Book 1: Hymn 2: A charm against dysentery

HYMN II

A charm against dysentery

1We know the father of the shaft, Parjanya, liberal nourisher,
Know well his mother: Prithivī, Earth with her manifold
designs.
2Do thou, O Bowstring, bend thyself around us: make my body
stone.
Firm in thy strength drive far away malignities and hateful
things.
3When, closely clinging round the wood, the bowstring sings
triumph to the swift and whizzing arrow,
Indra, ward off from us the shaft, the missile.
4As in its flight the arrow's point hangs between earth and
firmament,
So stand this Munja grass between ailment and dysenteric ill!