Atharva-Veda Samhita/Book VI/Hymn 112
112. For expiation of overslaughing.
[Atharvan.—āgneyam. trāiṣṭubham..]
Found also in Pāipp. xix. (vs. 3 in i.). Used by Kāuç. (46. 26), with vi. 113, in a spell to expiate the offense of parivitti 'overslaughing,' or the marriage of a younger before an elder brother ⌊see Zimmer, p. 315⌋.
Translated: Ludwig, p. 469; Grill, 15, 171; Griffith, i. 306; Bloomfield, AJP. xvii. 437 (elaborate discussion, p. 430 ff.), or JAOS. xvi. p. cxxii (= PAOS., March, 1894); SBE. xlii. 164, 521.
1. Let not this one, O Agni, slay the oldest of them; protect him from uprooting; do thou, foreknowing, unfasten the bonds of the seizure (grā́hi); let all the gods assent to thee.
The allusions in this verse to the same trio of asterisms that were mentioned in 110. 2 are very evident. According to the comm., "this one" in a is the parivitta ⌊which he takes quite wrongly as the overslaugher—see comm. to vs. 3 a⌋. Ppp. reads prajā nas at end of c, and has, for d, pitāputrāu mātaraṁ muñca sarvān (our 2 d).
2. Do thou, O Agni, loosen up the bonds of them, the three with which they three were tied up; do thou, foreknowing, unfasten the bonds of the seizure; free all—father, son, mother.
The comm. reads utthitās for utsitās in b; the word is, strangely, not divided into út॰sitāḥ in the pada-text, which ⌊non-division⌋ would be proper treatment for útthtās, and part of the mss. (including our H.I.O.) read útthitās. The second half-verse is wanting in Ppp. (save as d is found in it as 1 d: see above).
3. With what bonds the overslaughed one is bound apart, applied and tied up on each limb—let them be released, for they are releasers; wipe off difficulties, O Pūshan, on the embryo-slayer.
The comm. again commits the violence of understanding párivittas in a as if it were parivettā 'the overslaugher.' The participles in b are nom. sing, masc., applying to the bound person. The comm. again reads utthitas, again supported by a few mss. (including our H.I.), and the pada-text again has útsitaḥ, undivided. All our mss. save one (K.), and all but one of SPP's, read te (without accent) in c; the translation given implies the emendation to té, which is made in SPP's text, also on the authority of the comm. After it, SPP. reads mucyantām, with, as he claims, all but one of his authorities; of ours, only D.Kp.T. have it, and K. mucyatām, all the rest muñcantām, as in our text. In Ppp., this verse is found in i., in this form: ebhiṣ pāçāir muduṣāu patir nibaddhaḥ paroparārpito an̄ge-an̄ge vi te cṛtyantāṁ vicṛtām hi santi etc. (d as in our text).