Atharva Veda

Category: Hindu

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The Atharva Veda (Sanskrit: अथर्ववेद, Atharvaveda from atharvāṇas and veda, meaning “knowledge”) is the “knowledge storehouse of atharvāṇas, the procedures for everyday life”. The text is the fourth Veda, but has been a late addition to the Vedic scriptures of Hinduism

The Hymns of the Atharvaveda

Ralph T.H. Griffith, Translator

BOOK I

HYMN I

A prayer to Vāchaspati for divine illumination and help.

Now may Vāchaspati assign to me the strength and powers of Those
Who, wearing every shape and form, the triple seven, are wandering round.

Come thou again, Vāchaspati, come with divine intelligence.
Vasoshpati, repose thou here. In me be Knowledge, yea, in me.

Here, even here, spread sheltering arms like the two bow-ends strained with cord.
This let Vāchaspati confirm. In me be Knowledge, yea, in me.

Vāchaspati hath been invoked: may he invite us in reply.
May we adhere to Sacred Lore. Never may I be reft thereof.

HYMN II

A charm against dysentery

We know the father of the shaft, Parjanya, liberal nourisher,
Know well his mother: Prithivī, Earth with her manifold designs.

Do thou, O Bowstring, bend thyself around us: make my body stone.
Firm in thy strength drive far away malignities and hateful things.

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.

As in its flight the arrow’s point hangs between earth and firmament,
So stand this Munja grass between ailment and dysenteric ill!

HYMN III

A charm against constipation and suppression of urine

We know the father of the shaft, Parjanya strong with hundred powers:
By this may I bring health unto thy body: let the channels pour their burthen freely as of old.

We know the father of the shaft, Mitra, the Lord of hundred powers:
By this, etc.

We know the father of the shaft, Varuna, strong with hundred powers:
By this, etc.

We know the father of the shaft, the Moon endowed with hundred powers:
By this, etc.

We know the father of the shaft, the Sun endowed with hundred powers:
By this may I bring health unto thy body: let the channels pour their burthen freely as of old.

Whate’er hath gathered, as it flowed, in bowels, bladder, or in groins,
Thus let the conduit, free from check, pour all its burthen as of old.

I lay the passage open as one cleaves the dam that bars the lake:
Thus let, etc.

Now hath the portal been unclosed as, of the sea that holds the flood:
Thus let, etc.

Even as the arrow flies away when loosened from the archer’s bow,
Thus let the burthen be discharged from channels that are checked no more.

HYMN IV

To the waters, for the prosperity of cattle

Along their paths the Mothers go, sisters of priestly ministrants,
Blending their water with the mead.

May yonder Waters near the Sun, or those wherewith the Sun is joined,
Send forth this sacrifice of ours.

I call the Waters, Goddesses, hitherward where our cattle drink:
The streams must share the sacrifice.

Amrit is in the Waters, in the Waters balm.
Yea, through our praises of the Floods, O horses, be ye fleet and strong, and, O ye kine, be full of strength.

HYMN V

To the waters, for strength and power

Ye, Waters, truly bring us bliss: so help ye us to strength and power
That we may look on great delight.

Here grant to us a share of dew, that most auspicious dew of yours,
Like mothers in their longing love.

For you we fain would go to him to whose abode ye send us forth,
And, Waters, give us procreant strength.

I pray the Floods to send us balm, those who bear rule o’er precious things,
And have supreme control of men.

HYMN VI

To the waters, for health and wealth

The Waters be to us for drink, Goddesses, for our aid and bliss:
Let them stream health and wealth to us.

Within the Waters — Soma thus hath told me — dwell all balms that heal,
And Agni, he who blesseth all.

O Waters, teem with medicine to keep my body safe from harm,
So that I long may see the Sun.

The Waters bless us, all that rise in desert lands or marshy pools!
Bless us the Waters dug from earth, bless us the Waters brought in jars, bless us the Waters of the Rains!

HYMN VII

To Indra and Agni, for the detection and destruction of evil spirits

Bring the Kimidin hither, bring the Yātudhāna self-declared
For Agni, God, thou, lauded, hast become the Dasyu’s slaughterer.

O Jātavedas, Lord Supreme, controller of our bodies, taste
The butter, Agni, taste the oil: make thou the Yātudhānas mourn.

Let Yātudhānas mourn, let all greedy Kimidins weep and wail:
And, Agni, Indra, may ye both accept this sacrifice of ours.

May Agni seize upon them first, may strong-armed Indra drive them forth:
Let every wicked sorcerer come hither and say, Here am I.

Let us behold thy strength, O Jātavedas. Viewer of men, tell us the Yātudhānas.
Burnt by thy heat and making declaration let all approach this sacrifice before thee.

O Jātavedas, seize, on them: for our advantage art thou born:
Agni, be thou our messenger and make the Yātudhānas wail.

O Agni, bring thou hitherward the Yātudhānas bound and chained.
And afterward let Indra tear their heads off with his thunderbolt.