Created by Jijith Nadumuri at 02 Jul 2011 10:24 and updated at 02 Jul 2011 14:28
ATHARVA VEDA
BOOK V (5)
HYMN X (10)
A prayer to the presiding deities of the four quarters for protection
[0501001] Thou art my wall of stone against the sinner who fights against me from the eastern quarter.
May he encounter it!
[0501002] Thou art my wall of stone against the sinner who fights against me from the southern quarter.
May he encounter it!
[0501003] Thou art my wall of stone against the sinner who fights against me from the western quarter.
May he encounter it!
[0501004] Thou art my wall of stone against the sinner who fights against me from northern quarter.
May he encounter it!
[0501005] Thou art my wall of stone against the sinner who fights against me from the stedfast region.
May he encounter it! r 6.
Thou art my wall of stone against the sinner who fights against Lme from the lofty region! M iy he encounter it!
[0501007] Thou art my wall of stone against the sinner who from points intermediate fights against me.
May he encounter it!
[0501008] With Brihat I invoke the mind, with Matarisvan both the breaths, The eye from Surya, and the ear from Air, the body from the Earth. [p. a166] We, with Sarasvati who suits the mind, call Speech to come to us.
HYMN XI (11)
A dialogue between Atharvan and Varuna
[0501101] How, terrible in might, hast thou here spoken to the great God, how to the gold hued Father! Thy mind watched, greedy Varuna! to recover the brindled cow thou hadst bestowed as guerdon.
[0501102] Not through desire do I revoke my present: I bring this brind led cow to contemplate her.
Now by what lore, by what inherent nature, knowest thou all things that exist, Atharvan?
[0501103] Truly I am profound in wisdom, truly I know by nature all existing creatures.
No Dasa by his greatness, not an Arya, may violate the law that I will stablish.
[0501104] None, self dependent Varuna! existeth wiser than thou or sager by his wisdom.
Thou knowest well all these created beings: even the man of wondrous powers fears thee.
[0501105] O self dependent Varuna, wise director, thou knowest verily all generations.
What is, unerring one! beyond this region? What more remote than that which is most distant?
[0501106] One thing there is beyond this air, and something beyond that one, most hard to reach, remotest.
I, Varuna, who know, to thee declare it. Let churls be mighty [p. a167] in the lower regions.
Let Dasas sink into the earth beneath them.
[0501107] Many reproaches, Varuna, dost thou utter against the misers.
who revoke their presents.
Be not thou added to that crowd of niggards: let not men call thee an illiberal giver.
[0501108] Let not men call me an illiberal giver.
I give thee back the brindled cow, O singer.
Attend in every place where men inhabit, with all thy powers, the hymn that tells my praises.
[0501109] Let hymns of praise ascend to thee, uplifted in every place of human habitation.
But give me now the gift thou hast not given.
Thou art my friend for ever firm and faithful.
[0501110] One origin, Varuna! one bond unites us I know the nature of that common kinship.
I give thee now the gift that I retracted.
I am thy friend for ever firm and faithful.
[0501111] God, giving life unto the god who lauds me, Sage strengthener of the sage who sings my praises.
Thou, self dependent Varuna! hast begotten the kinsman of the Gods, our sire Atharvan.
On him bestow most highly lauded riches.
Thou art our friend, high over all, our kinsman.
[p. a168]
HYMN XII (12)
An Apri or propitiatory hymn
[0501201] Thou in the house of man this day enkindled worshippest Gods as God, O Jatavedas.
Observant, bright as Mitra, bring them hither.
Thou art a sapient and foreknowing envoy.
[0501202] Tanunapat, fair tongued! with sweet meath balming the baths and ways of Order, make them pleasant.
Bear to the Gods our sacrifice, exalting with holy thoughts our hymns of praise and worship.
[0501203] Invoked, deserving prayer and adoration, O Agni, come accor dant with the Vasus.
Thou art, O youthful Lord, the Gods Invoker, so, best of sacri ficers, bring them quickly.
[0501204] By rule the Sacred Grass is scattered eastward, a robe to clothe this earth when dawns are breaking.
Widely it spreads around and far extended, fair for the Gods and bringing peace and freedom,
[0501205] Let the expansive Doors be widely opened, like wives who deck their beauty for their husbands.
Lofty, celestial, all impelling Portals, admit the Gods and give them easy entrance!
