Atharva-Veda Samhita/Book VI/Hymn 82

82. To obtain a wife.

[Bhaga (jāyākāmaḥ).—āindram. ānuṣṭubham.]

⌊Part (vs. 4) prose.⌋ Found also in Pāipp. xix. Used by Kāuç. (59. 11), in a kāmya rite, by one desiring a wife; and again, in the nuptial ceremonies (78. 10), with vi. 78 etc.

Translated: Weber, Ind. Stud. v. 239; Ludwig, p. 470; Grill, 57, 167; Griffith, i. 289; Bloomfield, 95, 502.

1. I take the name of the arriving, the arrived, the coming one; Indra the Vritra-slayer I win (van), him of the Vasus, of a hundred-fold power.

The construction of van with a genitive is apparently elsewhere unknown, and is of doubtful sense. Ppp. has instead rājño 'of the king,' which makes the correctness of vanve very doubtful. Ppp. also combines āgachatā ”gatasya in a. The comm. reads at the end çatakrato, vocative; he apparently takes āyatás in b as ā́yatas, from yam (niyato ’ham) ⌊or, alternatively, with indrasya⌋.

2. By what road the Açvins carried Sūryā, daughter of Savitar, by that, Bhaga said to me, do thou bring a wife.

In b, açvíno ”hátus is perhaps better to be taken apart to açvínā: ā-ūhátus, but the pada-text has no ā. ⌊Cf. Bergaigne, Rel. Véd., ii. 486-7.⌋

3. The good-giving, great, golden hook that is thine, O Indra—with that, O lord of might (çácī-), assign thou a wife to me who seek a wife.

Ppp. retains the a of an̄kuças, and has, for d, tvaṁ dhehi çatakrato. The comm. reads, in a, vasudhānas.

The eighth anuvāka, containing 10 hymns and 31 verses, ends with this hymn; the old Anukr. says: ekatriṅçakam aṣṭamaṁ vadanti.