# Atharva-Veda Samhita/Book XV/Paryaya 11

11. Paryāya the eleventh.
⌊As for the minor divisions of this paryāya, see page 772, ¶ 4, above.⌋
Translated: Aufrecht, Ind. Stud. i. 134; Griffith, ii. 193.—Griffith here cites most appositely the parallel passages of the Āpastambīya Dharma-sūtra; and I have thought it good to give them in the sequel.
⌊For convenience of comparison, the passage from Āp. Dharma-sūtra, ii. 3. 7, parallel to our vss. 1-2, may here be given: āhitāgniṁ ced atithir abhyāgacchet, svayam enam abhyudetya brūyāt: vrātya kvā ’vātsir iti: vrātya udakam iti: vrātya tarpayaṅstv (!) iti. 13. purā ’gnihotrasya homād upāṅçu japet: vrātya yathā te manas tathā ’stv iti: vrātya yathā te vaças tathā ’stv iti: vrātya yathā te priyaṁ tathā ’stv iti: vrātya yathā te nikāmas tathā ’stv iti. 14.⌋
1. So then, to whosesoever houses a thus-knowing Vrātya may come as guest,—
All that the mss. give for this verse is the two words vrātyó ‘tithiḥ. But this is obviously in virtue of their usual abbreviation in case of repeated matter; the verse is the same with 10. 1 except for the omission of rā́jñas between vrā́tyas and átithis. The abbreviation is continued in 12. 1 and in 13. 1-4, and then 13. 5 reads in full tád yásyāi ’váṁ vidvā́n vrā́tyaḥ, because it is the last case of occurrence of the phrase. All this admits of no real question, and the verses are all thus filled up by Aufrecht in his translation, although he leaves the Sanskrit text in its abbreviated form; it is worth so many words here only because the Anukr. commits the blunder of regarding vrā́tyó ‘tithiḥ as the whole verse, and defines it as one of five syllables (restoring the elided a). He has never committed the same blunder in the numerous, but less striking, cases of the same kind that we have had hitherto.
2. Himself coming up toward him, he should say: Vrātya, where hast thou abode (vas)? Vrātya, [here is] water; Vrātya, let them gratify [thee]; Vrātya, be it so as is dear to thee; Vrātya, be it so as is thy will (váça); Vrātya, be it so as is thy desire (nikāmá).
3. In that he says to him: Vrātya, where hast thou abode? he thereby gains possession of the roads that the gods travel.
4. In that he says to him: Vrātya, [here is] water, he thereby gains possession of the waters.
R. is the only ms. that writes out at the beginning of this verse and the next yád enam ā́ha. It seems a blunder of the Anukr. to include this verse with 3, 5, 6, 8, 10 in one definition, as it is shorter than they by some six syllables; one of the mss. does in fact omit it here, but gives no definition of it elsewhere. ⌊At AB. viii. 24 is a passage bearing some similarity to this.⌋
5. In that he says to him: Vrātya, let them gratify [thee], he thereby makes his breath (prāṇá) longer.
⌊We had the last clause above at ix. 6. 19.⌋
6. In that he says to him: Vrātya, be it so as is dear to thee, he thereby gains possession of what is dear.
7. To him cometh what is dear, he becometh dear to his dear one (m.), who knoweth thus.
8. In that he says to him: Vrātya, be it so as is thy will, he thereby gains possession of [his] will.
Here again all the mss. save one (R.) omit the first four or five words, because they occur again in vs. 10. The majority of mss. (except E.D.R.s.m.K.) accent vaçám, though all have váças. ⌊Eight or nine of SPP's have vaçám.⌋
9. Unto him cometh [his] will, a will-possessor of will-possessors becometh he who knoweth thus.
Most of the mss. (except D.R.s.m.) again accent vaçás; ⌊and so twelve of SPP's, but not his çrotiyas⌋; O. has vaçī́nām. Read at the beginning in our text āí ’nam (an accent-sign slipped out of place).
10. In that he says to him: Vrātya, be it so as is thy desire, he thereby gains possession of [his] desire.
11. To him cometh [his] desire, he cometh to be (bhū) in the desire of desire, who knoweth thus.
One would like to emend nikāmé to -mī́.