[0501206] Pouring sweet dews let holy Night and Morning, each close to each, be seated at their station, Lofty, celestial Dames with gold to deck them, assuming all their fair and radiant beauty.
[0501207] Come the first two celestial sweet voiced Hotars, arranging sacrifice for man to worship, [p. a169] As singers who inspire us in assemblies, showing the eastern light with their direction!
[0501208] Let Bharati come quickly to our worship and Ila showing like a human being.
So let Sarasvati and both her fellows, deft Goddesses, on this fair grass be seated.
[0501209] Hotar more skilled in sacrifice, bring hither with speed to day God Tvashar, thou who knowest, Even him who formed these two, the Earth and Heaven, the Parents, with their forms, and every creature.
[0501210] Bring thou to our oblations which thou balmest the companies of Gods in ordered season.
Agni, Vanaspati, the Immolator sweeten our offered gifts with meath and butter!
[0501211] Agni as soon as he was born made ready the sacrifice and was the Gods preceder.
May the Gods eat our offering consecrated according to this true Priest s voice and guidance.
[p. a170]
HYMN XIII (13)
A charm against snakes
[0501301] Varuna, Sage of heaven, hath given me the gift: with spells of mighty power I draw thy poison out.
Dug up, not dug, adherent, I have seized it fast: low hath thy venom sunk like water in the sands.
[0501302] All the non fluid portion of thy venom, I receive in these.
I take thy middlemost, thy highest, lowest juice: may it be spent and lest by reason of thy fear.
[0501303] Strong is my cry like thunder with the rainy cloud: with power ful incantation let thy strength be stayed.
I, with the men to aid, have seized that juice of his; as light from out the gloom, let Surya rise on high
[0501304] I with this eye destroy thine eye, and with this poison conquer thine.
Live not, O Snake, but die the death: back go thy venom on thyself.
[0501305] Listen to me, Black Snakes and hateful creatures, Lurker in Grass, Karaita, and Brown, and Spotty, Approach not near the house my friend inhabits: give warning, and rest quiet with your poison.
[0501306] Even as the cord that strings the bow, I slacken, as it were, the cars.
Of the All conquering serpent s wrath, of the fierce rage of Black, and Brown, Taimata, and Apodaka.
[0501307] And Aligi and Viligi, their father and the mother too, What will ye do? Your venomed sap, we know, is utterly powerless.
[0501308] Daughter of Urugula, she fiend whom the black, skinned mother bare All female serpents poison who crept swiftly near is impotent.
[0501309] Dwelling beside the mountain s slope, the quick eared porcupine exclaimed: Of all these she snakes homed in earth the poison is most powerless.
[0501310] Tabuva or not Tabuva, thou verily art not Tabuva: poison is killed by Tabuva. [p. a171] Tastuva or not Tastuva, thou verily art not Tastuva: poison is killed by Tastuva.
HYMN XIV (14)
A charm against witchcraft
[0501401] An eagle found thee: with his snout a wild boar dug thee from the earth.
Harm thou, O Plant, the mischievous, and drive the sorcerer away.
[0501402] Beat thou the Yatudhanas back, drive thou away the sorcerer; And chase afar, O Plant, the man who fain would do us injury.
[0501403] As it were a strip cut round from skin of a white footed an telope, Bind, like a golden chain, O God, his witchcraft on the sorcerer.
[0501404] Take thou his sorcery by the hand, and to the sorcerer lead it back.
Lay it before him, face to face, that it may kill the sorcerer.
[0501405] Back on the wizard fall his craft, upon the curser light his curse! [p. a172] Let witchcraft, like a well naved car, roll back upon the sorcerer.
[0501406] Whoso, for other s harm hath dealt woman or man in magic arts, To him we lead the sorcery back, even as a courser with a rope.
[0501407] Now whether thou hast been prepared by Gods or been pre pared by men, We, with our Indra at our side to aid us, lead thee back again.
[0501408] Agni, victorious in fight, subdue the armies of our foes! Back on the sorcerer we cast his sorcery, and beat it home.
[0501409] Thou who hast piercing weapons, pierce him who hath wrought it; conquer him.
We do not sharpen thee to slay the man who hath not practised it.
[0501410] Go as a son goes to his sire: bite as a trampled viper bites.
As one who flies from bonds, go back, O Witchcraft, to the sorcerer.
[0501411] Even as the timid antelope or hind from her assailant flees, So swiftly let the sorcery overtake and reach the sorcerer.
