Atharva Veda Anuvaka 2
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Kanda 610 Suktas32 Mantras

Anuvaka 2

Applied protection and healing: stabilizing life (birth, pregnancy, longevity) while expelling toxins, disease, and inner social-mental afflictions through mantra and vegetal medicine

Kinds of charm

Bhaishajya (healing): 5Paushtika (prosperity): 2Shantika (pacifying): 2Abhicharika (against foes): 1

Suktas in Anuvaka 2

Sukta 11

AV 6.11 is a compact pumsavana (male-begetting) charm that transfers and installs generative potency into women to secure the “winning of a son.” It links botanical symbolism (Śamī upon Aśvattha) with Prajāpati’s ordinance, and invokes consent-and-fertility powers (Anumati, Sinīvālī) to redirect reproductive outcomes toward a male child.

Rishi: Atharvanic tradition (often treated as Atharvan/Angiras-type domestic fertility lore; specific r̥ṣi not explicit in the supplied excerpt). | Devata: Pumsavana-śakti (generative potency); implicitly Prajāpati as procreative lord across the hymn. | 3 Mantras

Sukta 12

AV 6.12 is a compact Atharvanic healing charm that wards off snake-venom by invoking cosmic purifiers and the total authority of sacred knowledge. It culminates in a pacifying “sweetening” (madhu) of waters and named rivers, extending the cure into śānti: welfare for mouth (ingestion/speech) and heart (vital-emotional center). The hymn’s power lies in separating poison from the patient (like the Sun’s encompassing purity) and re-establishing harmony through honeyed, auspicious waters.

Rishi: Atharvanic tradition (Anukramaṇī attribution varies by school) | Devata: Madhu (sweetness) and sacred Waters (Āpaḥ; named rivers) | 3 Mantras

Sukta 13

AV 6.13 is a compact Mṛtyujaya-śānti hymn that averts premature death by honoring (namas) Death and every social and cosmic channel through which slaying (vadhá) may arrive—divine, royal, and communal. Rather than attacking Mṛtyu, it pacifies and “turns” his intention, neutralizing lethal speech, hostile verdicts, and demonic agencies, while aligning remedies and Brahmanic power toward life and recovery.

Rishi: Atharvanic tradition (Anukramaṇī attribution varies) | Devata: Mṛtyu (Death), and implicitly the agencies of vadhá (slaying) | 3 Mantras

Sukta 14

AV 6.14 is a compact Atharvanic healing charm that targets balāsa as a lodged, loosening disease affecting bones, joints, limbs, and even the heart-region. Across three anuṣṭubh verses it first identifies the affliction, then commands its extirpation by cutting its “bond” and “root,” and finally drives it away weakened and harmless so it cannot return.

Rishi: Atharvanic tradition | Devata: Bheṣaja/Healing power (implicit); the addressed force is the expulsion-command against Balāsa | 3 Mantras

Sukta 15

This brief Atharvavedic charm seeks protective supremacy by invoking Oṣadhi—the personified chief Herb—supported by allied Trees as a vegetal retinue. It turns the natural hierarchy of plants (Soma among herbs, Talāśa among trees) into a ritual analogy for social and spiritual ascendancy, so that any aggressor (even a kinsman) is neutralized. The hymn’s power lies in establishing “uttamatva” (being the highest) as a shield: superiority becomes protection.

Rishi: Atharvanic tradition (anukramaṇī-dependent) | Devata: Oṣadhi (personified Herb), with allied Vṛkṣa (Trees) as supporters | 3 Mantras

Sukta 16

AV 6.16 is a compact Atharvanic healing charm aimed at akṣi-roga (eye-disease), combining a medicinal invocation with forceful expulsion of the affliction’s named agents. It activates the remedy’s potent rasa (sap/essence) through a prepared food-vehicle (karambha) while simultaneously “capturing” the disorder by listing and dismissing its multiple forms and spirit-names.

Rishi: Atharvanic tradition (often anonymous/Angiras-type attribution in AV medical hymns) | Devata: Bhaiṣajya (healing power) personified as Ābaya/Anābaya; implicitly the medicinal ‘rasa’ | 4 Mantras

Sukta 17

This short Atharvavedic hymn is a garbhadṛṃhaṇa charm: it ‘makes the embryo firm’ by modeling pregnancy on Earth’s unrivaled power of bearing and holding. By repeatedly invoking Pṛthivī as the stable support of beings, mountains, and the ordered world, it prays that the fetus remain securely held until the proper time of birth under Savitar’s life-impelling force.

Rishi: Atharvanic | Devata: Pṛthivī (Earth) as stabilizing model; Garbha (embryo) as protected object | 4 Mantras

Sukta 18

This brief Atharvavedic healing charm targets īrṣyā (jealousy/envy) as a heart-lodged, mind-born heat that flares into grief and social harm. Through the imagery of quenching an inner Agni, rendering the jealous mind inert like earth and the dead, and venting heat from a leather-bag, the hymn ritually “cools” hostile passion and restores concord.

