Atharvavedaparishishta 2

Om. Having bowed to Brahmā, the Brahmaveda, and Rudra Parameṣṭhin, / I shall proclaim the remainder of the Atharvan rule.

Fate is sovereign and paramount, whereas human effort is merely an instrumental cause; / but supported well by fate, one is able to conquer the earth.

Between fate and human effort, fate indeed is superior; / therefore the ruler of the earth should especially venerate fate.

Therefore, the king should constantly maintain the astrologer and the royal priest, who know rites concerning fate, / through gifts, honors, and pleasing words.

Just as a child is fatherless, so is a king without an astrologer; / just as a child is motherless, so is one destitute of an Atharvan; / just as one is alone in the midst of enemies, so is one destitute of a physician.

A ruler of the earth who desires to conquer the entire earth in accordance with dharma / should choose as spiritual guide a descendant of Bhṛgu endowed with learning and bodily signs.

The determination of fourfold ritual action is made according to the reality of the Veda; / for Prajāpati alone does not look upon the triad of Vedas [apart from the fourth].

What is pacified by that which belongs to the Atharvan is pacified; it is not pacified by the other three; / supreme knowledge in the three worlds arises from the Brahmaveda.

The Atharvan releases the terrible, and likewise he pacifies portents; / the Atharvan protects the sacrifice; the Aṅgiras is the lord of the sacrifice.

The knower of the Brahmaveda is the pacifier of portents of the sky, the intermediate space, and the earth in diverse ways; / therefore the descendant of Bhṛgu is the protector.

The Brahman priest can pacify, not the Adhvaryu, not the Chandoga, not the Bahvṛca; / the Brahman priest guards against the demons; therefore the Brahman priest must be a knower of the Atharvan.

Therefore, for the protection of the army, for the increase of his own realm, / and for the sake of propitiation, the ruler of the earth should choose a descendant of Bhṛgu as spiritual guide.

The earthly ruler should give to the spiritual guide ten million [coins] as the choice-fee, / or half of a territory of the earth, or a third from a threefold division.

Thus according to the extent of the land he should assign a crore or a portion; / or the ruler of the earth should do that by which the spiritual guide may be completely satisfied.

Ominous afflictions from fate destroy it, and the god does not send rain, / [and] heroes are not born in that realm which has no royal priest.

The deities, the ancestors, and the twice-born do not accept an oblation / from that ruler of the earth in whose house there is no spiritual guide who knows the Atharvan.

One should appoint as spiritual guide a follower of the Pippalāda school, whose major and minor limbs are well proportioned, / who is endowed with learning, proper conduct, and virtue, who increases fortune, the realm, and health;

or likewise a follower of the Śaunaka school, learned in the Vedic mantras, / who continually brings about the increase of the realm through wealth, grain, and the like.

Except for an Atharvan, no other should be appointed as spiritual guide who knows the Atharvan / by a king desiring victory, just as fire is prepared at a sacrificial session.

A Bahvṛca destroys the realm; an Adhvaryu ruins sons; / a Chandoga leads to the destruction of wealth; therefore, the spiritual guide must be an Atharvan.

He whose spiritual guide is a Bahvṛca through ignorance or through negligence / will suffer the destruction of his country, realm, city, and ministers: of this there is no doubt.

If a king appoints an Adhvaryu priest as his royal priest, / he is swiftly slain by a weapon, his wealth and conveyances having wasted away.

Just as a lame man cannot travel the path, and a wingless bird cannot traverse the sky, / even so a king does not attain prosperity through a Chandoga spiritual guide.

He whose royal priest should ever be a Jalada or a Mauda / suffers the loss of his realm within a year or ten months.

All this that is contained in the Ṛg-, Yajur-, and Sāmaveda is mere chaff; / the knowers of Atharvan and Aṅgiras know the grain that is the essential, supreme essence.

The three worlds, the three gods, the three Vedas, and the three fires / merge into the half-mora, and that is traditionally known as the Atharvaveda.

Neither lunar day nor lunar mansion, neither planet nor moon [can impede]: / through the acquisition of the Atharvan mantra, all success will come to pass.

With a spiritual guide belonging to the Pippalāda school, learned in the Vedic mantras, / the realm increases in wealth and grain in this manner, without a doubt.

One desiring land should not ask of an arrogant, cruel, negligent king / who lacks faith and does not follow the śāstras, even though he is a giver.

Having muttered the Gāyatrī a hundred thousand times, one who sacrifices for those unfit to sacrifice / is purified, as is even a killer of an embryo or an eater of a Caṇḍāla's food.

Purification through the abandonment of all possessions has been declared by others; / and by others, through having recited the beginning and concluding verses of the four Vedas.

Whether from sacrificing, from sorcery, or anywhere in ritual involving mantras, / they declare the twice-born to be purified indeed, having the radiance of fire and gold.

Thus ends the Preservation of the Realm.

(Pariśiṣṭa 3. The King's First Consecration)