# Atharva-Veda Samhita/Book XIX/Hymn 38

38. With gúggulu: against disease.
[Atharvan.—tṛcam. mantroktagulguludevatākam. ānuṣṭubham. 2 a-d. 4-p. uṣṇih; 2 e-f. 1-av. prājāpatyā ’nuṣṭubh.]
Found also in Pāipp. xix. Used, according to the comm. (together with hymn 39), by Pariç. 4. 4, in the ceremony of a king's entrance into his sleeping-house, to the accompaniment of incense of kuṣṭha and guggulu.
⌊With regard to the name of the latter substance, there is a question as to its spelling, whether with -lg- or with -gg-; and a second as to its accent, whether on the first syllable or on the last. As to the first question, the mss. are here, as elsewhere, quite at variance: see below. As to the second, the proper accent seems to be proparoxytone: so TS. at vi. 2. 8$^6$, gúlgulu, nominative; and above, at ii. 36. 7, where the word is nom., both W's and SPP's authorities agree in accenting the first syllable. In this, hymn, however, all of W's and of SPP's authorities agree in vs. 1 in accenting the last syllable, ​-gulós, and so both editions print: in vs. 2, again, all (save W's P.M.W., -ló) agree in having -lú; and the Bombay ed. has -lú (as nom.), while the Berlin ed. and the Index have guggulu (as voc.); whether the comm. intends guggulo (voc.) or guggulus (nom., with the later gender), I am not sure. If we read guggulu (as voc.), it may be noted that no other voc. sing, neuter from stems in u or i is registered in my Noun-Inflection (see p. 413, 390).⌋
1. Yákṣmas obstruct him not, a curse attains him not, whom the agreeable odor of the healing gúggulu attains.
All the mss., and SPP., read in a árundhate, which our text emends to ar-; but the form is obviously false; ā́ rundhate would be the simplest and easiest change. Ppp. has yakṣmā ru- ⌊i.e. yakṣmāru-: which may of course mean yakṣmās ā ru- as well⌋; and, at end of b, -tho ‘çnute. As everywhere, the mss. vary between gugg- and gulg- in c; SPP. adopts the latter; the comm. agrees with our text in giving the former; Ppp. has always gulg-. At the end of d, all the mss. have açnute, but this time SPP. follows us in making the necessary emendation to açnuté. ⌊Again, as often (cf. note to xviii. 3. 47), the accent-blunder is due to a faulty assimilation,—in this case, with the accent of of açnute at the end of the preceding half-verse.⌋
2. From him the yákṣmas scatter away, like antelopes from a wild beast. If, O gúggulu, thou art from the river, or if also from the ocean, the name of both have I taken (grah), that this man may be uninjured.
There is discordance among the authorities as to the division and numbering of the verses of this hymn. The Anukr. makes three verses, reckoning the last two pādas as third verse, and SPP. follows it, although this division is wholly opposed to the sense, as breaking a sentence in two. The comm. reckons only the first of the three lines as vs. 2, noting that it may also be explained as belonging to vs. 1, being connected in sense with that; the other two lines he makes vs. 3. Our division followed the majority of our mss., with which agree the minority of SPP's. The choice between the three modes of division is difficult, and fortunately the matter is of no importance. ⌊Grill, p. 193, suggests that 1 a, b is the foreign element, a prefixed fragment about yakṣma. That leaves 1 c, d and 2 a, b for our first vs., and 2 c-f for our second.⌋ The mss. ail read in b mṛgā́ áçvā iva,* which is obviously wrong and unintelligible, though the comm., after his fashion, gives two equally worthless interpretations, once taking áçvās as an adjective (= āçugāminas) to mṛgā́s, and once supplying a second iva: "like deer [or] like horses." The translation follows our emendation, which is certainly plausible to an acceptable degree. Ppp. is corrupt: yakṣmād mṛgāyaṣāya vedhase. The pada-mss. blunderingly read irate at end of a; even SPP. allows himself to emend to īrate. In c he again gives gulgulú ⌊not gugg-⌋, with the majority of his mss.: our guggulu is in respect to accent ⌊as voc.⌋ an emendation (our mss. read -lú or -ló), but one called for by the following ási; ⌊this reason does not seem to me cogent: reading the nom. -lú (with SPP.: see introd.), we may render, 'whether thou art guggulú from the river or [guggulú] from the ocean'⌋. In d, the mss. give either yádvāpyā́si or yádvā́pyā́si (p. yát: vā: ápi: ā॰ási); SPP. accepts in his saṁhitā-text vā́ ’py ā́si, but in his pada-text changes ā॰ási to ási, thus making the two texts discordant; if he had courage for the latter alteration, he should also have had it for emending ā́si in saṁhitā to ási, as we had done, and as is plainly required. ⌊The text of the comm. has ’py asi.⌋ *⌊But W's P.M.W., mṛgā́ṁ.⌋