Page:Atharva-Veda samhita.djvu/224

ii. 12- witchcraft (as at 47. 14, 16, 18; 48. 22); and its several verses are applied through an extended incantation (47. 25-57) against an enemy; the details of it throw no light upon their interpretation.

Translated: E. Schlagintweit, die Gottesurtheile der Indier (München, 1866, Abh. der bayer. Akad. der Wiss.), p. 13 ff.; Weber, xiii. 164; Ludwig, p. 445; Zimmer, p. 183; Grill, 47, 85; Griffith, i. 55; Bloomfield, JAOS. xiii., p. ccxxi f. (= PAOS. Oct. 1887) or AJP. xi. 334-5; SBE. xiii. 89, 294.—The first four interpreted it as accompanying a fire-ordeal; but Grill and Bloomfield have, with good reason, taken a different view. The native interpreters know nothing of any connection with an ordeal, nor is this to be read into the text without considerable violence.

1. Heaven-and-earth, the wide atmosphere, the mistress of the field, the wonderful wide-going one, and the wide wind-guarded atmosphere—let these be inflamed (tapya-) here while I am inflamed.

2. Hear this, O ye gods that are worshipful (yajñíya); Bharadvāja sings (çaṅs) hymns (ukthá) for me; let him, bound in a fetter, be plunged (ni-yuj) in difficulty who injures this our mind.

3. Hear this, O Indra, soma-drinker, as I call loudly to thee with a burning (çuc) heart; I hew (vraçc) him [down], as a tree with an ax, who injures this our mind.

4. With thrice eighty sā́man-singers, with the Ādityas, the Vasus, the Angirases—let what is sacrificed-and-bestowed of the Fathers aid us—I take yon man with seizure (háras) of the gods.

Iṣṭapūrtám in c has probably already the later meaning of merit obtained by such sacred acts; the comm. says tadubhayajanitaṁ sukṛtam. Haras he calls a krodhanāman. He understands the 'three eighties' of a to be the triplets (tṛca) in gāyatrī,