Atharvaveda 8.2

Take thou hold. on this bundle (?) of immortality; unsevered length of life be thine; I bring back thy life, [thy] life-time; go not to the welkin (rájas), to darkness; do not perish.

Come thou hitherward unto the light of the living; I take thee in order to life for a hundred autumns; loosening down the fetters of death, imprecation, I set for thee further a longer life-time.

From the wind have I found thy breath, from the sun I thy sight; what is thy mind, that I maintain in thee; be in concord with thy limbs; speak with thy tongue, not babbling.

I blow together upon thee with the breath of bipeds [and] quadrupeds as upon [new-] born fire; homage, O death, to thy sight, homage to thy breath have I made.

Let this man live; let him not die; him we send together; I make a remedy for him; death, do not slay the man.

The lively, by-no-means-harming, living herb, the preserving, overpowering, powerful, do I call hither, for this man's freedom from harm.

Bless thou [him]; do not take hold; let him loose; even being thine, let him be one of completed years (?) here; O Bhava-and-Çarva, be ye gracious; yield protection; driving away difficulty, bestow ye life-time.

Bless thou this man, O death; pity him; let him go up from here; unharmed, whole-limbed, well-hearing, hundred-yeared by old age, let him attain enjoyment with himself.

Let the missile of the gods avoid thee; I make thee pass from the welkin (rájas); I have made thee pass up out of death; removing afar the flesh-eating Agni, I set for thee an enclosure in order to living.

The down-going in the welkin, not to be ventured down upon, which is thine, O death—from that road defending this man, we make bráhman a covering (varman) for him.

I make for thee breath-and-expiration, old age as [mode of] death, long life-time, welfare; all the messengers of Yama, sent forth by Vivasvant's son, moving about, I drive away.

Afar niggardliness, perdition, away seizure (grā́hi), the flesh-eating piçācás, every demon that is of evil nature—that we smite away, as it were into darkness.

Thy breath I win from immortal Agni, from long-lived Jātavedas, that thou mayest take no harm, mayest be immortal in alliance [with him]: that I make for thee; let that prove successful for thee.

Let heaven-and-earth be propitious to thee, not distressing, conferring fortune (? abhiçrī́); let the sun burn weal unto thee; let the wind blow weal to thy heart; let the heavenly waters, rich in fatness (páyas), flow propitious upon thee.

Propitious to thee be the herbs; I have caught thee up from the lower unto the upper earth; there let both the Ādityas, sun and moon, defend thee.

What enveloping (paridhā́na) garment thou hast, what inner wrap (nīví) thou makest for thyself, that we make propitious unto thy body; be it not harsh to thy touch.

In that with a dangerous (? marcáyant) very sharp (sutejás) razor thou, a hair-dresser, shearest hair and beard, adorning the face, do not thou steal away our life-time.

Propitious to thee be rice and barley, free from balā́sa, causing no burning (?); these drive off the yákṣma; these free from distress.

What thou eatest (aç), what thou drinkest, of grain, milk of the plowing—what should be eaten, what should not be eaten—all food I make for thee poisonless.

Both to day and to night, to them both we commit thee. Defend ye this man for me from the arā́yas that seek to devour [him].

A hundred, a myriad years, two periods (yugá), three, four, we make for thee; let Indra-and-Agni, let all the gods, approve thee, not showing enmity.

Unto autumn, unto winter, unto spring, unto summer, we commit thee; [be] the rains pleasant to thee, in which the herbs grow.

Death is master of bipeds; death is master of quadrupeds; from that death, lord of kine, I bear thee up; ⌊so⌋ do thou not be afraid.

Thou, unharmed one, shalt not die; thou shalt not die, be not afraid; [men] die not there, nor go to lowest darkness.

Every one, verily, lives there—ox, horse, man, beast—where this charm (bráhman) is performed, a defense (paridhí) unto living.

Let it protect thee from thy fellows, from witchcraft, from thy kinsmen; be thou undying, immortal, surviving; let not thy life-breaths (ásu) leave thy body.

The deaths that are a hundred and one, the perditions (nāṣṭrā́) that are to be over-passed—from that let the gods free thee, from Agni Vāiçvānara.

Agni's body art thou, successful (pārayiṣṇú); demon-slayer art thou, rival-slayer, likewise expeller of disease, a remedy pūtúdru by name.