Atharva-Veda Samhita/Book VII/Hymn 102 (107)

102 (107). Accompanying self-relief.

[Prajāpati.—mantroktanānādevatyam. virāṭ purastādbṛhatī.]

Wanting in Pāipp. Kāuç. (52. 15) prescribes it in a rite for welfare, "with action as given in the verse" (iti mantroktam).

Translated: Henry, 41, 115; Griffith, i. 378.

1. Having paid homage to heaven and earth, to the atmosphere, to Death, I will urinate standing erect; let not the lords (īçvará) harm me.

All the authorities read mekṣā́mi in c, and SPP. retains it in his text, although it is a wholly impossible form, and the misreading of ṣ for ṣy is an easy and familiar one; even the meter demands me-kṣi- ⌊rather ūrdhuás?⌋. The comm. has instead māi ’ṣyāmi, explaining it as = mā gamiṣyami! Virtually all the authorities, too, leave tiṣṭhan unaccented (two out of fourteen of SPP's and our R.s.m. tíṣṭhan); this both editions emend. ⌊The Anukr. seems to scan as 11 + 8: 7 + 8 = 34.⌋

⌊The squatting posture in making water is, I believe, general with the natives of India to this day. So Hesiod, Works and Days, 727: μηδ' ἀντ΄ἠελίοιο τετραμμένος ὀρθὸς ὀμιχεῖν...ἑζόμενος κτλ. Cf. xiii. 1. 56 and my note.⌋

Here ends the ninth anuvāka, of 12 hymns and 21 verses: the old Anukr. says navamo dvādaça and ekaviṅça.