164; Ludwig, p. 445; Zimmer, p. 183; Grill, 47, 85; Griffith, i. 55; Bloomfield, JAOS. xiii., p. ccxxi f. (= PAOS. Oct. 1887) or AJP. xi. 334-5; SBE. xiii. 89, 294.—The first four interpreted it as accompanying a fire-ordeal; but Grill and Bloomfield have, with good reason, taken a different view. The native interpreters know nothing of any connection with an ordeal, nor is this to be read into the text without considerable violence.

1. Heaven-and-earth, the wide atmosphere, the mistress of the field, the wonderful wide-going one, and the wide wind-guarded atmosphere—let these be inflamed (tapya-) here while I am inflamed.

All the pada-mss. read at the end tapyámāne íti, as if the word were a dual fem. or neut.: a most gratuitous blunder; SPP's pada-text emends to -ne. Ppp. reads in d teṣu for tá ihá (which is, as in not infrequent other cases, to be contracted to té ’há; the Anukr. at least takes no notice of the irregularity here; but it also ignores the jagatī value of b). The comm. naturally explains the "wide-goer" as Vishṇu; he does not attempt to account for the mention of "the wide atmosphere" twice in the verse, though sometimes giving himself much trouble to excuse such a repetition. The last pāda he paraphrases by "just as I am endeavoring to destroy the hateful one, so may they also be injurers of [my] enemy, by not giving him place and the like": which is doubtless the general meaning.

2. Hear this, O ye gods that are worshipful (yajñíya); Bharadvāja sings (çaṅs) hymns (ukthá) for me; let him, bound in a fetter, be plunged (ni-yuj) in difficulty who injures this our mind.

That is, probably, our design or intent; the comm. says (inappropriately) idam púrvaṁ sanmārgapravṛttam mānasam: i.e. seduces us to evil courses. All the mss. chance to agree this time in omitting the visarga of yajñíyāḥ before sthá in a. But Ppp. reads tu instead of stha, and in b uktyāni çaṅsatu, as it often changes -ti to -tu; but here the imperative (or Weber's suggested çaṅsat) would improve the sense. ⌊Pronounce devaāḥ and reject sthá; the meter is then in order—12 + 12: 12 + 11.⌋

3. Hear this, O Indra, soma-drinker, as I call loudly to thee with a burning (çuc) heart; I hew (vraçc) him [down], as a tree with an ax, who injures this our mind.

Or (in b) 'call repeatedly'; the comm. says punaḥ punaḥ. Ppp. has in c vṛçcāsi. The comm. paraphrases kuliçena with vajrasadṛçena paraçunā. ⌊An orderly triṣṭubh is got by adding tvám after somapa.⌋

4. With thrice eighty sā́man-singers, with the Ādityas, the Vasus, the Angirases—let what is sacrificed-and-bestowed of the Fathers aid us—I take yon man with seizure (háras) of the gods.

Iṣṭapūrtám in c has probably already the later meaning of merit obtained by such sacred acts; the comm. says tadubhayajanitaṁ sukṛtam. Haras he calls a krodhanāman. He understands the 'three eighties' of a to be the triplets (tṛca) in gāyatrī, uṣṇih, and bṛhatī, eighty of each, spoken of in AA. i. 4. 3—simply because they are the only such groups that he finds mentioned elsewhere; the number is probably taken indefinitely, as an imposing one.

5. O heaven-and-earth, attend (ā-dīdhī) ye after me; O all ye gods, take ye hold (ā-rabh) after me; O Angirases, Fathers, soma-feasting (somyá), let the doer of abhorrence (apakāmá) meet with (ā-ṛ) evil.

Ppp. reads in a dīdhyatām ⌊cf. Bloomfield, AJP. xvii. 417⌋, and in d pāpasāricchetv ap-. The comm. does not recognize dīdhī as different from dīdī, rendering ādīpte bhavatam. ⌊In a, the accent-mark under -vī is missing.⌋

6. Whoso, O Maruts, thinks himself above us, or whoso shall revile our incantation (bráhman) that is being performed—for him let his wrongdoings be burnings (tápus); the sky shall concentrate its heat (sam-tap) upon the bráhman-hater.

The verse is RV. vi. 52. 2, with sundry variants. At the beginning, RV. has the better reading áti vā; in b, hriyámāṇaṁ nínitsāt; for d, brahmadvíṣam abhí táṁ çocatu dyāúḥ. Ppp. follows RV. in d (but with çoca for çocatu); in c it reads vrajanāni. The comm. renders vṛjinā́ni falsely by varjakāni bādhakāni.

7. Seven breaths, eight marrows: them I hew [off] for thee with [my] incantation; thou shalt go to Yama's seat, messengered by Agni, made satisfactory.

The last pāda is xviii. 2. 1 (RV. x. 14. 13) d. All our mss. and about half of SPP's have in a majñás (for majjñás); yet SPP. adopts in his text the reading manyás, because given by the comm., which explains it artificially as for dhamanyas, and signifying "a sort of vessels situated in the throat"; no such word appears to be known elsewhere in the language, and some of the mss. have in other passages of the text manyas for majñás. Our Bp. gives áyā at beginning of c; the word is translated above as ⌊áyās⌋, subjunctive of i with doubled subjunctive-sign (see my Skt. Gram. §560 e), or of its secondary root-form ay; the comm. takes it from yā, which makes him no difficulty, since in his view imperfect and imperative are equivalent, and he declares it used for yāhi. Ppp. reads for c yamasya gacha sādanam. ⌊In many parts of India today jñ and ny are phonetically equivalent. Cf. SPP's mss. for ix. 5. 23.⌋

8. I set thy track in kindled Jātavedas; let Agni dispose of (? viṣ) the body; let speech go unto breath (? ásu).

The verse is in part obscure; the comm. sets it in connection with one of the details of the Kāuç. ceremony: "I set or throw in the fire the dust from thy track combined with chopped leaves: i.e. I roast it in the roaster; let Agni, through this dust entering thy foot, pervade or burn thy whole body"; he takes ásu as simply equivalent to prāṇa, and explains: sarvendriyavyavahāraçūnyo bhavatu, become incapable of acting for the senses: i.e. become mere undifferentiated breath—which is perhaps the true meaning. ⌊Quite otherwise A. Kaegi—citation in Bloomfield, p. 294.⌋ The Anukr. apparently expects us to resolve ā́ at the beginning into a-ā́. Ppp. has in a ā dadāmi, and for d imaṁ gachatu te vasu. The last two verses are so discordant in style and content, as well as in meter, with the rest of the hymn that we can hardly consider them as properly belonging to it. Their omission, with that of the borrowed RV. verse (our 6), would reduce the hymn to the norm of this book.