{"collection":"Hinduism","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/hin/av/av05018.htm","path":"hin/av/av05018.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/hin/av/av05018.htm","text":"Hymns of the Atharva Veda, by Ralph T.H. Griffith, [1895]\n1The Gods, O Prince, have not bestowed this cow on thee to eat\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0thereof.\n \u00a0\u00a0Seek not, R\u0101janya, to devour the Br\u0101hman's cow which none\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0may eat.\n 2A base R\u0101janya, spoiled at dice, and ruined by himself, may eat.\n \u00a0\u00a0The Br\u0101hman's cow and think, To-day and not tomorrow, let\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0me live!\n 3The Br\u0101hman's cow is like a snake, charged with due poison,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0clothed with skin.\n \u00a0\u00a0R\u0101janya! bitter to the taste is she, and none may eat of her.\n 4She takes away his strength, she mars his splendour, she ruins\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0everything like fire enkindled.\n \u00a0\u00a0That man drinks poison of the deadly serpent who counts the\n \u00a0\u00a0Br\u0101hman as mere food to feed him.\n 5Whoever smites him, deeming him a weakling-blasphemer,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0coveting his wealth through folly\n \u00a0\u00a0Indra sets fire alight within his bosom. He who acts thus is\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0loathed by Earth and Heaven.\n 6No Br\u0101hman must be injured, safe as fire from him who loves\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0himself.\n \u00a0\u00a0For Soma is akin to him and Indra guards him from the curse.\n 7The fool who eats the Br\u0101hmans' food and thinks it pleasant to\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0the taste,\n \u00a0\u00a0Eats, but can ne'er digest, the cow that bristles with a hundred\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0barbs,\n 8His voice an arrow's neck, his tongue a bowstring, his windpipes\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0fire-enveloped heads of arrows, p. a177\n \u00a0\u00a0With these the Br\u0101hman pierces through blasphemers, with\n \u00a0\u00a0God-sped bows that quell the hearts within them.\n 9Keen arrows have the Br\u0101hmans, armed with missiles: the shaft,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0when they discharge it, never faileth.\n \u00a0\u00a0Pursuing him with fiery zeal and anger, they pierce the foeman\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0even from a distance.\n 10They who, themselves ten hundred, were the rulers of a thousand\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0men,\n \u00a0\u00a0The Vaitahavyas, were destroyed for that they ate a Br\u0101hman's\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0cow.\n 11The cow, indeed, when she was slain o'erthrew those Vaitahavyas,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0who\n \u00a0\u00a0Cooked the last she-goat that remained of Kesarapr\u0101bandh\u0101's\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0flock.\n 12One and a hundred were the folk, those whom the earth shook\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0off from her:\n \u00a0\u00a0When they had wronged the Br\u0101hman race they perished incon-\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0ceivably.\n 13Among mankind the Gods' despiser moveth: he hath drunk\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0poison, naught but bone is left him.\n \u00a0\u00a0Who wrongs the kinsman of the Gods, the Br\u0101hman, gains not\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0the sphere to which the Fathers travelled.\n 14Agni, in sooth, is called our guide, Soma is called our next of\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0kin.\n \u00a0\u00a0Indra quells him who curses us. Sages know well that this is so.\n 15Prince! like a poisoned arrow, like a deadly snake, O lord of\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0kine!\n \u00a0\u00a0Dire is the Br\u0101hman's arrow: he pierces his enemies therewith.","title":"Atharva Veda: Book 5: Hymn 18: The wickedness of oppressi...","type":"page"}