Anuvaka 4
Suktas in Anuvaka 4
Sukta 31
AV 1.31 is a compact Atharvanic well-being and prosperity formula that secures “subhūti” (auspicious thriving) by invoking Āśāpāla, the guardian and fulfiller of hopes, together with the stabilizing guardians of the four quarters. It combines an apotropaic release from Nirṛti’s binding “nooses” (misfortune, constriction, peril) with a household-wide benediction—parents, cattle, people—and culminates in the longevity wish, “may we long behold the Sun.”
Sukta 32
AVŚ 1.32 exalts the Atharvanic brahman (mantra-power) as the life-giving force that makes medicinal plants “breathe,” and therefore renders healing possible. It also applies this same stabilizing power to the wider environment—pacifying terrestrial trembling and directing dangerous moisture into safe channels—so that life, health, and settled order are restored and maintained.
Sukta 33
AV 1.33 is an Āpaḥ-sūkta that consecrates water as a living, luminous purifier—“gold-hued” and “cleansing”—in whom Savitar’s generative force and Agni’s hidden tejas (as garbha, ‘embryo’) abide. Recited over water for bathing, sprinkling, or drinking, it pacifies impurity and disease and turns the waters into śam and syoṇāḥ: welfare-giving, kindly, benign powers for the patient and the household.
Sukta 34
AV 1.34 is a “madhu (sweetness)” charm that sacralizes a honey-born creeper (oṣadhi/vīrut) and transfers its pleasing, life-supporting quality into the practitioner’s body, speech, and social field. By ritual handling of the plant—often with literal honey—and by recitation, the hymn aims to produce honeyed well-being: health, agreeable words, mental influence, concord, and attraction.
Sukta 35
This short Atharvanic charm consecrates hiraṇya (gold) as a bound-on amulet to confer āyus (long life), varcas (radiant vitality), and bala/ojas (strength). It gathers into the wearer the combined potencies of waters and plants, then “fills” and stabilizes life through the ordered cycle of months, seasons, and the year, seeking the assent of Indra-Agni and all the Gods so the blessing remains unobstructed.
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