Anuvaka 4
Suktas in Anuvaka 4
Sukta 31
AV 4.31 is a martial Manyu-hymn that consecrates battle-fury as a divine ally, turning a war-band into an irresistible, weapon-whetting host that advances “in Agni’s form.” It organizes clans for combat, raises the victorious battle-cry, and seeks both rout of enemies through heart-born fear and the securing of compacted wealth/spoil under Manyu (and, at the close, Varuṇa).
Sukta 32
This triṣṭubh battle-hymn rouses Manyu (Wrath) as a divine, Indra-like force that breaks enemies, pierces hidden threats, and compels victory. By identifying Manyu with multiple sovereign and ritual powers (Indra, Varuṇa, Jātavedas, Hotṛ), the sukta concentrates an all-purpose martial protection that also secures spoils and prosperity for the patron.
Sukta 33
This eight-verse Atharvavedic hymn invokes Agni as pāpa-nāśana, the burner-away of agha (evil, sin, misfortune, ritual pollution). Repeating a refrain-like expulsion formula, it asks Agni’s flames and rays to scour the sacrificer’s person and surroundings, replacing danger with rayi (prosperity) and svasti (well-being). The hymn’s power is framed as a total purification—inner moral/ritual fault and outer hostile influences are both consumed by Agni’s heat and radiance.
Sukta 34
This sukta sacralizes cooked odana (brahmaudana/viṣṭāriṇ) by identifying it with the very body of Yajña: metres become its wings, truth its mouth, and tapas its generative heat. By installing the consecrated food among Brahmans, the hymn aims to make nourishment expand into ritual success—prosperity, “world-winning” merit, and heaven-leading efficacy—while explicitly preventing any harmful rebound upon the patron.
Sukta 35
AV 4.35 is a mṛtyu-santāraṇa (death-crossing) healing hymn that sacralizes brahma-odana (consecrated boiled rice) as a cosmic, life-bearing substance by which the reciter ‘passes beyond’ untimely death. It identifies odana with Prajāpati’s tapas-born creative act and with a luminous, all-direction-protecting Brahman/Brāhmaṇaspati principle that restores prāṇa and outlasts time’s wheels (months, year, day-night). The refrain-like petition—“tena odanena ati tarāṇi mṛtyum”—functions as the hymn’s operative seal of efficacy.
Sukta 36
AV 4.36 is a rakṣoghna–abhicārika hymn that fortifies the household boundary against night-roaming predators—rakṣas, piśācas, and kravyāds—especially those active on the new-moon night. It combines fiery expulsion through Agni Vaiśvānara with coercive ‘sahas’ (mantric force) and, at the close, binding ruin through Nirṛti, aiming to burn, overpower, and restrain every hostile approach.
Sukta 37
AV 4.37 is a bhaiṣajya-hymn that empowers a medicinal herb as a living, personified healer to destroy kṛmi (worms/parasites) and the rākṣasa-like agencies of disease. It grounds its efficacy in ancestral precedent—Atharvans and famed seers (Kaśyapa, Kaṇva, Agastya)—and then escalates into forceful rakṣoghna speech that expels Gandharva–Apsaras influences, especially those linked with erotic possession and household disruption.
Sukta 38
This Atharvavedic charm secures prosperity by binding protective, far-ranging potency to a household’s vulnerable wealth—especially cattle and winnings. It invokes an auspicious Apsaras who “sifts and scatters” fortune and a vājín-like guardian force that moves with the mid-air and along the Sun’s rays, to bring the desired gains home and keep them fixed there.
Sukta 39
AV 4.39 is a prosperity-and-vitality charm that imagines the Antarika (mid-air) as a cosmic milch-cow, with V1yu (wind/breath) as her calf who draws out nourishment. By aligning social and cosmic forces into concord (sanati) and sealing the rite through Agni J1tavedas, the hymn seeks to milk life, vigor, desire-fulfillment, progeny, thriving, and wealth for the performer.
Sukta 40
AV 4.40 is a directional counter-sorcery hymn that detects hostile offerings and witchcraft coming from any quarter and forcibly reverses them. Addressing Agni Jātavedas as the all-knowing witness of rites, it turns the attackers “away” (parāñcaḥ), shakes them with a returning force (pratyag), and seals protection by the pratisara (binding/amulet). The hymn’s power lies in mapping threat to space (quarters and inter-quarters) and neutralizing it through fire, sacred potency, and a physical protective tie.
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