11. For successful childbirth.
[Atharvan.—ṣadṛcam. pāuṣṇam. pān̄ktam: 2. anuṣṭubh; 3. 4-p. uṣṇiggarbhā kakummaty anuṣṭubh; 4-6. pathyapan̄kti.]
Verses 2-4 occur together in Pāipp. i., 5 and 6 in xx., but at different points. In Kāuç. (33. 1) it is quoted at the beginning of a long and intricate ceremony (filling the whole section) for safe delivery, the first of the strīkarmāṇi or 'women's rites'; its details have nothing to do with the text of the hymn, and cast no light upon the latter's difficulties. The Anukr. add to the author's name: anena mantroktān aryamādidevān nārīsukhaprasavāyā 'bhiṣṭūye 'ṣṭaṁ ca sarvābhir aprārthayat.
Translated: Weber, iv. 404; Ludwig, p. 478; Griffith, i. 14 and 473; Bloomfield, 99, 242.—Discussed: Roth, Ueber den Atharva-veda, p. 15.
1. At this birth, O Pūshan, let Aryaman [as] efficient (vedhás) invoker utter váṣaṭ for thee; let the woman, rightly engendered, be relaxed; let her joints go apart in order to birth.
The translation of c implies emendation of the text to ví sisṛtām. Roth formerly preferred sísṛtām nāry ṛtáprajātaḥ 'let a timely child come forth, O woman'; Weber leaves sísratām as pl. with indefinite subject, and understands the two following words as a parenthesis: "be the woman properly constructed"; Ludwig renders as if sísṛtām; Roth now (as in BR.) would emend only sísṛtām, and understand it of the 'flow' of water preceding birth; but that would be rather sru, and sṛ without a prefix in such a sense seems very unlikely ⌊cf., however, sárann ā́paḥ, RV. iv. 17. 3⌋. Ṛtáprajātā might also be possessive, 'rightly engendering.' The comm. takes sū́tāu as from sū́ti ⌊not sūtí, fem., nor sū́tu, fem.: note accent and gender!⌋, and meaning the ceremony at birth; vedhā́s as = Dhātar 'the creator'; ṛtaprajātā as = jīvad-apatyā; and sisratām (to the plural form of which he finds no objection) as "may she be relieved (viniḥsṛtā) of the pangs of birth." The metrically irregular verse (9 + 10: 10 + 11 = 40) is a pan̄kti solely in virtue of the ⌊aggregate⌋ number of its syllables.
2. Four [are] the directions of the sky, four also of the earth: the gods sent together the fœtus; let them unclose her in order to birth.
Or 'unclose it,' tám, which SPP. reads in text and comm. (the latter omits the word itself in the paraphrase) with the minority of his mss., but against all of ours; Weber and Roth prefer tám. The word and its predecessor are quoted in the Prāt, (ii. 30), as the earliest example in the text of a combination of n and t without inserted s; but the form of the quotation (samāirayantādinām) prevents our seeing whether its authors read tā́m or tám; the comm. gives tām. In d, the comm. gives the false form ūrṇavantu. The text in Ppp. is confused, but does not appear to intend any variants from our reading.
3. Let Pūshan (?) unclose [her or it]; we make the yóni go apart; do thou, sūṣaṇā, loosen; do thou, biṣkalā, let go.
