Atharva-Veda Samhita/Book VI/Hymn 75

75. To eject a rival.

[Kabandha (sapatnakṣayakāmaḥ).—mantroktadevatyam; āindram. ānuṣṭubham: 3. 6-p. jagatī.]

Found also in Pāipp. xix. (with the verse-order 1, 3, 2); and in TB. (iii. 3. 11^3-4) and Āp. (iii. 14. 2). ⌊TB. and Āp. agree with Pāipp. in the verse-order and several other points.⌋ Used by Kāuç. (47. 10) in a rite of sorcery; and again similarly (48. 29-31), with strewing of darbha grass.

Translated: Ludwig, p. 373; Grill, 22, 165; Griffith, i. 285; Bloomfield, 92, 495.

1. I thrust yon man out of home, the rival who fights [us], with the oblation of ejectment; Indra hath demolished him.

One of our mss. (O.) reads at the end also here (cf. 66. 2, above ⌊and note to 32. 2⌋) -çarāit. Ppp., also TB.Āp., have nirb- at the beginning of c; and TB.Āp. have eṇam in d (the two agree in every point through the hymn). ⌊Ppp. parāçarī, as at 66. 2.⌋

2. Let Indra, Vritra-slayer, thrust him to the most distant distance, whence he shall not come back, through constant years (sámā).

Ppp.TB.Āp. read tvā for tám in a, and TB.Āp. nayatu for nudatu in b, while Ppp. has, for b, indro devo acīkḷpat; all three have -yasi at end of c.

3. Let him go [beyond] three distances; let him go beyond the five peoples; let him go beyond the three shining spaces, whence he shall not come back, through constant years, so long as the sun shall be in the sky.

Instead of étu, TB.Āp. have three times ihí, and they omit pādas d, e; RV. (viii. 32. 22 a, b) agrees with them in pādas a, b. Ppp. reads anu for ati at end of b, and has, for c, the corrupt iha ca tvā tu rocanā; it omits d, e, like the other texts. The pada-text reads rocanā́ (not -nāḥ), maintaining the usual and proper gender of the word, although, being qualified by tisrā́s, it is apparently taken here as feminine, and should be rocanāḥ. The mark of punctuation added after d in our edition is not in the mss.; it was heedlessly introduced in going through the press; and the accent of çaçvatī́bhyas is misprinted.