Atharva-Veda Samhita/Book VI/Hymn 142

142. For increase of barley.

[Viçvāmitra.—vāyavyam. ānuṣṭubham.]

Not found in Pāipp. Used by Kāuç. (24. 1) in a rite of preparation for sowing seed, and reckoned (19. 1, note) among the puṣṭika mantras; vs. 3 also appears (19. 27) in a rite for prosperity, with binding on an amulet of barley.

Translated: Ludwig, p. 463; Zimmer, p. 237; Grill, 66, 177; Griffith, i. 324; Bloomfield, 141, 541.—See also Bergaigne-Henry, Manuel, p. 156.

1. Rise up (ut-çri), become abundant (bahú) with thine own greatness, O barley; ruin (mṛ) all receptacles; let not the bolt from heaven smite thee.

Instead of mṛṇīhi in c, the comm. reads vṛṇīhi, which he says is, 'by letter-substitution,' for pṛṇīhi 'fill'! Pṛṇīhi would be an easier reading, and was conjectured by Ludwig, and before him by Aufrecht (KZ. xxvii. 218). ⌊Griffith and Bl., 'fill them till they burst.'⌋

2. Where we appeal unto thee, the divine barley that listens, there (tát) rise up, like the sky; be unexhausted, like the ocean.

The comm., in b, reads tatra and achavad-.

3. Unexhausted be thine attendants (? upasád), unexhausted thy heaps; thy bestowers be unexhausted; thy eaters be unexhausted.

The comm. explains upasadas as here rendered (= upagantāraḥ karmakarāḥ); the translators conjecture 'piles,' a meaning which cannot properly be found in the word.

By a strangely unequal division, the thirteenth and last anuvāka is made to consist of 18 hymns and 64 verses; the quoted Anukr. says yaḥ paraḥ sa catuḥṣaṣṭiḥ.

The fifteenth prapāṭhaka ends with the book.

Some of the mss. sum up the book correctly as containing 142 hymns and 454 verses.