The Rig Veda: An Anthology

In addition to liturgical hymns, dialogue poems, and other miscellaneous verses, the Rig Veda contains magical spells, love charms, and imprecations to ward off disease and death and attract prosperity and longevity. Many of these chants are in the later books of the text, especially Book 10. This chapter collects several of them.

Two hymns concern sleep. In 10.164, the poet asks the “Master of Thought,” an otherwise unknown divinity, to intercede on his behalf with the goddess Chaos or Destruction. The poet implores Agni to banish all misdeeds and evil thoughts, whether they occur during wakefulness or sleep, and to visit them upon those who hate the worshipper. Hymn 7.55 is a sleeping spell, possibly used as a lullaby, or by lovers or burglars sneaking into a home late at night. The poet coaxes the watchdog and the inhabitants of the house to sleep, imploring the moon to sink the women into a deep slumber.

Several spells target a wife’s rivals for her husband’s affections. In Hymn 10.145, Indrani, wife of the flagrantly womanizing Indra, anoints her husband with a magical plant that eliminates all thought of other women from his mind. Banishing her unnamed rival with charms, Indrani emerges triumphant, the highest of all women, entrapping Indra within her power. In 10.159, at a dawn sacrifice, a woman boasts of her victory over other women and sexual mastery of her husband. Her voice is now supreme in her husband’s ears; having eliminated her rival co-wives, she rules as empress over him and the people.

Hymns 10.162 and 10.184 are charms for a safe pregnancy. In the first, the poet invokes Agni to banish the demons that threaten the embryo within the womb and try to seduce the expectant mother. In the second hymn, the poet invokes Visnu, Tvastr, Prajapati, the Asvins, and the goddesses Sinivali and Sarasvati, all deities associated with fertility and procreation. The poet implores them to prepare the womb, implant it with seed, fashion the embryo, and deliver a healthy baby at full term.

An imprecation against evils spirits accuses the author’s rival of being a sorcerer and calls the gods’ wrathful anger down upon him (7.104). The poet invokes Indra, Soma, Agni, and the Maruts to utterly destroy evildoers and cast them into the bottomless pit. Seething with invective, the poet claims a rival priest has slandered him as a sorcerer. Protesting his innocence, he urges Indra to sharpen a mountain and strike his accuser and all the demons from every side. After vanquishing the slanderers, Indra should turn to crush the shape-shifting sorcerers who take the forms of various animals.

In the final hymn, the poet banishes a dove, a symbol of death, who has settled in the house (10.165). He prays that the dove be benevolent and not harm the family or their domestic animals. Invoking Yama, the king of the dead, the poet drives out the dove and leads a cow around the perimeter to expunge the evil traces left behind.