Rishi: Atharvanic tradition | Devata: Īrṣyā (personified affliction) and Agni (as inner heat to be quenched) | 3 Mantras

Sukta 19

AVŚ 6.19 is a compact purification hymn that invokes Pavamāna—the ‘self-purifying’ Soma-principle—and allied purifiers (gods, ancestral Manu-figures, and all beings) to cleanse the reciter on every level. Its purification is not merely ritual: it is aimed at restoring auspicious capacity—right resolve (kratu), competence (dakṣa), vitality (jīva), safety (ariṣṭatā), and finally clarified perception (cakṣus) through Savitar’s consecrating impulse.

Devata: Pavamāna (Soma as purifier; generalized purificatory principle). | 3 Mantras

Sukta 20

AVŚ 6.20 is a compact Takman-hymn that treats fever and wasting sickness (yakṣma) as a personified power that can be appeased, named, and expelled. It combines healing intent with a mild abhicārika “redirection” motif: the fever-heat is urged to depart from the patient and seek an ‘avratá’ (one outside vowed/regulated life), while the household secures protection through repeated acts of homage (namo).

Devata: Takman (Fever), with yakṣma as the targeted affliction. | 3 Mantras

Deities of Anuvaka 2

  • OshadhiOṣadhi (chief Herb)

    Healer

    In 2 hymns

  • PrithiviPṛthivī (Earth)

    Stabilizer/protector

    In 1 hymn

  • MrityuMṛtyu (Death)

    Appeased-adversary (protector through pacification)

    In 1 hymn

  • PavamanaPavamāna (self-purifying Soma principle)

    Purifier

    In 1 hymn

  • TakmanFever personified

    Expelled-adversary (disease-destroyer by banishment)

    In 1 hymn

  • Agniinner heat imagery

    Transformer/quenched-fire (psychosomatic regulator)

    In 1 hymn

  • Vanaspati / VrikshaVanaspati / Vṛkṣāḥ (Trees as allies)

    Supporting-healers/protectors

    In 1 hymn

Inside Anuvaka 2

The theme

Applied protection and healing: stabilizing life (birth, pregnancy, longevity) while expelling toxins, disease, and inner social-mental afflictions through mantra and vegetal medicine

Threads through it

  • Pumsavana and son-securing generativity
  • Garbha-dṛṃhaṇa (embryo-firming) and pregnancy stability
  • Mṛtyujaya/śānti against untimely death and violent slaying
  • Bhaiṣajya: targeted cures for venom, eye-disease, balāsa, fever/yakṣma
  • Oṣadhi and tree-allies as a medicinal hierarchy
  • Pavamāna-style purification and ‘sweetening’ (madhu) pacification
  • Quelling īrṣyā (jealousy) as heart/mind heat with social fallout

Who it serves

Household rites for conception and safe gestation, averting sudden death, and everyday clinical-magical remedies for venom, fever, eye trouble, joint/bone ailments, plus purification and social harmony.

What it heals

  • Snake-venom / poisoningSukta 6.12
  • Untimely death, violent slaying, premature mortality (mṛtyujaya-śānti)Sukta 6.13
  • Balāsa (lodged loosening disease affecting joints/bones/limbs/heart-region)Sukta 6.14
  • Eye-disease (akṣi-roga)Sukta 6.16
  • Fever (takman) and wasting sickness (yakṣma)Sukta 6.20
  • Jealousy/envy (īrṣyā) as heart/mind affliction causing grief and social harmSukta 6.18
  • Purification/cleansing from impurity and contamination (ritual-moral-physical)Sukta 6.19
  • Male-begetting potency (pumsavana), securing conception oriented to a sonSukta 6.11
  • Embryo-firming and pregnancy stability (garbhadṛṃhaṇa)Sukta 6.17
  • General protective supremacy via plant-sovereignty (supporting health and warding harm)Sukta 6.15

Frequently Asked Questions

It is a tightly practical cluster of Atharvan rites: promoting conception and stable pregnancy, securing longevity/peace from untimely death, and curing or expelling concrete afflictions (venom, fever, eye disease, balāsa), alongside purification and social-heart pacification.

The clearest bhaiṣajya hymns are 6.12 (snake-venom), 6.14 (balāsa), 6.16 (eye-disease), and 6.20 (fever/yakṣma), with 6.15 also functioning as a plant-based protective-healing charter via Oṣadhi and tree-allies.

AV 6.19 invokes Pavamāna to cleanse the reciter across domains (bodily, ritual, and moral), while 6.18 treats jealousy as an inner ‘heat’ to be quenched; 6.13 pacifies Death itself through reverent address, converting threat into protection.

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