Atharva-Veda Samhita/Book III/Hymn 31
31. For welfare and long life.
[Brahman.—ekādaçarcam. pāpmahādevatyam. ānuṣṭubham: 4. bhurij; 5. virāṭprastārapan̄kti.]
Not found in Pāipp. Reckoned, with iv. 33 and vi. 26, to the pāpma (pāpmahā?) gaṇa (Kāuç. 30. 17, note), and used by Kāuç. (58. 3), with several others, in a ceremony for long life following initiation as a Vedic scholar; and vs. 10 (vss. 10 and 11, comm.) also in the āgrahāyaṇī sacrifice (24. 31). In Vāit. (13. 10), vs. 10 is uttered in the agniṣṭoma sacrifice by the sacrificer (the comm. says, by the brahman-priest) as he rises to mutter the apratiratha hymn. And the comm. (without quoting any authority) declares the hymn to be repeated by the brahman-priest near water in the pitṛmedha rite, after the cremation.
Translated: Weber, xvii. 310; Griffith, i. 127; Bloomfield, 51, 364.
1. The gods have turned away from old age; thou, O Agni; away from the niggard; I away from all evil [have turned], away from yákṣma, to union (sám) with life-time.
The acṛtan of our text is an error for avṛtan, which all the mss. (and, of course, SPP.) read; vi-vṛt is common in the sense 'part from.' The comm. gives instead avṛtam, which he takes as 2d dual, rendering it by viyojayatam, and understanding devā́ (p. devā́ḥ) as devāu, vocative, namely the two Açvins! and he supplies a yojayāmi also in the second half-verse, with an imam ⌊referring to the Vedic scholar⌋ for it to govern.
2. The cleansing one [has turned] away from mishap (ā́rti), the mighty one (çakrá) away from evil-doing; I away from etc. etc.
Pávamana in a might signify either soma or the wind; the comm understands here the latter.
3. The animals (paçú) of the village [have turned] away from those of the forest; the waters have gone (sṛ) away from thirst; I away from etc. etc.
All the mss. leave āpas in b unaccented, as if vocative; our text makes the necessary correction to ā́pas, and so does SPP. in his pada-text, while in saṁhitā he strangely (perhaps by an oversight?) retains āpas. The comm. paraphrases ví...asaran with vigatā bhavanti, not venturing to turn it into a causative as he did vy avṛtan. The Anukr. takes no notice of the redundant syllable in a.
4. Apart [from one another] go heaven-and-earth here (imé), away the roads, to one and another quarter; I away from etc. etc.
Itás in a is here understood as 3d dual of i, with Weber and with the comm. (= vigacchatas), since the meaning is thus decidedly more acceptable; its accent is easily enough explained as that of the verb in the former of two successive clauses involving it (though avṛtan was not accented in vs. 1 a). The redundancy in a is easily corrected by contracting to -pṛthvī; the Anukr., however, does not sanction this.
5. Tvashṭar harnesses (yuj) for his daughter a wedding-car (vahatú); at the news, all this creation (bhúvana) goes away; I away from etc. etc.
⌊Discussed at length by Bloomfield, JAOS. xv. 181 ff.⌋ An odd alteration of RV. X. 17. 1 a, b (our xviii. i. 53, which see), which reads kṛṇoti for yunakti, and sám eti for ví yāti; and it is very oddly thrust in here, where it seems wholly out of place; ví yāti must be rendered as above (differently from its RV. value), to make any connection with the refrain and with the preceding verses. Weber's suggestion that it is Tvashṭar's intent to marry his own daughter that makes such a stir is refuted by the circumstance that the verb used is active. According to the comm., vahatú is the wedding outfit (duhitrā saha prityā prasthāpanīyaṁ vastrālaṁkārādi dravyam), and yunakti is simply prasthāpayati. The pada-mss., in accordance with the later use of íti, reckon it here to pāda a.
6. Agni puts together the breaths; the moon is put together with breath: I away from etc. etc.
In this verse and those that follow, the refrain has hardly an imaginable relation with what precedes it; though here one may conjecture that analogies are sought for its last item, sám ā́yuṣā. According to the comm., Agni in a is the fire of digestion, and the breaths are the senses, which he fits for their work by supplying them nourishment; and the moon is soma ⌊considered as food; for which he quotes a passage quite like to ÇB. xi. 1. 619⌋.
7. By breath did the gods set in motion (sam-īray) the sun, of universal heroism: I away from etc. etc.
The comm. treats viçvatas and vīryam in a as independent words, and renders samāirayan in b by sarvatra prāvartayan.
8. By the breath of the long-lived, of the life-makers (āyuṣkṛ́t), do thou live; do not die: I away from etc. etc.
In this and the following verse, the comm. regards the young Vedic scholar (māṇavaka) as addressed.
9. With the breath of the breathing do thou breathe; be just here; do not die: I away from etc. etc.
Our Bp., with two of SPP's pada-mss. ⌊s.m.!⌋, accents ána at end of a. The comm. allows the first part of b to be addressed alternatively to breath.
10. Up with life-time; together with life-time; up with the sap of the herbs: I away from etc. etc.
The first half-verse, with the first half of our vs. 11, makes a verse occurring in several texts: TS. (i. 2. 81), TA. (iv. 42, vs. 31: agrees precisely with TS.), VS. (Kāṇv. ii. VII. 5), AÇS. (i. 3. 23), PGS. (iii. 2. 14). All these read svāyúṣā instead of sám ā́ytiṣā in a; and VS. and PGS. lack the second pāda. The comm. points out that asthāma is to be understood from vs. 11.
11. Hither with Parjanya's rain have we stood up immortal: I away from etc. etc.
The other texts (see under the preceding verse) all begin with út instead of ā́; for vṛṣṭyā́, TS.TA. have çúṣmeṇa, VS.AÇS. dhā́mabhis, PGS. dṛṣiyā; for b, PGS. gives pṛthivyāḥ saptadhāmabhiḥ, all the others úd asthām amṛ́tāṅ ánu. ⌊Here the comm., in citing the refrain, reads vyāham, which, as implying vy-ā-vṛt, is equally good.⌋
As in several cases above, it is obvious that this hymn has been expanded to a length considerably greater than properly belongs to it by breaking up its verses into two each, pieced out with a refrain. It would be easy to reduce the whole material to six verses, the norm of this book, by adding the refrain in vs. 1 only (or possibly also in vs. 4, with ejection of the senseless and apparently intruded vs. 5), and then combining the lines by pairs—as the parallel texts prove that vss. 10 and 11 are rightly to be combined. ⌊The critical status of ii. 10 is analogous; see the note to ii. 10. 2.⌋
The sixth and last anuvāka has 6 hymns, with 44 verses; and the old Anukr. reads: caturdaçā ’ntyaḥ (but further -ntyānuvākasaç ⌊çaç?⌋ ca saṁkhyā vidadhyād adhikānimittāt, which is obscure). ⌊☞ See p. cxl, top.⌋
Here ends also the sixth prapāṭhaka.
Not one of our mss. adds a summary of hymns and verses for the whole book.