Page:Atharva-Veda samhita.djvu/228

ii. 14- 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.

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.

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.

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

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.