Atharva-Veda Samhita/Book XIX/Hymn 45

45. With an ointment etc.: for various objects.

[Bhṛgu.—daça. 1-5. āñjanadevatyam; 6-10. mantroktadevatyam. 1, 2. anuṣṭubh; 3-5. triṣṭubh; 6-10. 1-av. mahābṛhatī (6. virāj; 7-10. nicṛṭ).]

⌊Prose in part, vss. 6-10.⌋ Found (except vs. 9) also in Pāipp. xv., next after our 44. The practical use is, according to the comm., the same with that of 44.

Translated: Griffith, ii. 301.

1. Bringing together witchcraft to the house of the witchcraft-maker, as it were debt from debt, do thou, O ointment, crush in the ribs of the hostile eye-conjurer.

With the second half-verse compare ii. 7. 5 c, d. The first half seems to mean "paying back or returning...as debt upon debt, or repeated debt"; this is, except for the sense given to the ablative ṛṇāt (which he explains by ṛṇāt...bhītaḥ, or, alternatively, ṛṇadātur uttamarṇāt: both wrongly), the understanding of the comm. ⌊Griffith says: "As debt from debt: as a man returns to his creditor a part of what he owes him."⌋ Many of the authorities give riṇā́d riṇám (Ppp. has ṛṇ-); and some accent the first syllable, ri- or ṛ-. At the end of a, nearly all have saṁnayáṁ (p. sam॰nayám), but the comm. saṁnayan, which SPP. adopts (saṁnáyan) and which is followed in the translation above, as being a smaller alteration of the original than our emendation sáṁ naya, and at least equally acceptable in point of sense. In c the comm. has the bad reading cakṣur mitrasya. Ppp. ends d with āñjanam.

2. What evil-dreaming [is] in us, what in [our] kine, and what in our house, also the...of one hostile, let him that is unfriendly take upon himself (prati-muc).

Both sense and meter require the emendation in d of priyás to ápriyas, and the comm. has the latter, but all the authorities,* and Ppp. (durhārdaṣ priya pra-), and SPP. give the former. In c, the general reading of the mss. is ánāmagas tvám (p. ánāmagaḥ: tvám); for tváṁ ca is found tvā́ṁ ca, táṁ ca, táṁta, ⌊tvác ca, tá ca, tac ca⌋. SPP. accepts ánāmagas tám, but what sense he can possibly attach to the words does not appear. Ppp. gives māmagatasya dur-. The comm. reads anāmakas tac ca, which is equally impossible; and he makes a senseless explanation of anāmakas: īdṛn̄nāmā tādṛn̄nāme ’ty evaṁ nāmarahitaḥ; and he falsely regards durhārdas as a nom. sing. qualified by anāmakas. Our conjecture, anāmayatváṁ ca d-, is very unsatisfactory, in regard both to meter and to sense; anāgastvám 'guiltlessness' would make a good anuṣṭubh pāda, and be very near to the reading of the mss.; but it would be, equally with anāmayatvam, discordant with duṣvápnyam, and would require priyás in d. ⌊Ppp. reads muñcatā at the end.⌋

*⌊The reciter V., curiously, has as an alternative, durhā́rdo ‘priyás, which (the accent being wrong) is neither one thing nor the other, but may well be taken as supporting the comm's reading ápriyas, as against priyás; the true saṁhitā-reading would then be durhā́rdó ‘priyaḥ.⌋

⌊The solution of this desperate passage seems to me to be suggested by 57. 5 below, of which the first part is identical with our a, b here, and of which the second part begins with anāsmākás tád and ends (nearly like v. 14. 3 d) with niṣkám iva (pronounce niṣkéva) práti muñcatām. In our c, d I would read anāsmākás tád durhā́rdó ‘priyaḥ práti muñcatām (pada-reading duḥ॰hā́rdaḥ: ápriyaḥ), and render 'that let him who is not of us, the evil-hearted, the unfriendly, put upon himself.' The tád is supported by the comm., and in a measure by SPP's D.V. and C³.; the ápriyas, by the comm. and V. (as above) and the meter; and anāsmākás comes near to the ms.-readings, and, indeed, considering the ánāmakas of the living reciter V. and of the comm., is not ill supported.⌋

