Atharva-Veda Samhita/Book II/Hymn 14

14. Against sadā́nvās.

[Cātana.—ṣaḍṛcam. çālāgnidevatyam uta mantroktadevatākam. ānuṣṭubham: 2. bhurij; 4. upariṣṭādvirāḍbṛhatī.]

All the verses are found in Pāipp., vs. 4 in v., the rest (in the verse-order 1, 5, 6, 2, 3) in ii. It is reckoned by Kāuç. to the cātanāni (8. 25), and also among the hymns of the bṛhachānti gaṇa (9. 1); it is used in the women's rites (strīkarmāṇi) to prevent abortion (34. 3); also in the rite for expiation of barrenness in cattle (vaçāçamana; 44. 11); and in the establishment of the house-fire (72. 4), with sprinkling of the entrance, and finally in the funeral ceremonies (82. 14), with the same action. The comm. further refers to the use of the cātana and mātṛnāman hymns in Nakṣ. K. 23 and Çānti K. 15. All these uses imply simply the value of the hymn as exorcising evil influences or the beings that represent them, and do not help us to see against what it was originally directed: Weber suggests rats and worms and such like pests; perhaps, rather, troublesome insects: as usual, the indications are so indefinite that wide room for conjecture is left open.

Translated: Weber, xiii. 175; Ludwig, p. 522; Grill, 1, 89; Griffith, i. 58; Bloomfield, 66, 298. ⌊☞ See p. 1045.⌋

1. The expeller, the bold, the container, the one-toned, the voracious—all the daughters (naptī́) of the wrathful one, the sadā́nvās, we make to disappear.

By the connection, the obscure words in the first half-verse should be names of individual sadānvās, but dhiṣā́ṇam (the translation implies emendation to -ṇām) is masculine (or neuter), and dhṛṣṇúm (for which Ppp. reads dhiṣṇyam) not distinctively feminine. Nissālā́ (SPP's text reads, with the saṁhitā-mss. generally, niḥsā-: p. niḥ॰sālā́m) is taken by the letter of the text, as if from niḥ-sālay = niḥ-sāray; the comm. gives first this derivation, but spoils it by adding as alternative "originating from the sāla, a kind of tree." R. suggests niḥsālam "out of the house," adverb. The comm. shamelessly derives dhiṣaṇam from dhṛṣ, and explains it as "a seizer with evil, so named"; he also takes -vādya as = vacana. All our pada-mss. commit the gross blunder of dividing jighat॰svàm, as if the word were a compound; SPP. lets the division stand in his pada-text. Ppp. reads in c napatiyas.

2. Out of the cow-stall we drive you, out of the axle, out of the wagon-body (?); out of the houses we expel you, ye daughters (duhitṛ́) of magundī.

The comm. understands upānasā́t (for which two of our mss., P.M., read upamānasā́t) to mean "a granary"—or else "a wagon full of grain"; and ákṣa "a gambling house." He does not venture to etymologize magundī, but calls it simply the name of a certain piçācī. The pada-mss. read magundyā, which SPP. properly emends to -dyāḥ. Ppp. has for b the corrupt nir yoninnṛpānaca, ⌊in c magundyā⌋, and at end of d cātayāmasi. The Anukr. takes notice of the metrical irregularity of c.

3. Yon house that is below—there let the hags be; there let debility (sedí) make its home (ni-uc), and all the sorceresses.

Ppp. has a different version of the first three pādas: amuṣminn adhare gṛhe sarvā svaṅta rāyaḥ: tatra pāpmā ni yacchatu. The comm. renders sedi by nirṛti.

⌊Our accent-notation does not here distinguish a kṣāipra circumflex (ny-ùcyantu) from an enclitic circumflex (sedír nyùcyantu—as if it were the impossible ni-ucyantu, accentless); nor do the mss. of SPP.: but in his text, he here employs the stroke, like "long ſ" or the sign of integration, which does distinguish them.⌋

4. Let the lord of beings drive out, also Indra, from here the sadā́nvās, sitting on the bottom of the house; let Indra subdue them with the thunderbolt.

The omission of this verse, as being not found with the rest in Ppp. ii., would reduce the hymn to the norm of the second book. Ppp. (in v.) rectifies the meter of d by omitting indras. The metrical definition of the Anukr. is mechanically correct. The comm. understands bhūtapati to designate Rudra.

5. If ye are of the endemic (? kṣetriyá) ones, or if sent by men; if ye are born from the barbarians (dásyu)—disappear from here, O sadā́nvās.

All the mss., both here and in the next verse, accent at the end sadā́nvās, though the word is plainly a vocative, and is so understood by the comm. (who says nothing of the accent, and indeed in general pays no heed to it); SPP. retains the manuscript reading. Ppp. has for a yā devā gha kṣetriyād, and for c yad astu daçvibho jātā.

6. I have gone around the abodes (dhāman) of them as a swift [steed about] a race-course; I have won (ji) all your races (ājí); disappear from here, O sadā́nvās.

The translation implies the evidently necessary emendation asaram at end of b; Ppp. has it, and also the comm.; both editions give asaran, with all the mss. But Ppp. agrees with the mss. in giving just before it the false reading gā́ṣṭhām for kā́- (our text emends, but, by an oversight, gives -çúr instead of -çúḥ before it); and SPP. retains gā́-. The comm. has instead glā́ṣṭhām, and explains it as "the further goal, where one stops (sthā) wearied (glāna)."