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Hymns of the Atharva Veda, by Ralph T.H. Griffith, [1895], at sacred-texts.com


HYMN XCVI

1Taste this strong draught that gives thee vital vigour: with all
   thy chariot here unyoke thy coursers.
  Let not those other sacrificers stay thee, Indra: these juices shed
   for thee are ready.
2Thine is the juice effused, thine are the juices yet to be pressed:
   our resonant songs invite thee.
  O Indra, pleased to-day with this libation, come, thou who
   knowest all, and drink the Soma.
3Whoso, devoted to the God, effuses Soma for him with yearning
   heart and spirit,
  Never doth Indra give away his cattle: for him he makes the
   lovely Soma famous.
4He looks with loving favour on the mortal who, like a rich man,
   pours for him the Soma.
  Maghavan in his bended arm supports him: he slays, unasked,
   the men who hate devotion.
5We call on thee to come to us, desirous of booty, and of cattle,
   and of horses. p. 344
  For thy new love and favour are we present: let us invoke thee,
  Indra, as our welfare.
6For life I set thee free by this oblation from the unknown
   decline and from consumption;
  Or, if the grasping demon have possessed him, free him from
   her, O Indra, thou and Agni.
7Be his days ended, be he how departed, be he brought very near
   to death already,
  Out of Destruction's lap again I bring him, save him for life to
   last a hundred autumns.
8With thousand-eyed oblation, hundred-autumned, bringing a
   hundred lives, have 1 restored him.
  That Indra for a hundred years may lead him safe to the farther
   shore of all misfortune.
9Live waxing in thy strength a hundred autumns, live through a
   hundred springs, a hundred winters.
  Through hundred-lived oblation Indra, Agni, Brihaspati, Savitar
   yield him for a hundred!
10So have I found and rescued thee: thou hast returned with
   youth renewed.
  Whole in thy members! I have found whole sight and all thy
   life for thee.
11May Agni yielding to our prayer, the Rakshas-killer, drive away.
  The malady of evil name that hath beset thy labouring womb.
12Agni, concurring in the prayer, drive off the eater of thy flesh,
  The malady of evil name that hath attacked thy babe and
   womb.
13That which destroys the sinking germ, the settled, moving
   embryo,
  That which would kill the babe at birth, even this will we drive
   far away.
14That which divides thy legs that it may lie between the married
   pair,
  That penetrates and licks thy side, even this will we exterminate.
15What rests by thee in borrowed form of brother, lover, or of
   lord,
  And would destroyed the progeny,—even this will we exter-
   minate.
16That which through sleep or darkness hath deceived thee and
   lies down by thee, p. 345
  And will destroy thy progeny,—even this will we exterminate.
17From both thy nostrils, from thine eyes, from both thine ears
   and from thy chin,
  Forth from thy head and brain and tongue I drive thy malady
   away.
18From the neck-tendons and the neck, from the breast-bones
   and from the spine,
  From shoulders, upper, lower arms, I drive thy malady away.
19From viscera and all within, forth from the rectum, from the
   heart,
  From kidneys, liver and from spleen, I drive thy malady away.
20From thighs, from knee-caps, and from heels, and from the
   forepart of the feet,
  From hips, from stomach, and from groin, I drive thy malady
   away.
21From what is voided from within, and from thy hair, and from
   thy nails,
  From all thyself, from top to toe, I drive thy malady away.
22From every member, every hair, disease that comes in every
   joint,
  From all thyself, from top to toe, I drive thy malady away.
23Avaunt, thou Master of the Mind, I Depart and vanish far away.
  Look on Destruction far from us. The live man's mind is
   manifold.


Next: Hymn 97