Anuvaka 9
Suktas in Anuvaka 9
Sukta 81
This short Atharvavedic hymn is a garbhādhāna (conception) and putrakāmyā (desire for a child) charm that establishes and protects the womb so a viable embryo may be placed and carried to term. It invokes a protective, boundary-setting power (parihasta) to ward off rakṣas (harmful beings/influences) while securing progeny and household prosperity.
Sukta 82
This short Atharvavedic hymn is a marriage-charm (jāyākāmanā) intended to draw a suitable wife into the reciter’s life and household. It links the desired human marriage to archetypal divine precedents—Sūryā’s bridal conveyance by the Aśvins and Indra’s irresistible, wealth-giving power—so that fortune, consent, and social success converge in the acquisition of a bride.
Sukta 83
This brief Bhaiṣajya hymn expels the wasting affliction (Apaciti) by sending it “flying away” from its seat, while establishing a solar–lunar cure as the restoring counterforce. It works by (1) vivid banishment imagery (the disease as a bird driven out), (2) naming and routing multiple disease-agents to prevent relapse, and (3) sealing the act with an oblation-formula that ensures ritual efficacy.
Sukta 84
This brief Atharvanic charm is a “loosening from Nirṛti,” aimed at expelling the power of calamity and undoing the fetters that bind a sufferer to misfortune, disease, or death-omens. By offering into Nirṛti’s dreadful seat and naming her double aspect as Bhūmi (the absorptive Earth) and Nirṛti (the dissolving Negation), the hymn forces the severing of iron nooses and restores the patient to life—or, if death is irreversible, entrusts the person to Yama and the Fathers for safe ascent.
Sukta 85
AV 6.85 is a compact healing charm aimed at expelling yákṣma (wasting/consumption) and preventing its return by establishing a protective “warding” boundary around the patient. It combines plant-power (Varana as Vanaspati) with the authoritative force of divine Speech (Indra–Mitra–Varuṇa and all the Gods) and the purifying, constraining heat of Agni Vaiśvānara. Mythic analogy (Vṛtra’s checking of the Waters) is harnessed to “check” the disease’s spread and movement in the body.
Sukta 86
This short Atharvavedic hymn is a paustika “royal-stability” charm that concentrates sovereignty and masculine pre-eminence into a single ritual subject (typically the king). By aligning him with cosmic lordships—Indra’s bull-power, the ocean’s command of flows, Agni’s mastery of earth, and the moon’s governance of stars—it seeks to make him the ekavṛṣa (“the single, unrivalled Bull”), i.e., the one without a peer or rival in authority and generative vigor.
Sukta 87
This brief royal charm “fences in” the king within firm, unmoving sovereignty so that the realm does not slip away and the people remain willingly aligned. It stabilizes kingship by fixing the king “like a mountain,” modeling him on Indra, and sealing the act with sacrificial firmness (dhruva) endorsed by Soma and Brahmaṇaspati.
Sukta 88
This brief Paustika hymn “fixes” kingship by aligning the ruler with the immovable supports of the cosmos—heaven, earth, and mountains—so that the realm remains unshaken. It invokes Dhruva (steadfastness) and the sovereign upholders Varuṇa, Bṛhaspati, Indra, and Agni to stabilize rāṣṭra, defeat hostile rivals, and bring the assembly and directions into unanimity.
Sukta 89
AV 6.89 is a compact Atharvanic charm for generating prīti (affection/concord) while simultaneously drying up psychosomatic “heart-burning” (hārdi) and mental anguish. It works by ritually transferring Soma-empowered potency to the person (notably the head) and by using the wind/smoke image as a carrier that draws the other’s mind toward the practitioner, culminating in a socially sanctioned meeting under Mitra–Varuṇa and Sarasvatī.
Sukta 90
This brief Atharvavedic healing hymn treats acute inner pain as Rudra’s “arrow” lodged in the limbs and heart, and uses mantra to draw it out and render it harmless. It combines extraction-language (vi vṛh-) with channel-cleansing (dhāmanī-) and ends by pacifying Rudra through repeated homage to the missile in every stage of its flight, preventing recurrence.
Read Atharva Veda in the Vedapath app
Scan the QR code to open this directly in the app, with word-by-word meanings, Sanskrit recitation where available, and more.