{"collection":"Hinduism","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/hin/av/av10001.htm","path":"hin/av/av10001.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/hin/av/av10001.htm","text":"Hymns of the Atharva Veda, by Ralph T.H. Griffith, [1895]\n1Afar let her depart: away we drive her whom, made with hands,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0all-beautiful,\n \u00a0\u00a0Skilled men prepare and fashion like a bride amid her nuptial\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0train.\n 2Complete, with head and nose and ears, all-beauteous, wrought\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0with magic skill\n \u00a0\u00a0Afar let her depart: away we drive her.\n 3Made by a Sidra or a Prince, by priests or women let her go.\n \u00a0\u00a0Back to her maker as her kin, like a dame banished by her lord.\n 4I with this salutary herb have ruined all their magic arts,\n \u00a0\u00a0The spell which they have cast upon thy field, thy cattle, or thy\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0men.\n 5Ill fall on him who doeth ill, on him who curseth fall the\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0curse!\n \u00a0\u00a0We drive her back that she may slay the man who wrought the\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0witchery.\n 6Against her comes the Angirasa, the Priest whose eye is over us.\n \u00a0\u00a0Turn back all witcheries and slay those practisers of magic arts.\n 7Whoever said to thee, Go forth against the foeman up the\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0stream,\n \u00a0\u00a0To him, O Krity\u0101, go thou back. Pursue not us, the sinless\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0ones.\n 8He who composed thy limbs with thought as a deft joiner builds\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0a car,\n \u00a0\u00a0Go to him: thither lies thy way. This man is all unknown to\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0thee.\n 9The cunning men, the sorcerers who fashioned thee and held thee\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0fast,\u2014 p. 2\n \u00a0\u00a0This cures and mars their witchery, this, repellent, drives it back\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0the way it came. With this we make thee swim.\n 10When we have found her ducked and drenched, a hapless cow\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0whose calf hath died,\n \u00a0\u00a0Let all my woe depart and let abundant riches come to me.\n 11If, as they gave thy parents aught, they named thee, or at sacri-\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0fice,\n \u00a0\u00a0From all their purposed evil let these healing herbs deliver thee.\n 12From mention of thy name, from sin against the Fathers or the\n \u00a0\u00a0Gods,\n \u00a0\u00a0These herbs of healing shall by prayer release thee, by power,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0by holy texts, the milk of .Rishis.\n 13As the wind stirs the dust from earth and drives the rain cloud\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0from the sky,\n \u00a0\u00a0So, chased and banished by the spell, all misery departs from\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0me.\n 14Go with a resonant cry, depart, like a she-ass whose cords are\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0loosed.\n \u00a0\u00a0Go to thy makers: hence! away! Go driven by the potent\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0spell.\n 15This, Krity\u0101, is thy path, we say, and guide thee. We drive thee\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0back who hast been sent against us.\n \u00a0\u00a0Go by this pathway, breaking loose for onslaught even as a host\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0complete with cars and horses.\n 16No path leads hitherward for thee to travel. Turn thee from us:\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0far off, thy light is yonder.\n \u00a0\u00a0Fly hence across the ninety floods, the rivers most hard to pass.\n \u00a0\u00a0Begone, and be not wounded.\n 17As wind the trees, so smite and overthrow them: leave not cow,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0horse, or man of them surviving\n \u00a0\u00a0Return, O Krity\u0101, unto those who made thee. Wake them from\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0sleep to find that they are childless.\n 18The charm or secret power which they have buried for thee in\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0sacred grass, field, cemetery,\n \u00a0\u00a0Or spell in household fire which men more cunning have\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0wrought against thee innocent and simple,\u2014\n 19That tool of hatred, understood, made ready, stealthy and buried\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0deep, have we discovered, p. 3\n \u00a0\u00a0Let that go back to whence it came, turn thither like a horse\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0and kill the children of the sorcerer.\n 20Within our house are swords of goodly iron. Krity\u0101, we know\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0thy joints and all their places.\n \u00a0\u00a0Arise this instant and begone! What, stranger! art thou seek-\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0ing here?\n 21O Krity\u0101, I will cut thy throat and hew thy feet off. Run, be-\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0gone!\n \u00a0\u00a0Indra and Agni, Guardian Lords of living creatures, shield us\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0well!\n 22May Soma, gracious friend, imperial Sovran, and the world's\n \u00a0\u00a0Masters look on us with favour.\n 23Bhava and Sarva cast the flash of lightning, the weapon of the\n \u00a0\u00a0Gods, against the sinner who made the evil thing, who deals\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0in witchcraft!\n 24If thou hast come two-footed or four-footed, made by the\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0sorcerer, wrought in perfect beauty,\n \u00a0\u00a0Become eight-footed and go hence. Speed back again, thou evil\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0one.\n 25Anointed, balmed, and well adorned, bearing all trouble with\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0thee, go.\n \u00a0\u00a0Even as a daughter knows her sire, so know thy marker, Krity\u0101,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0thou.\n 26Krity\u0101, begone, stay not. Pursue as 'twere the wounded crea-\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0ture's track.\n \u00a0\u00a0He is the chase, the hunter thou he may not slight or humble thee.\n 27He waits, and aiming with his shaft smites him who first would\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0shoot at him,\n \u00a0\u00a0And, when the foeman deals a blow before him, following strikes\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0him down.\n 28Hearken to this my word; then go thither away whence thou\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0hast come; to him who made thee go thou back.\n 29The slaughter of an innocent, O Krity\u0101, is an awful deed. Slay\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0not cow, horse, or man of ours.\n \u00a0\u00a0In whatsoever place thou art concealed we rouse thee up there-\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0from: become thou lighter than a leaf.\n 30If ye be girt about with clouds of darkness, bound as with a\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0net.\n \u00a0\u00a0We rend and tear all witcheries hence and to their maker send\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0them back. p. 4\n 31The brood of wizard, sorcerer, the purposer of evil deed.\n \u00a0\u00a0Crush thou, O Krity\u0101 spare not, kill those practisers of magic\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0arts.\n 32As S\u016brya frees himself from depth of darkness, and casts away\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0the night and rays of morning,\n \u00a0\u00a0So I repel each baleful charm which an enchanter hath pre-\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0pared;\n \u00a0\u00a0And, as an elephant shakes off the dust, I cast the plague aside.","title":"Atharva Veda: Book 10: Hymn 1: A charm against witchcraft","type":"page"}