Hymns of the Atharva-Veda/Book 1/Hymn 2

A charm against dysentery

1. We know the father of the shaft, Parjanya, liberal nourisher,
     Know well his mother: Prithivī, Earth with her manifold
     designs.
2. Do thou, O Bowstring, bend thyself around us: make my body
     stone.
     Firm in thy strength drive far away malignities and hateful
     things.
3. When, closely clinging round the wood, the bowstring sings
     triumph to the swift and whizzing arrow,
     Indra, ward off from us the shaft, the missile.
4. As in its flight the arrow's point hangs between earth and
     firmament,
     So stand this Munja grass between ailment and dysenteric ill!