Atharvaveda 10.4

Indra's [was] the first chariot, the gods' the after chariot, Varuna's the third one; the snakes' chariot, the furthest one (?), hath run against the pillar: then may it come to harm (?).

Darbhá-grass, brightness, young shoot (? tarū́ṇaka); horse's tail-tuft, rough-one's tail-tuft; chariot's seat (? bándhura).

Smite down, O white one, with the foot, both the fore and the hind; like water-floated wood, sapless [is] the snakes' poison, fierce water (vā́r).

The araṁghuṣá, having immerged, having emerged, said again: like water-floated wood, sapless is the snake's poison, fierce water.

Pāidva slays the kasarṇī́la (snake), Pāidva the whitish and the black; Pāidva hath split altogether the head of the ratharvī́, of the pṛdākū́.

Go forth first, O Pāidva; we come after thee; cast thou out the snakes from the road by which we come.

Here was Pāidva born; this [is] his going-away; these [are] the tracks of the snake-slaying vigorous steed.

What is shut together may it not open; what is opened may it not shut together; in this field [are] two snakes, both a female and a male; those [are] both sapless.

Sapless here [are] the snakes, they that are near and they that are far; with a club (ghaná) I slay the stinger (vṛ́çcika), with a staff the snake that has come.

This is the remedy of both, of the ill-horse (aghāçvá) and of the constrictor; the mischievous (aghāy-) snake hath Indra, the snake hath Pāidva put in my power (randhay-).

We reverence Pāidva, the staunch one, of staunch abode (-dhā́man); here behind sit pṛ́dākus, plotting forth.

Of lost lives, of lost poison [are they], slain by the thunderbolt-bearing Indra; Indra hath slain, we have slain.

Slain [are] the cross-lined ones, crushed down the pṛ́dākus; slay thou the whitish [snake] that makes a great hood, the black snake, in the darbhá-grasses.

The little girl of the Kirātas, she the little one, digs a remedy, with golden shovels, upon the ridges (sā́nu) of the mountains.

Hither hath come the young physician, slayer of the spotted ones, unconquered; he verily is a grinder-up of both, the constrictor and the stinger.

Indra hath put the snake in my power, [also] both Mitra and Varuṇa, and Vāta ('wind') and Parjanya, both of them.

Indra hath put the snake in my power, the pṛ́dāku and the she-pṛ́dāku, the constrictor, the cross-lined one, the kasarṇī́la, the dáçonasi.

Indra hath slain first thy progenitor, O snake; of them, being shattered, what forsooth can be their sap?

Since I have grasped together their heads, as a fisherman the kárvara; having gone away to the middle of the river, I have washed out the snake's poison.

The poison of all snakes let the rivers carry away; slain [are] the cross-lined ones, crushed down the pṛ́dākus.

I choose as it were the filaments of herbs successfully; I conduct as it were mares; O snake, let thy poison come out.

What poison is in fire, in the sun, what in the earth, in herbs, kāndā-poison, kanáknaka—let thy poison come out; let it come.

Whichever of the snakes [are] fire-born, herb-born, whichever came hither (ā-bhū) [as] water-born lightnings; those of which the kinds are variously great—to those serpents would we pay worship with reverence.

Thou art a girl, tāúdī by name; verily thou art by name ghee-like (ghṛtā́cī); I take beneath thy poison-spoiling track.

Remove thou [it] from every limb; make [it] avoid the heart; then, what keenness (téjas) the poison has, let that go downward for thee.

He (it?) hath come to be afar; he hath obstructed the poison; he hath mixed poison in poison; Agni hath put out the snake's poison; Soma hath conducted [it] out; the poison hath gone after the biter; the snake hath died.