Atharva-Veda Samhita/Book VI/Hymn 70

70. To attach a cow to her calf.

[Kān̄kāyana.—āghnyam. jāgatam.]

Not found in Pāipp. Used by Kāuç. (41. 18) in a rite for producing mutual attachment between cow and calf.

Translated: Grill, 65, 165; Griffith, i. 283; Bloomfield, 144, 493.

1. As flesh, as strong-drink, as dice on the gambling-board; as of a lustful man the mind is fastened (ni-han) on a woman—-so let thy mind, O inviolable one (aghnyā́), be fastened on thy calf.

The verses are six-pāda jagatī (6 × 8 = 48). ⌊The stanza is wrongly numbered.⌋

2. As the elephant strains foot with foot of the she-elephant; as of a lustful man etc. etc.

The obscure first line is with intention rendered obscurely; the Petersburg Lexicon conjectures 'hastens after, step with step,' which then Grill follows. The comm. takes udyujé as = unnamayati, "bends up, for love (premṇā), her foot with his foot."

3. As the felly (pradhí), as the rim (upadhí), as the nave upon the felly; as of a lustful man etc. etc. ⌊See p. xcii.⌋

The first line is again obscure, both in its internal relations and in its relation to the refrain (in this resembling 1 a, b). BR. define upadhi as 'the part of the wheel between the felly and nave,' but this ought to be arās 'the spokes': the comm. explains it as 'the circle, bound together by the felly, that is the binder together of the spokes' (nemisambaddhaḥ arāṇāṁ sambandhako valayaḥ)—i.e. a sort of rim inside the felly. Probably a solid wheel, without spokes, is had in view. We should expect some other preposition than adhi 'on' to express the relation of the nave to the felly.