[0501412] Straighter than any arrow let it fly against him, Heaven and Earth.
So let that witchcraft seize again the wizard like a beast of chase.
[0501413] Let it go contrary like flame, like water following its course.
Let witchcraft, like a well naved car, roll back upon the sorcerer.
HYMN XV (15)
A charm for general prosperity
[0501501] Plant! I have those who shall avert the threatened danger, ten and one. [p. a173] O sacred Plant, produced aright! make sweetness, sweet thy self, for me.
[0501502] Twenty and two, O Plant, have I who shall avert the threatened ill.
O sacred Plant, produced aright! make sweetness, sweet thyself, for me.
HYMN XVI (16)
A charm for the increase of cattle
[0501601] Bull! if thou art the single bull, beget.
Thou hast no vital sap.
HYMN XVII (17)
The abduction and restoration of a Brahman s wife
[0501701] These first, the boundless Sea, and Matarisvan, fierce glowing Fire, the Strong, the Bliss bestower, And heavenly Floods, first born by holy Order, exclaimed against the outrage on a Brahman.
[0501702] King Soma first of all, without reluctance, made restitution of the Brahman s consort.
Mitra and Varuna were the inviters: Agni as Hotar took her hand and led her.
[0501703] The man, her pledge, must by the hand be taken when he hath cried, She is a Brahman s consort.
She stayed not for a herald to conduct her: thus is the kingdom of a ruler guarded.
[0501704] She whom they call the star with loosened tresses, descending as.
misfortune on the village, [p. a174] The Brahman s consort, she disturbs the kingdom where hath appeared the hare with fiery flashing.
[0501705] Active in duty serves the Brahmachari: he is a member of the Gods own body.
Through him Brihaspati obtained his consort, as the Gods gained the ladle brought by Soma.
[0501706] Thus spake of her those Gods of old, Seven Rishis, who sate them down to their austere devotion: Dire is a Brahman s wife led home by others: in the supremest heaven she plants confusion.
[0501707] When infants die, untimely born, when herds of cattle waste away, When heroes strike each other dead, the Brahman s wife destroyeth them.
[0501708] Even if ten former husbands none a Brahman had espoused a dame, And then a Brahman took her hand, he is her husband, only he,
[0501709] Not Vaisya, not Rajanya, no, the Brahman is indeed her lord: This Surya in his course proclaims to the Five Races of man kind.
[0501710] So then the Gods restored her, so men gave the woman back again.
Princes who kept their promises restored the Brahman s wedded wife.
[0501711] Having restored the Brahman s wife, and freed them, with Gods aid, from sin, They shared the fulness of the earth and worn themselves ex tended sway.
[0501712] No lovely wife who brings her dower in hundreds rests upon his bed, Within whose kingdom is detained, through want of sense, a Brahman s dame.
[0501713] No broad browed calf with wide set ears is ever in his homestead born.
Within whose kingdom is detained, through want of sense, a Brahman s dame.
[0501714] No steward, golden necklaced, goes before the meat trays of the man.
Within whose kingdom is detained, through want of sense, a Brahman s dame. [p. a175]
[0501715] No black eared courser, white of hue, moves proudly, harnessed to his car, In whose dominion is detained, through want of sense, a Brahman s dame.
[0501716] No lily grows with oval bulbs, no lotus pool is in his field, In whose dominion is detained, through senseless love, a Brahman s dame.
[0501717] The men whose task it is to milk drain not the brindled cow for him, In whose dominion is detained, through senseless love, a Brahman s dame.
[0501718] His milch cow doth not profit one, his draught ox masters not the yoke, Wherever, severed from his wife, a Brahman spends the mourn ful night.
[p. a176]
HYMN XVIII (18)
The wickedness of oppressing and robbing Brahmans
[0501801] The Gods, O Prince, have not bestowed this cow on thee to eat thereof.
Seek not, Rajanya, to devour the Brahman s cow which none may eat.
[0501802] A base Rajanya, spoiled at dice, and ruined by himself, may eat.
The Brahman s cow and think, To day and not tomorrow, let me live!
[0501803] The Brahman s cow is like a snake, charged with due poison, clothed with skin.
Rajanya! bitter to the taste is she, and none may eat of her.
[0501804] She takes away his strength, she mars his splendour, she ruins everything like fire enkindled.
That man drinks poison of the deadly serpent who counts the Brahman as mere food to feed him.
