# Atharva-Veda Samhita/Book XIX/Hymn 36

36. With a çatávāra-amulet: for protection etc.
[Brahman.—ṣaḍṛcam. çatavāradāivatam. ānuṣṭubham.]
Found also ⌊except 4 c, d, 5 a, b⌋ in Pāipp. ii. The comm. quotes its use from Nakṣ.K. 19, in the mahāçānti ceremony called saṁtati, performed for a failure of family, with the çatavāra amulet.
Translated: Griffith, ii. 294.
1. The çatávāra hath by its keenness (téjas) made to vanish the yákṣmas, the demons, mounting together with splendor, an amulet that expels the ill-named.
Our maṇís in d was an emendation, all the mss. having maṇím; SPP. also has -ís, on the authority of the comm.; Ppp. reads -ṇiṁ and -çātanam. What çatávāra really means is very questionable; the Pet. Lexx. conjecture "consisting of a hundred hairs," which does not seem probable; the comm. says "having a hundred roots, or awns"; and he further adds, on the authority of vs. 6, where the accordance with vāraya- is played upon, "warding off a hundred diseases"; moreover, there is no reason apparent why it should not signify 'bringing a hundred choice things' (cf. viçvávāra). The comm. declares 'ill-named' to denote a skin-disease. ⌊"Mounting": i.e. being raised up to the neck of the person on whom it is "bound"—so Griffith.⌋
2. With its two horns it thrusts away the demon, with its root the sorceresses; with its middle it drives off (bādh) the yákṣma; no evil overpasses it.
All the mss., the comm., and Ppp., read at the end tatrati, which we emended to tarati, as the other seems an inconceivable 3d sing.; the comm. glosses it with atikrāmati, and explains the form by çluḥ çaç ce ’ti vikaraṇadvayam. The comm. explains the 'two horns' as "the two parts of its apex, set on like horns." The mention of a "root" is, of course, an indication (though not a certain one) that a plant is intended.
3. The yákṣmas that are petty, and they that are great, noisy—all of them the çatávāra amulet, slayer of the ill-named, hath made vanish.
Ppp. reads in b çapathinas. The Anukr. takes no notice of the deficiency of a syllable in a.
4. A hundred heroes it generated; a hundred yákṣmas it scattered away; having slain all the ill-named ones, it shakes down the demons.
The mss. (both s. and p.) vary in a between vīrā́s and vīrā́n, the decided majority of SPP's giving the latter; of ours, none save one or two of those collated since publication; SPP. reads vīrān aj-. Ppp. has çataṁ vīrāṇi janayac ch-, which, with emendation to vīryāṇi janayañ, is perhaps the true reading. About half, indeed, of the mss. read -nayan, which also makes a possible text (çatáṁ vīrā́ ajanayan).
5. A golden-horned bull [is] this amulet of çatávāra; having shattered (tṛh) all the ill-named ones, it hath trodden down the demons.
6. With the çatávāra I ward off (vāraya-) a hundred of the ill-named ones (f.), a hundred of the Gandharvas-and-Apsarases, and a hundred of the doglike ones (f.).
Some of the mss. accent in b gandharvā́psarásām. All ⌊save W's B.⌋ have in c çataṁ çaçvanvátīnām (varying to çaçcatv-: p. çaçvan॰vátīnām); our çatáṁ ca çvánva- is an emendation, and, as it seems, an easy and necessary one, supported by Ppp., which reads çataṁ ca çunvatīnāṁ ⌊Griffith renders by 'dog-mated nymphs,' referring it to the Apsarases, and citing most appositely xi. g. 15 and iv. 37. 11⌋. The comm. reads with the mss., and furnishes one of his characteristic absurd explanations: the word comes from çaçvat 'constantly,' with n substituted for d in the combination, and means muhurmuhuḥ pīḍārtham āgantryo grahāpasmārādyā vyādhayaḥ! He declares the fem. durṇāmnī to be used in a ⌊with reference to⌋ vyādhi, forgetting that vyādhi is masculine. ⌊For the play in d, cf. my note to xviii. 3. 29.⌋