Atharva-Veda Samhita/Book VII/Hymn 90 (95)

90 (95) To destroy some one's virile power.

[An̄giras.—tṛcam. mantroktadevatyam. 1. gāyatri; 2. virāṭ purastādbṛhatī; 3. 3-av. 6-p. bhurig jagatī.]

Found also in Pāipp. xx. Used by Kāuç. (36. 35) in a women's rite, being directed against the lover of one's wife.

Translated: Henry, 37, 107; Griffith, i. 374 and 475.

1. Hew on, after ancient fashion, as it were the knot of a creeper; harm the force of the barbarian (dāsá).

This verse and the first half of the next are the first five pādas (a refrain being added as .sixth) of RV. viii. 40. 6, with no variant in this verse. The two parts of the hymn, as divided after 2 b, do not appear to belong together. The tradition makes the hymn directed against one's wife's paramour; and the comm. regards this first verse as an appeal to Agni. Ppp. reads at end jambhaya.

2. We, by Indra's aid, will share among us this collected good of his; I relax the vigor (? çibhrám) of thy member (?) by Varuṇa's vow (vratá).

In the first half-verse (see above), RV. reads bhajemahi. The translation of c is tentative only; çibhrám (our W. (çībhram) is possibly a corruption of çībham; for bhrajás (understood here as gen. of bhráj) compare iv. 4. 1. The comm. reads çubhram, and (doubtless merely on account of its apparent connection with root bhraj) explains bhrajas by dīptam (supplying retas). Ppp. reads (corruptly) mlāpayāvi bhrati çukra. The intrusion of vayám or of vásu in a turns the anuṣṭubh into a bad bṛhatī; but RV. has both.

3. That the member may go off, and may be impotent (? ánāvayas) toward women, of the depending, inciting (?), peg-like, in-thrusting one, what is stretched, that do thou unstretch; what is stretched up, that do thou stretch down.

The epithets in this verse are very obscure, and are rendered for the most part only at a venture. The comm. explains anāvayas as either 'not arriving' (from root vī = gam) or 'not enjoying' (from ā-vī = ad, i.e. bhakṣ 'enjoy'); knadī́vant (our text reads incorrectly klad-, with only one ms., Bp.², and the Petersburg Lexicon conjectures "perhaps 'wet,'" from a reminiscence of klid) he regards as from root krad, with substitution of n for r, and renders 'inviting' (āhvānavant); çān̄kurá he derives from çan̄kū; avastha is to him simply = (strīsamīpe) avatiṣṭhamāna, or (as for avaḥ-stha) striyā adhaḥpradeçe sambhogāya tiṣṭhataḥ. ⌊In a, b, Ppp. is quite defaced.⌋

Here ends the eighth anuvāka, of 9 hymns and 24 verses. The quoted Anukr. says aṣṭamāu nava, and caturviṅça. ⌊See p. 1045.⌋