[0501805] Whoever smites him, deeming him a weakling blasphemer, coveting his wealth through folly Indra sets fire alight within his bosom.
He who acts thus is loathed by Earth and Heaven.
[0501806] No Brahman must be injured, safe as fire from him who loves himself.
For Soma is akin to him and Indra guards him from the curse.
[0501807] The fool who eats the Brahmans food and thinks it pleasant to the taste, Eats, but can never digest, the cow that bristles with a hundred barbs,
[0501808] His voice an arrow s neck, his tongue a bowstring, his windpipes fire enveloped heads of arrows, [p. a177] With these the Brahman pierces through blasphemers, with God sped bows that quell the hearts within them.
[0501809] Keen arrows have the Brahmans, armed with missiles: the shaft, when they discharge it, never faileth.
Pursuing him with fiery zeal and anger, they pierce the foeman even from a distance.
[0501810] They who, themselves ten hundred, were the rulers of a thousand men, The Vaitahavyas, were destroyed for that they ate a Brahman s cow.
[0501811] The cow, indeed, when she was slain overthrew those Vaitahavyas, who Cooked the last she goat that remained of Kesaraprabandha s flock.
[0501812] One and a hundred were the folk, those whom the earth shook off from her: When they had wronged the Brahman race they perished incon ceivably.
[0501813] Among mankind the Gods despiser moveth: he hath drunk poison, naught but bone is left him.
Who wrongs the kinsman of the Gods, the Brahman, gains not the sphere to which the Fathers travelled.
[0501814] Agni, in sooth, is called our guide, Soma is called our next of kin.
Indra quells him who curses us.
Sages know well that this is so.
[0501815] Prince! like a poisoned arrow, like a deadly snake, O lord of kine! Dire is the Brahman s arrow: he pierces his enemies therewith.
[p. a178]
HYMN XIX (19)
The wickedness of robbing or insulting Brahmans
[0501901] The sons of Vitahavya, the Srinjayas, waxed exceeding strong.
They well nigh touched the heavens, but they wronged Bhrigu and were overthrown.
[0501902] When men pierced Brihatsaman through, the Brahman, son of Angiras, The ram with teeth in both his jaws, the sheep, devoured their progeny.
[0501903] If men have spat upon, or shot their rheum upon a Brahman, they.
Sit in the middle of a stream running with blood, devouring hair.
[0501904] While yet the Brahman s cow which men are dressing quivers in her throe: She mars the kingdom s splendour: there no vigorous hero springs to life.
[0501905] Terrible is her cutting up: her bitter flesh is cast away, And it is counted sin among the Fathers if her milk is drunk.
[0501906] If any King who deems himself mighty would eat a Brahman up, Rent and disrupted is that realm wherein a Brahman is oppres sed.
[0501907] She grows eight footed, and four eyed, four eared, four jawed, two faced, two tongued, And shatters down the kingdom of the man who doth the Brahman wrong.
[0501908] As water swamps a leaky ship so ruin overflows that realm.
Misfortune smites the realm wherein a Brahman suffers scath and harm.
[0501909] The very trees repel the man, and drive him from their sheltering shade, Whoever claims, O Narada, the treasure that a Brahman owns. [p. a179]
[0501910] That wealth, King Varuna hath said, is poison by the Gods prepared.
None hath kept watch to guard his realm who hath devoured a Brahman s cow.
[0501911] Those nine and ninety people whom Earth shook and cast away from her, When they had wronged the Brahman race were ruined incon ceivably.
[0501912] Oppressor of the Brahmans! thus the Gods have spoken and declared, The step effacing wisp they bind upon the dead shall be thy couch.
[0501913] Oppressor of the Brahmans! tears wept by the man who suffers wrong, These are the share of water which the Gods have destined to be thine.
[0501914] The share of water which the Gods have destined to be thine, is that, Oppressor of the priest! wherewith men lave the corpse and wet the beard.
[0501915] The rain of Mitra Varuna falls not on him who wrongs the priest.
To him no counsel brings success: he wins, no friend to do his will.
[p. a180]
Atharva Veda Books:-
|
Book 1 av01-h1 Book 2 av02-h1 Book 3 av03-h1 Book 4 av04-h1 Book5 |
Book6 av06-h1 Book 7 av07-h1 |
Book 8 Book 9 Book 10 Book 11 Book 12 Book 13 |
Book 14 Book 15 Book 16 Book 17 Book 18 |
Book 19 av19-h1 Book 20 av20-h1 |
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