Atharva-Veda Samhita/Book VI/Hymn 26

26. Against evil.

[Brahman.—pāpmadevatākam. ānuṣṭubham.]

Found also in Pāipp. xix. Used in Kāuç. (30. 17) in a healing rite against all diseases; and reckoned (note to 26. 1) to the takmanāçana gaṇa. The comm. finds it quoted also in the Nakṣ. K. (15), in a ceremony against nirṛti.

Translated: Florenz, 282 or 34; Griffith, i. 259; Bloomfield, 163, 473.

1. Let me go, O evil (pāpmán) being in control, mayest thou be gracious to us; set me uninjured in the world of the excellent, O evil.

All the mss. leave pāpman unaccented at beginning of d, and SPP. follows them. The second pāda occurred above as v. 22. 9 b. Ppp. rectifies the defective meter of c, by reading ā mā bhadreṣu dhāmasv atve dh-. The comm. gives sam instead of san in b. The Anukr. overlooks the deficiency of two syllables.

2. Thou who, O evil, dost not leave us, thee here do we leave; along at the turning apart of the ways, let evil go after another.

The comm. understands anuvyāvartane as one word in c. Ppp- exchanges the place of 2 c, d and 3 a, b, reading, for the former, patho vya vyāvartane niṣ pāpmā tvaṁ suvāmasi; ⌊and it has mā for naḥ in a⌋.

3. Elsewhere than [with] us let the thousand-eyed immortal one make its home; whomsoever we may hate, him let it come upon (ṛch); and whom we hate, just him do thou smite.

Ppp., as above noted, has the first half of this verse as its 2 c, d, reading corruptly nyucya for ny ucyatu; its version of c, d is yo no dveṣṭi taṁ gacha yaṁ dviṣmas taṁ jahi. The comm. renders ny ucyatu by nitarāṁ gacchatu.