Location: Vedic India

Year: Linguistically dated to around 1200-900 BCE

Informant:

Unknown, traditional

Item:

Rendered by Griffith (1895: 146-147):

Hymn XII.
A charm to mend a broken bone

Thou art the healer, making whole, the healer of the broken bone:
Make thou this whole, Arundhatî!
Whatever bone of thine within thy body hath been wrenched or cracked,
May Dhātar set it properly and join together limb by limb.
With marrow be the marrow joined, thy limb united with the limb.
Let what hath fallen of thy flesh, and the bone also grow again.
Let marrow close with marrow, let skin grow united with the skin.
Let blood and bone grow strong in thee, flesh grow together with the flesh.
Join thou together hair with hair, join thou together skin with skin.
Let blood and bone grow strong in thee. Unite the broken part, O Plant.
Arise, advance, speed forth; the car hath goodly fellies, naves, and wheels! Stand up erect upon the feet.
If he be torn and shattered, having fallen into a pit, or a cast stone have struck him,
Let the skilled leech join limb with limb, as ‘twere the portions of a car.

Rendered by Zysk (1985: 74-75, please note that certain letter special characters do not appear here):

You, the róhanī, are róhanī, the healer of the severed bone. [Therefore,] make this [limb] grow, O Arundhatī.

Let Dhātr propitiously routine, joint to join, whatever broken bone [or] inflamed piece of flesh [is] in your body.

Let your marrow be united with marrow and [let] your joint [be) united with joint. Let your torn [piece] of flesh and [your] bone grow together.

Let the marrow be united with marrow; let the skin grow with skin; let your blood grow with blood [and] let flesh grow with flesh.

You, O herb, make hair join with hair, make skin join with skin. Unite what is severed. Let grow forth with bone.

You there stand up, advance, run along, [your] chariot [has] strong wheels, rims [and] hubs. Stand erect firmly!

If falling in a hole, [he] has been injured, or if a hurled rock is struck [him, then] may [Dhātr] unite the limbs, join with join, as Rbhu [the parts] of a chariot.

Sources:

• Griffith, Ralph T. H. 1895. The Hymns of the Athar-Veda. E. J. Lazarus & Co.
  Online at Google Books: https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Hymns_of_the_Atharva_Veda/KEPtgfNjN74C?hl=en&gbpv=1

• Zysk, Kenneth G. 1998 [1985]. Medicine in the Veda: Religious Healing in the Veda. Motilal Banarsidass Publishers.

Observations:

In Griffith’s translation, he notes the following (Griffith 1895: 146-147):

“The hymn is a charm, addressed to a Plant, to mend a broken bone.

1. The healer: rôhaņ; literally, causing to grow (again). Arundhatî: a climbing plant, not identified; probably a variety of Convolvulus or bindweed which is to bind fast the injured limb as it binds the tree round which it grows.

2. Dhâtar: the God who ordains, establishes, fixes, and preserves.”

Zysk says that the plant róhanī was thought to gain its power form an association with goddess Arundahtī.

Interestingly, Griffith (1895) does not mentioned the widely-acknowledged parallels between the Atharvedic spell and Merseburg Spell II-type spells. The first to connect Atharvaveda 4.12 and the Merseburg Spell II-type spells appears to have been German philologist Franz Felix Adalbert Kuhn (d. 1881). Zysk (1998 [1985]: 72-73) summarizes the reception of a posited connection between Merseburg Spell II and Atharvaveda 4.12 as follows:

“Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this charm is its close linguistic parallel to the Germanic incantations which are based on the tenth-century Merseburg spell. A. Kuhn has presented these spells and analyzed their similarities, concluding that this Atharvan charm which prescribed the use of a healing plant, like that from Merseburg, may have originally been part of a healing rite for an injured horse.' Bloomfield, however, dismisses such a supposition by saying: “Any kind of genetic connection between the Hindu and the German charm is none too certain, since the situation may have suggested the same expressions independently.” To posit any direct connection between these two charms is indeed risky; but one should not indiscriminately reject a valuable clue to the understanding of this Atharvan charm. To be sure, we may present some evidence which points to the fact that it may have originally been recited during the healing of a horse's broken limb.

Zysk (1998 [1985]: 73) says that, of Atharvaveda 4.12, “With the rendering of verse 6 (see also notes on 200-201, below) according to the printed text, we have what appears to be an incantation recited by the healer, imploring a horse to stand up, boldly and strongly, and to proceed to its chariot which, for its benefit, has been fitted out with strong and sturdy parts. Likewise, at verse 7, falling into a hole and being struck by a rock suggest accidental injuries which a horse, rather than a man, would be more likely to incur.” He adds, however, that “the tradition employs it for an injury suffered by a man.”

Joseph S. Hopkins:
The Atharvaveda is one of the four primary Vedic texts, originally memorized and orally transmitted with great care for generations. This spell from the Atharvaveda is frequently mentioned by scholars in connection to Merseburg Spell II and Merseburg Spell II-type spells with many positing a genetic relationship (in fact, anyone who compares it to the Merseburg Spell II-type spells will immediately notice the strong parallels). A historical connection is strengthened if you consider the many other ways in which a spell for a broken or wrenched spell could possibly be formulated. A genetic relationship between this Vedic example and the much later-recorded Merseburg Spell II-type spells would mean that they had been in circulation for thousands of years before Merseburg Spell II was written down, and given how long they have been found to be recited in Europe since our first known example, such a scenario should not be a surprise. The question of a means of diffusion is less clear. It may be argued that the spell type continued to be passed down among speakers of Indo-European languages (Sanskrit Vedic and Germanic are both Indo-European languages) and that over time the spell type ended up falling out of use exterior to Western, Northern, and Eastern Europe. On the other hand, it may be that the spell type had a wider diffusion that reached beyond speakers of Indo-European languages that is simply not recorded, but it would be a notable coincidence that the spell is earliest recorded in Vedic Sanskrit and Germanic if so.