Atharva-Veda Samhita/Book VI/Hymn 25

25. For relief from pains (?) in neck and shoulders.

[Çunaḥçepa.—mantroktamanyā[di]vināçanadevatyam. ānuṣṭubham.]

Found also in Pāipp. xix. Used in Kāuç. (30. 14) in a healing rite against gaṇḍamālās, with kindling fifty-five paraçu (comm., -çū) leaves by chips.

Translated: Kuhn, KZ. xiii. 130 (with Germanic parallels); Florenz, 280 or 32; Griffith, i. 258; Bloomfield, 19, 472 (cf. AJP. xi. 323).

1. Both the five and the fifty that gather against those of the nape—let them all disappear from here, like the noises (? vāká) of the apacíts.

Mányās etc. may of course as well be nom., and the comm. so understands them, supplying gaṇḍamālās 'pimples, swellings' for them to agree with; abhí would then be left without object, or with indefinite object, 'one,' understood. The comm. renders vākā́s by vacanīyā doṣāḥ, and takes apacítām as accus. fem. pple: "as blameworthy faults leave an honored woman"! Under VS. xvii. 57, the comm. renders vākā́s by vākyāni.

2. Both the seven and the seventy that gather against those of the neck—let them all etc. etc.

Part of the mss. (including our D.R.) accent saptá at the beginning, and SPP. with good reason adopts that in his text.

3. Both the nine and the ninety that gather against those of the shoulders—let them all etc. etc.

Ppp., in these verses, exchanges the numbers of 1 and 3, omits yās every time in a, and combines manyā ’bhi, grāivyā ’bhi, skandā ’bhi.