22. Against fever (takmán).
[Bhṛgvan̄giras.—caturdaçakam. takmanāçanadevatyam (takmāpabādhāyā ’nena devān aprārthayat takmanāçanam astāut). ānușțubham: 1, 2. trișțubh (1. bhurij); 5. virāṭ pathyābṛhatī.]
Found also (except vss. 2, 11) in Pāipp. Most of it is in xiii., in the order 1, 3, 4, 8, 5, 6, 7 cd, 10; then (beginning a new hymn), 12, 14, 8 cd, 9; but vs. 13 is in i. Used by Kāuç. (29. 18) among various other hymns, in a healing ceremony; reckoned in the gaṇamālā as belonging in the takmanāçana gaṇa (26. 1, note).
Translated: Roth, Zur Litteratur und Geschichte des Weda, 1846, p. 37 (about half); Grohmann, Ind. Stud. ix. 381-423, especially 411 f., as text of an elaborate medical disquisition on takmán (nearly all); Muir, ii3. 351 (part); Ludwig, p. 510; Grill, 12, 154; Griffith, i. 224; Bloomfield, 1, 441 (elaborate comment of almost 12 pages); Weber, xviii. 252.—See also Hillebrandt, Veda-chrestomathie, p. 49; E. W. Fay, Trans. American Philological Ass'n, xxv. (1894), p. viii, who compares it with the Song of the Arval Brothers.—As to Bálhika and Mū́javant, see Weber, Berliner Sb. 1892, p. 985-995; and as to Mū́javant, also Hillebrandt, Ved. Mythol., i. 62 ff.
1. Let Agni drive (bādh) the fever away from here; [let] Soma, the pressing-stone, Varuṇa of purified dexterity, the sacrificial hearth, the barhís, the brightly gleaming (çuc) fuel; be hatreds away yonder.
Amuyā́ 'yonder' has always an implication of disgust or contempt. In our text apa and bādhatām should have been separated in a. Ppp. reads in b marutaṣ pūtadakṣāt, in c saṁçiçāno, and in d rakṣāṅsi. Çóçucānās may mean 'causing great pain,' and it may qualify all the persons and things mentioned.
2. Thou here that makest all [men] yellow, heating (çuc) up like fire, consuming; now then, O fever—for mayest thou become sapless—now go away inward or downward.
Or nyàn̄ 'inward' is another 'downward.' The mss. mostly omit to double the n̄ of nyàn̄, and several (P.M.W.H.) read nyàn̄g; P.M.W. have adharā́g. Ppp. has our vi. 20. 3 instead of this verse.
3. The fever that is spotted, speckled, ruddy like a sprinkling, do thou, O thou of power (-vīryà) in every direction, impel away downward.
The last half-verse occurs again as xix. 39. 10 c, d. 'Rough, rugged' would be more etymological renderings of paruṣá and pāruṣeyá: cf. vājī́ vājineyás, RV. vi. 26. 2. Pāda b, virtually 'as if sprinkled with red.' The address is probably to some remedy. Suvā at the end is a misprint for suva. In place of this verse, Ppp. has takmaṁ sāktinam ichasva vaçī san mṛḍayāsi naḥ (our 9 b): yathe ’hy atra te gṛhān yat pūrteu damyatu. ⌊Then, as its vs. 4, Ppp. has our vs. 3.⌋
4. I send [him] forth downward, having paid homage to the fever; let the fist-slayer of the dung-bearer (?) go back to the Mahāvrishas.
Ludwig (and Grill after him) takes the obscure çakambhará in c as a proper name. We may conjecture that the Mahāvṛṣas are a neighboring tribe, looked down upon as gatherers of dung for fuel, on account of the lack of wood in their territory. Ppp. makes the meter of b easier by reading kṛtvāya.
