Atharva-Veda Samhita/Book VII/Hymn 116 (121)

116 (121). Against intermittent fever.

[Atharvān̄giras.—dvyṛcam. cāndramasam. 1. puroṣṇiḥ; 2. 1-av. 2-p. ārcy anuṣṭubh.]

This and the two following hymns are not found in Pāipp. This appears in Kāuç. (32. 17: Keç. adds, with hymn 117) in a remedial rite against fever, with aid of a frog as in hymn 95; and it is reckoned (note to 26. 1) to the takmanāçana gaṇa.

Translated: Grohmann, Ind. Stud. ix. 386, 414; Zimmer, p. 381; Henry, 45, 124; Griffith, i. 384; Bloomfield, 4, 565.—Cf. also Bloomfield, JAOS. xvii. 173.

1. Homage to the hot, stirring, pushing, bold one; homage to the cold, former-desire-performing one.

The last epithet is extremely obscure and probably corrupt; the comm. makes kṛtvan from the root kṛt, and explains it as "cutting up or deferring the fruition of previous wishes"; Henry says "doing its will of old." Again SPP. changes the códanāya of five-sixths of his authorities and all of ours to nódanāya, because the comm. has the latter. The verse (9 + 7: 12 = 28) is no uṣṇih except in the sum of syllables.

2. He that attacks (abhi-i) every other day, on both [intermediate] days, let him, baffled (avratá), attack this frog.

The comm. reads ubhayedyus. The verse, though really metrical (11 + 12) is treated by the Anukr. as prose (24 syllables).