Atharva Veda 5.18 · Vedas – Griffith · Verses Across
Hinduism · Vedas · Atharva Veda
Atharva Veda 5.18The wickedness of oppressing and robbing Brāhmans
18
Hinduism · Vedas · Atharva Veda
Atharva Veda 5.18
The wickedness of oppressing and robbing Brāhmans
GriffithEnglish
The Gods, O Prince, have not bestowed this cow on thee to eat thereof. Seek not, Rājanya, to devour the Brāhman's cow which none may eat.
A base Rājanya, spoiled at dice, and ruined by himself, may eat. The Brāhman's cow and think, To-day and not tomorrow, let me live!
The Brāhman's cow is like a snake, charged with due poison, clothed with skin. Rājanya! bitter to the taste is she, and none may eat of her.
She takes away his strength, she mars his splendour, she ruins everything like fire enkindled. That man drinks poison of the deadly serpent who counts the Brāhman as mere food to feed him.
Whoever smites him, deeming him a weakling-blasphemer, coveting his wealth through folly Indra sets fire alight within his bosom. He who acts thus is loathed by Earth and Heaven.
No Brāhman must be injured, safe as fire from him who loves himself. For Soma is akin to him and Indra guards him from the curse.
The fool who eats the Brāhmans' food and thinks it pleasant to the taste, Eats, but can ne'er digest, the cow that bristles with a hundred barbs,
His voice an arrow's neck, his tongue a bowstring, his windpipes fire-enveloped heads of arrows, With these the Brāhman pierces through blasphemers, with God-sped bows that quell the hearts within them.
Keen arrows have the Brāhmans, armed with missiles: the shaft, when they discharge it, never faileth. Pursuing him with fiery zeal and anger, they pierce the foeman even from a distance.
They who, themselves ten hundred, were the rulers of a thousand men, The Vaitahavyas, were destroyed for that they ate a Brāhman's cow.
The cow, indeed, when she was slain o'erthrew those Vaitahavyas, who Cooked the last she-goat that remained of Kesaraprābandhā's flock.
One and a hundred were the folk, those whom the earth shook off from her: When they had wronged the Brāhman race they perished inconceivably.
Among mankind the Gods' despiser moveth: he hath drunk poison, naught but bone is left him. Who wrongs the kinsman of the Gods, the Brāhman, gains not the sphere to which the Fathers travelled.
Agni, in sooth, is called our guide, Soma is called our next of kin. Indra quells him who curses us. Sages know well that this is so.
Prince! like a poisoned arrow, like a deadly snake, O lord of kine! Dire is the Brāhman's arrow: he pierces his enemies therewith.
