Atharva-Veda Samhita/Book VI/Hymn 73
73. To assure supremacy.
[Atharvan.—sāmmanasyam. mantroktanānādevatyam. trāiṣṭubham: 1, 3. bhurij.]
Found also in Pāipp. xix. (with the verse-order 1, 3, 2). This hymn with iii. 12, vi. 93, xii. 1, is reckoned by Kāuç. to the vāstoṣpatyāni (8. 23) or the vāstu gaṇa; and it and the following hymn, with others (12. 5), to the sāmmanasyāni; also, by the schol. (note to 19. 1), to the puṣṭika mantras; and vs. 3 ⌊so comm.: not vii. 60. 7⌋ by itself (23. 6) in the ceremony of entering a new house.
Translated: Griffith, i. 284; Bloomfield, 135, 494.
1. Let Varuṇa come here, Soma, Agni; let Brihaspati with the Vasus come here; come ye together, [his] fellows, all of you, like-minded, unto the fortune of this stern corrector (ugrá cettṛ́).
Ppp. reads abhi- instead of upa- in c, and has at the end sujātās. The comm. explains cettṛ as "one who properly understands the distinction of what is to be done and what is not to be done"; in this word cit seems to take the value of ci or cāy: 'one who notes and visits or requites.'
2. The vehemence (çúṣma) that is within your hearts, the design that has entered into your mind—that I frustrate with the oblation, the ghee; in me, O [my] fellows, be your satisfaction (ramáti).
Intended to restrain intending emigrants, apparently; as also vs. 3. All the mss., and both editions with them, read tā́n at the beginning of c, although it is unquestionably an error for tā́m, referring to ā́kūtim, as the comm. correctly reads and understands. Only one ms. (our Bp.2) has srīvayāmi, all the rest çrīv-, or its phonetic product, chrīv-; but SPP. quite unaccountably (against the sense, and against the use of √sīv, which has no causative conjugation quotable before the Lalita-Vistara) adopts sīvayāmi from the comm. (= parasparasambaddhān karomi): Ppp. has çrevayāmi; and in d (as in 1 d) sujātās. The Anukr. should have noted the verse as nicṛt. ⌊Read yó vó ‘sti in a?⌋
3. Be ye just here; go not away from us; let Pūshan make [it] pathless for you in the distance; let the lord of the dwelling (vā́stu) call aloud after you; in me, O [my] fellows, be your satisfaction.
Ppp. has, in a, e ’ha yāta mā ’pa, at the beginning; it rectifies the meter of b by omitting vas; in c, it reads ‘yam ahvan for johavītu; in d, it again has sujātās.