⌊It remains to note that no valid objection can be taken against making a nom. sing, of durhā́rda-s: its use as such is a natural way of avoiding the form from the consonantal stem (which was as much of a stumbling-block to the ancient Hindu as it is to the modern tyro in Sanskrit), and is entirely analogous to the use of hṛ́dayam rather than hṛ́d (cf. my Noun-Inflection, p. 471). The comm. is accordingly right in saying here durhārdo duṣṭacittaḥ, as he was also in glossing the suhā́rt of ii. 7. 5 by çobhanahārdaḥ sumanaskaḥ. The nom. durhā́rda-s is a form of transition to the a-declension, with durhā́rd-am (so viii. 3. 25) as its point of departure (cf. durhā́rdān of the mss. at xix. 28. 8); just so the later pā́da-s (from pā́d-am) replaces the older pā́t (Noun-Inflection, p. 471).⌋

⌊Of the older nom. sing. masc. or fern., however, the true form is suhā́r, p. su॰hā́ḥ, of which traces, albeit scanty, are found in the Veda: one is at MS. iv. 2. 5, p. 26¹⁶, priyā́ naḥ suhā́r ṇaḥ; and another is at AV. ii. 7. 5, where both ed's read yáḥ suhā́rt téna naḥ sahá. Here the saṁhitā-authorities taken together are divided between suhā́rt téna (so 11) and suhā́t téna (so 6); but the pada-authorities (7 out of 8) give su॰hā́t, the notable exception being the çrotriya K., who recited the true form su॰hā́ḥ. The saṁhitā-form for this ought to be suhā́s (téna), and possibly this form is concealed in the reading suhā́tténa of S^m. etc. If not, then (since rtt = rt: Gram. §232) we may regard the combination suhā́rt t- as representing suhā́r t-, nom. suhā́r, with breach of the rule of sandhi requiring the change of suhā́r to suhā́s before t-. The motive for this breach was perhaps to avoid disguising still further the form suhā́r, itself extremely rare and none too easily recognized; and the motive is perhaps as clear as it is in the case of aves avet, ajāis ajāit, etc., cited by W., Gram. §555 a.—The nom. suhā́rt seems to be grammatical and not intolerable in the texts, and to be unparalleled (cf. Noun-Inflection, p. 472).⌋ ⌊☞ See p. 1046.⌋

3. Increasing from the force of the refreshment of the waters, born out of Agni Jātavedas—may the ointment that is four-heroed, that is of the mountains, make the quarters, the directions, propitious to thee.

In a, ūrjás might, of course, be ablative, coördinate with ójasas; the whole expression is too obscure to help the construction by the sense. The comm. reads ūrjam; Ppp. combines ūrjo ’jaso, and has in c parvataṁ. The Anukr. does not heed the redundant syllable in c.

4. The four-heroed ointment is bound to thee; be all the quarters free from fear for thee; firm shalt thou stand, like Savitar desirable; let these people (víças) render thee tribute.

In a, b Ppp. combines badhyatā ”ñj-, diço ‘bhayās. In c, the mss. ⌊with one or two exceptions⌋ read cāryà i- (p. ca: āryàḥ); SPP. alters the accent to cā́rya (p. ca: ā́ryaḥ); our emendation to vā́ryas ⌊W's B. has vāryà i-⌋ is not absolutely necessary, yet certainly a plausible improvement; and it is in a certain measure supported by Ppp., which gives vāri imā; the translation above implies it. The comm. understands arya, vocative, rendering it by svāmin. In d all the mss. have víças ⌊but Ws E. seems to have díças⌋, and our substitution of díças was hardly called for; but Ppp. favors it, reading diço bhriyante. The comm. gives two explanations for the strange epithet caturvīra, showing that he is merely guessing what its sense might possibly be. We have in d again an extra syllable of which the Anukr. takes no notice.

