Atharva-Veda Samhita/Book IV/Hymn 6

6. Against the poison of a poisoned arrow.

[Garutman.—aṣṭarcam. takṣakadevatyam. ānuṣṭubham.]

Found (except vs. 1) in Pāipp. v. Used by Kāuç. (with, as the schol. and the comm. say, the next following hymn also) in a rite (28. 1 ff.) of healing for poison, with homage to Takṣaka, chief of the serpent gods; and the schol. (but not the comm.) declare it to be employed elsewhere (29. 1; 32. 20) in similar rites involving Takṣaka. There is no specific reference in the hymn to serpent poison, but distinctly to vegetable poison; and the comm. regards kanda or kandamūla ('tuber' and 'tuber-root') as the plant intended.

Translated: Ludwig, p. 512; Griffith, i. 136; Bloomfield, 25, 373; Weber, xviii. 23.—Cf. Bergaigne-Henry, Manuel, p. 145.

1. The Brahman was born first, with ten heads, with ten mouths; he first drank the soma; he made the poison sapless.

The absence of this verse in Ppp., and the normal length of the hymn without it, together with its own senselessness, suggest strongly the suspicion of its unoriginality. To put meaning into it, the comm. maintains that the serpents have castes, as men have; and that their primal Brahman was Takṣaka.

2. As great as [are] heaven-and-earth by their width, as much as the seven rivers spread out (vi-sthā), [so far] have I spoken out from here these words (vā́c), spoilers of poison.

Tā́vatīm in d for tā́m itas would be a welcome emendation. The first half-verse occurs in VS. (xxxviii. 26 a, b: not quoted in ÇB.) and TS. (in iii. 2. 6¹): VS. omits varimṇā́;- TS. has instead mahitvā́; both rectify the meter of b by adding ca after yā́vat (Ppp. adds instead vā); and for our rather fantastic vitaṣṭhiré (p. vi॰tasthiré) VS. has -tasthiré and TS. -tasthús. The comm. also reads -sthire; the lingualization is one of the cases falling under Prāt. ii. 93. The comm. glosses in b sindhavas by samudrās, and vitasthire by vyāvartante. This irregular prastāra-pan̄kti is overlooked by the Anukr. in its treatment of the meter.

3. The winged (garutmant) eagle consumed (av) thee first, O poison; thou hast not intoxicated (mad), thou hast not racked (rup) [him]; and thou becamest drink for him.

At beginning of b, víṣa is read only ⌊by Ppp. and⌋ by the comm. and by one of SPP's mss. that follows him; all the rest have the gross blunder víṣaḥ (both editions emend to víṣa). Ppp. gives ādayat in b, and its second half-verse reads nā ’ropayo nā ’mādayo tāsmā bhavan pituḥ, thus removing the objectionable confusion of tenses made by our text. Our arūrupas is quoted as counter-example by the comment to Prāt. iv. 86. The first pāda might be rendered also 'the well-winged Garutmant,' and the comm. so understands it, adding the epithet vāinateya to show that garutmant = Garuḑa. He also takes the two aorists and the imperfect in c-d alike as imperatives (nā ’rūrupas = vimūḍham mā kārṣīḥ). The Anukr. does not note a as irregular.

4. He of five fingers that hurled at thee from some crooked bow—from the tip (çalyá) of the apaskambhá have I exorcised (nir-vac) the poison.

Apaskambhá is very obscure; the Pet. Lex. suggests "perhaps the fastening of the arrow-head to the shaft"; Ludwig guesses "barb," but that we have in vs. 5—as we also have çalya, which seems therefore premature here; and, in fact, Ppp. reads instead of it bāhvos; and, as it has elsewhere apaskantasya bāhvos, we might conjecture apa skandhasya etc., 'from shoulder and arms': i.e. from wounds in them. Or, for apaskambha as a part of the body might be compared Suçruta i. 349. 20—unless apastambe (which at least one good manuscript reads) is the true text there ⌊Calcutta ed. reads apastambhāu⌋. The comm. has no idea what apaskambha means, but makes a couple of wild guesses: it is the betel-nut (kramuka)-tree, or it is an arrow (both based on senseless etymologies). In a, Ppp. reads -gulis.

5. From the tip have I exorcised the poison, from the anointing and from the feather-socket; from the barb (apāṣṭhá), the horn, the neck have I exorcised the poison.

Ppp. reads vocam instead of avocam in a and d, and its b is āñjanāt parṇadher uta. Prāt. ii. 95 regards apāṣṭha as from apa-sthā, doubtless correctly; between the "barb" and the "horn" there is probably no important difference. To the comm., the apāṣṭha is a poison-receptacle (apakṛṣṭāvasthād etatsaṁjñād viṣopādānāt).

6. Sapless, O arrow, is thy tip; likewise thy poison is sapless; also thy bow, of a sapless tree, O sapless one, is sapless.

The comm. strangely takes arasārasam at the end (p. arasa: arasám) as a reduplicated word, "excessively sapless."

7. They who mashed, who smeared, who hurled, who let loose—they [are] all made impotent; impotent is made the poison-mountain.

That is, as the comm. is wise enough to see, the mountain from which the poisonous plant is brought. "Let loose" (ava-sṛj) probably applies to arrows as distinguished from spears; though "hurl" might be used equally of both. Ppp. has in c santu instead of kṛtās. According to SPP., the text used by the comm. combines ye ‘pīṣan; apīṣan is an anomalous form for apiṅṣan, with which the comm. glosses it.

8. Impotent [are] thy diggers; impotent art thou, O herb; impotent [is] that rugged (párvata) mountain whence was born this poison.

As was pointed out above (under iv. 4. 2), the first half-verse is a sort of opposite of one found in Ppp., and quoted by Kāuç. (at 40. 14). ⌊With párvata girí cf. mṛgá hastín, xii. 1. 25.⌋