Atharva-Veda Samhita/Book VI/Hymn 43

43. To assuage wrath.

[(As 42.)—manyuçamanadevatākam. ānuṣṭubham.]

Found also in Pāipp. xix. In Kāuç. (36. 32), the hymn appears, next after hymn 42, in a rite for appeasement of anger, darbha being treated as an amulet (? oṣadhivat).

Translated: Florenz, 303 or 55; Grill, 30, 162; Griffith, i. 267; Bloomfield, 137, 480.

1. This darbhá [is] fury-removing, both for one's own man and for a stranger; and this is called a fury-removing fury-appeaser of fury.

The translation implies the emendation of vimanyukasya in c to -kaç ca (as proposed by Grill, and virtually by Florenz). Ppp. supports the change, reading vimanyako manyuçamano ‘stu me; it has vimanyakas also in a.

2. This that is many-rooted, [that] reaches down (ava-sthā) to the sea, the darbhá, arisen out of the earth, is called a fury-appeaser.

Ppp. reads, in b, pṛthivyām 'in the earth,' instead of samudrám 'to the sea'; end of c, and d, niṣṭhitas sa ce ‘stu vimanyakaḥ. The Anukr. takes no notice of the deficiency of a syllable in a.

3. We conduct away the offense (? çaráṇi) of thy jaws, away that of thy mouth, that thou mayest not speak uncontrolled, mayest come unto my intent.

The last half-verse is a repetition of vi. 42. 3 c, d ⌊which see⌋; it is wanting in Ppp., perhaps as result of a lacuna. Most of the mss. have the false reading múkhyān in b, but SPP. also emends to -ām, being supported by the comm. The latter explains çaráṇim by hiṅsāhetubhūtām krodhābhivyañjikāṁ dhamanim.