5. Use thou one as ointment; make one an amulet; bathe with one; drink one of them; let the four-heroed one protect us about from the four destructive bonds of seizure (grā́hi).

All the mss.* have at the beginning ā́kṣva, which the pada-text leaves undivided; SPP. goes so far as to emend the latter to ā́: akṣva, but is unwilling to follow us in reading ā́ ’n̄kṣva, although akṣva is no possible form, and the comm. agrees with our emendation. Ppp. reads ākṣakaṁ maṇ-. In b the mss. give ékenā́pivāíkam, and the pada-mss. resolve it into ékena: ápi: vā: ékam. Our emendation to ékena píbāí ’kam is evidently just what is required; but SPP. chooses to retain ékenā́, and so reads ⌊in pada-text⌋ ékena: ā́: piba, remarking that "if RW. had discerned the ā́ after ékena, their very correct emendation would have been free from the defect of unnecessarily changing the ancient accent of the saṁhitā-text." This reads like a joke, considering how the text of book xix. (not to speak of previous books) abounds in gross errors of accentuation, and how often we and he have been compelled to emend it—for example, in the preceding verse, where the "ancient accent" cāryà was changed by him to cā́rya. ⌊Apart from this passage,⌋ the compound ā + pā does not occur in the Atharvan, and, although it is not unknown, it would be distinctly out of place here. The version of the pāda in Ppp. is totally corrupt: çvāçīkenapavīkam eṣām. The comm. reads ekenā ’vivekam eṣām, and labors, with his usual ill-success, to devise an explanation of avivekam. To ekam etc. he supplies āñjanam; as his reading gets rid of the fourth, he connects the first three with the "three-peaked mountain" from which the ointment is derived: triṣu parvatakakutsū ’tpannāni! Apparently the fourfold-ness is related in some way or other to the "four-heroed"-ness. In d, the comm. commits the extraordinary blunder of taking grāhyās as gerundive: grahītavyā āñjanamayā oṣadhayaḥ! and this compels him to change pātu to pāntu. The pada-mss. (except one of SPP's, p.m.) have grā́hyā, they also failing to recognize the not uncommon noun grā́hi; SPP. makes the necessary emendation to -hyāḥ. *⌊But SPP's S^m., ākṣvā́ikam.⌋

6. Let Agni favor (av) me with fire (? agní), in order to breath, to expiration, to life-time, to splendor, to force, to brilliancy, to well-being, to welfare: hail!

The comm. is uncertain whether by the second agni (agninā) is meant agniīvadharmeṇa, or pāvakādiguṇakena svamūrtyaniareṇā ’gninā sahitaḥ. All the mss. accent subhūtáye here, ⌊but súbhūtyā at iii. 14. 2 (cf. Grammar §1288 e): SPP. accents here -táye, with the mss.; but the Berlin text sú- here, in conformity with both editions and the mss. at iii. 14. 1⌋. Ppp. reads mā agninā.

7. Let Indra favor me with what is Indra's (indriyá), in order to breath etc. etc.

{{smaller block|The comm. gives a double interpretation of indriya. Ppp. again has mā indriy-.

8. Let Soma favor me with what is Soma's (sāúmya), in order to breath etc. etc.

The comm. explains sāúmyena as somatvasampādakena dharmeṇa jagadāpyāyanakāritvādidharmeṇa.

9. Let Bhaga favor me with fortune (bhága), in order to breath etc. etc.

The comm. has here a lacuna, embracing the commentary to this verse and the text of the next. ⌊The verse is wanting in Ppp., as noted above.⌋

10. Let the Maruts favor me with troops, in order to breath etc. etc.

Ppp. reads this time suprabhūtaye. It is possible to make out of these prose "verses" the number of syllables demanded by the Anukr. Perhaps the modification nicṛt belongs only to vss. 7-9 (the manuscripts are discordant and unclear).

⌊Here ends the fifth anuvāka, with 12 hymns and 74 verses.⌋