Atharva Veda

The Hymns of the Atharvaveda

Translation by Ralph T.H. Griffith

BOOK I

HYMN II

A charm against dysentery

1          We know the father of the shaft, Parjanya, liberal nourisher,
            Know well his mother: Prithivī, Earth with her manifold designs.

2          Do thou, O Bowstring, bend thyself around us: make my body stone.
            Firm in thy strength drive far away malignities and hateful things.

3          When, closely clinging round the wood, the bowstring sings triumph to the swift             and whizzing arrow, Indra, ward off from us the shaft, the missile.

4          As in its flight the arrow's point hangs between earth and firmament,
            So stand this Munja grass between ailment and dysenteric ill!

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