Atharva-Veda Samhita/Book VI/Hymn 113

113. For release from seizure (grā́hi).

[Atharvan.—pāuṣṇam. trāiṣṭubham: 3. pan̄kti.]

In Pāipp. ⌊i.⌋ is found only the first half-verse, much corrupted. It is employed by Kāuç. (46. 26) in company with the preceding hymn, which see. Verse 2 c, d is specified in the course of the rite, as accompanying the depositing of the "upper fetters" in river-foam.

Translated: Ludwig, p. 444; Grill, 15, 171; E. Hardy, Die Vedisch-brahmanische Periode etc., p. 210; Griffith, i. 307; Bloomfield, AJP. xvii. 437 (elaborate discussion, p. 430 ff.) or JAOS. xvi. p. cxxii (= PAOS., March, 1894); SEE. xlii. 165, 527.—See Bergaigne-Henry, Manuel, p. 154.

1. On Trita the gods wiped off that sin; Trita wiped it off on human beings; if from that the seizure hath reached thee, let the gods make it disappear for thee by the incantation bráhman).

SPP. properly emends the name, here and in vs. 3, to tritá, though all his authorities, like ours, read tṛtá; he also, with equal reason, emends enam to enat (enan) in b. TB. has (in iii. 7. 12⁵) what corresponds to the first three pādas, reading both tritá and enan*; for c it has táto mā yádi kíṁ cid ānaçé. The comm. reads trita and etat. He also quotes from TB. iii. 2. 8^9-12, some passages from the story, as there told, of Ekata, Dvita, and Trita, and of the transference of guilt by the gods to them and by them to other beings. A similar story is found in MS. iv. 1. 9 (where read krūráṁ mārkṣ-, twice). The TB. verse relating to this is in our text adapted to another purpose. The comm. holds the "sin" to be still that of overslaughing, as in the preceding hymn. The Anukr. disregards the irregularities of meter. *⌊And māmṛje.⌋

2. Enter thou after the beams, the smokes, O evil; go unto the mists or also the fogs; disappear along those foams of the rivers: wipe off difficulties, O Pūshan, on the embryo-slayer.

The last pāda is a repetition of 112. 3 d, and discordant with the rest of the verse. Some of SPP's authorities read naçyan at end of c. The comm. has instead vikṣva. The comm. explains marīcīr by agnisūryādiprabhāviçeṣān, udārān by ūrdhvaṁ gatān meghātmanā pariṇatāṅs tān (dhūmān), and nīhārān by tajjanyān avaçyāyān.

3. Twelvefold is deposited what was wiped off by Trita—sins of human beings; if from that the seizure hath reached thee, let the gods make it disappear for thee by the incantation.

'Twelvefold': i.e., apparently, in twelve different places, or classes, or individuals. TB. (l.c.) specifies eight offenders to whom the transference was successively made; and the "twelve" is made up, according to the commentator, of the gods, Trita and his two brothers, and these eight. ⌊The vs. is no pan̄kti.⌋

This hymn is the last of the 11, with 37 verses, that constitute the eleventh anuvāka; the Anukr. says: prāk tasmāt saptatriṅçaḥ.