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Hymns of the Atharva Veda, by Ralph T.H. Griffith, [1895], at
1For life I set thee free by this oblation both from unmarked'.
decline and from consumption:
Or if the grasping demon have possessed him, free him from her,.
O Indra, thou and Agni!
2Be his days ended, be he now departed, be he brought very
near to death already,
Out of Destruction's lap again I bring him, save him for life to
last a hundred autumns. p. a78
3With sacrifice thousand-eyed and hundred-powered, bringing a
hundred lives, have I restored him,
That Indra through the autumns may conduct him safe to the
farther shore of all misfortune.
4Live, waxing in thy strength a hundred autumns, live through
a hundred springs, a hundred winters!
Indra, Agni, Savitar, Brihaspati give thee a hundred! With
hundred-lived oblation have I saved him,
5Breath, Respiration, come to him, as two car-oxen to their
stall!
Let all the other deaths, whereof men count a hundred, pass
away.
6Breath, Respiration, stay ye here. Go ye not hence away from
him,
Bring, so that he may reach old age, body and members back
again.
7I give thee over to old age, make thee the subject of old age.
Let kindly old age lead thee on. Let all the other deaths, whereof
men count a hundred, pass away!
8Old age hath girt thee with its bonds even as they bind a bull
with rope.
The death held thee at thy birth bound with a firmly-knotted
noose,
Therefrom, with both the hands of Truth, Brihaspati hath loose-
ned thee.