Atharva-Veda Samhita/Book VI/Hymn 116

116. For relief from guilt.

[Jāṭikāyana.—vāivasvatadtvatyam. jāgatam: 2. triṣṭubh.]

Found also in Pāipp. xvi. The hymn is used by Kāuç. in the chapter of portents (132. 1), in a rite for expiation of the spilling of sacrificial liquids. As to the whole anuvāka, see under hymn 114.

Translated: Ludwig, p. 443; Griffith, i. 309.

1. What that was Yama's the Kārshīvaṇas made, digging down in the beginning, food-acquiring, not with knowledge, that I make an oblation unto the king, Vivasvant's son; so let our food be sacrificial (yajñíya), rich in sweet.

Perhaps better emend at beginning to yády āmám ⌊Bloomfield makes the same suggestion, AJP. xvii.428, SBE. xlii. 457⌋; the comm. explains by yamasambandhi krūram. The kārṣīvaṇas are doubtless the plowmen, they of the kindred of kṛṣīvan (= kṛṣīvala) 'the plower': whatever offense, leading to death or to Yama's realm, they committed in wounding the earth. The comm. calls the kṛṣīvaṇas Çūdras, and their workmen the kārṣīvaṇas; in b, he reads na vidas for annavidas. The metrical irregularities are ignored by the Anukr.

2. Vivasvant's son shall make [us] an apportionment; having a portion of sweet, he shall unite [us] with sweet—whatever sin of [our] mother's, sent forth, hath come to us, or what [our] father, wronged,* hath done in wrath.

For bhāgadheyam in a, Ppp. reads bheṣajāni. The two half-verses hardly belong together. The comm. explains aparāddhas by asmatkṛtāparādhena vimukhaḥ san. *⌊In his ms. Whitney wrote "guilty" (which seems much better) and then changed it to "wronged."⌋

3. If from [our] mother or if from our father, forth from brother, from son, from thought (cétas), this sin hath come to [us]—as many Fathers as have fastened on (sac) us, of them all be the fury propitious [to us].

In most of the pada-mss. ā́gan at end of b is wrongly resolved into ā́: agan, instead of ā॰ágan (our Kp. has ā॰agan). Cétasas the comm. understands to mean 'our own mind'; we should be glad to get rid of the word; its reduction to ca, or the omission of bhrā́tur or putrā́t, would rectify the redundant meter, which the Anukr. passes unnoticed. The comm. paraphrases pari in b apparently by anyasmād api parijanāt!