Atharva Veda · 2 of 724

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!