The verse and its meaning · Vedas · Vedas — The Earth Hymn

The Scent of Soil

Atharva Veda 12.1.23

यस्ते गन्धः पृथिवि संबभूव यं बिभ्रत्योषधयो यमापः। यं गन्धर्वा अप्सरसश्च भेजिरे तेन मा सुरभिं कृणु मा नो द्विक्षत कश्चन

Meaning · English

Earth, the scent that rose from you, borne by plants and waters, shared by gandharvas and apsarases: with it make me fragrant. Let no one hate us.

The seer names a smell, the smell that belongs to the Earth itself. Plants carry it, waters carry it, and the gandharvas and apsarases, the singers and dancers of the sky, took it as their portion. He asks to be scented with the same thing. The closing line ties the two halves together. To carry the Earth's own fragrance is to be welcome, as a pleasant smell draws people near. Later Indian thinkers made smell the one quality proper to earth alone. The hymn simply praises it.

Picture the first rain falling on dry ground. The air fills with the smell of wet soil, and crushed leaves or a cup of well water hold a faint trace of it. That is the scent the verse names: one smell rising from the ground and passing into leaf and water, which the singer asks to wear on his own skin.

अर्थ · हिन्दी

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• Before: Five Peoples, One Mother · Atharva Veda 12.1.15
• Next: Let the Cut Heal · Atharva Veda 12.1.35
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