Book 5: Hymn 22: A charm against fever

HYMN XXII

A charm against fever

1Hence, filled with holy strength let Agni, Soma, and Varuna,
the Press-stone, and the Altar.
And Grass, and glowing Fuel banish Fever. Let hateful things
stay at a distance yonder.
2And thou thyself who makest all men yellow, consuming them
with burning heat like Agni,
Thou, Fever! then be weak and ineffective. Pass hence into the
realms below or vanish.
3Endowed with universal power! send Fever down-ward, far
away,
The spotty, like red-coloured dust, sprung from a spotty
ancestor.
4When I have paid obeisance to Fever I send him downward
forth.
So let Sakambhara's boxer go again to the Mahāvrishas.
5His mansions are the Mūjavans, and the Mahāvrishas his home,
Thou, Fever, ever since thy birth hast lived among the Bahlikas.
6Fever, snake, limbless one, speak out! Keep thyself far away
fi om us.
Seek thou a wanton Dāst girl and strike her with thy thunder-
bolt.
7Go, Fever, to the Mūjavans, or, farther, to the Bahlikas.
Seek a lascivious Sara girl and seem to shake her through and
through.
8Go hence and eat thy kinsmen the Mahāvrishas and Mūjavans.
These or those foreign regions we proclaim to Fever for his
home.
9In a strange land thou joyest not; subdued, thou wilt be kind
to us.
Fever is eager to depart, and to the Bahlikas will go,
10Since thou now cold, now burning hot, with cough besides, hast
made us shake,
Terrible, Fever, are thy darts: forbear to injure us with these.
11Take none of these to be thy friends, Cough, or Consumption
or Decline:
Never come thence again to us! O Fever, thus I counsel thee.
12Go, Fever, with Consumption, thy brother, and with thy sister,
Cough. p. a184
And with thy nephew Herpes, go away unto that alien folk.
13Chase Fever whether cold or hot, brought by the summer or
the rains,
Tertian, intermittent, or autumnal, or continual.
14We to Gandhāris, Mūjavans, to Angas and to Magadhas.
Hand over Fever as it were a servant and a thing of price.