For Long Life and Health

O man, take thou hold on your share of immortality, so that you may attain old age without mishap. I bring back thy life and spirit, do not vanish into shadow and darkness, do not perish!

Go forth thou unto us the light of the living. I take you forth to a life of hundred autumns. Releasing you from the fetters of death and malediction, I extend further your thread of life to a longer time.

From the wind have I fetched thy breath, from the sun thy sight, I strengthen your mind in thee, let your limbs in harmony, speak with thy tongue without stammering.

I blow upon thee the breath of bipeds and quadrupeds as one blows a fire just kindled. O Death, to thy sight, and to thy breath, homage I have paid.

Let this man live, let him not die, this man we now revive, here, I prepare a cure for him. Death do not smite this man!

The lively, life-possessing herb, the powerful, potent here do I call, to bring freedom from harm to this man once more.

Bless thou this man, do not seize him, release him, though he be yours. Let him remain here, O Bhava and Sarva, be ye gracious, protect him and grant him full old age, drive away distress!

May the missile of gods avoid thee, I make you emerge from darkness, I have made thee safe from death. I have removed thee far from the flesh-eating funeral pyre(fire). I set a protective enclosure for thee for your preservation.

We preserve him from death's gloomy path, which is thine, O Death, and allows no return. Protecting him from the descent to darkness, we make a covering for him, with this our prayer.

To thee now we give the inbreath and outbreath and a ripe old age, death at its end, and well-being. All the messengers of Yama who move about, I drive them far away.

I sweep away to a distant place distress, destruction, the flesh-consuming demons, every rakshas of evil power, them I slay, as it were, into darkness.

I snatch away thy life-breath from immortal Agni, the ever living, all knowing Jatavedas, so that you may remain unharmed and mayest be immortal in alliance with him. I perform this rite for thee, let it help thee to achieve perfection.

May Heaven and Earth be propitious to thee, never distressing, ever giving fortune. May the Sun shine weal upon thee. May the wind blow auspiciousness to thy heart! May the divine streams, rich in sap, flow propitiously in thee!

May the herbs be propitious to thee. I have uplifted thee from the lower to the higher realm. There may both the Sun and Moon, the boundless ones preserve you!

The garment that envelops thee, that which wraps at the waist, that we make auspicious to thy body, a soft caress to your body!

When thou shavest us as a barber with a very sharp razor, our beard and hair, may our faces shine bright, but the length of our life may remain uncurtailed!

May barley and rice be propitious to thee, never may they cause balsa or any other disease, Let them free thee from consumption, and free thee from distress!

Whatever thou eatest or drinkest, of grain, of field, or of milk, edible or non-edible, all these do I render free from poison!

Now we commit you to both the day and night, to them both we give you. Preserve ye this man from the clutches of the demons who seek to devour him.

A hundred, a thousand years, two, three or four generations we grant thee. May Indra and Agni, may all the gods grant thee this boon without enmity!

We commit thee now to winter, spring and summer. Let the rainy season, in which the herbs grow, be pleasant to thee!

Death is overlord of bipeds. Death is the lord of quadrupeds but thee I rescue from his clutches, so do thou not be afraid!

Do not be afraid, thou shalt not die, unharmed one, thou shalt not die. Men die not at that or go to the lowest darkness.

At that place where this holy word is uttered, a defense unto living, every being, verily lives: the ox, the horse, the man and the kine.

May it protect thee from thy peers, from evil spells, from thy kinsmen and their wiles. May ye be deathless, immortal, surviving, may thy life-breath never leave thy body!

The deaths that are a hundred and on, and the powers of doom that are to be combated, may the gods free thee from that, by the power of Agni, Vaishvanara, the universal lord!

Thou art Agni's body, ready to protect, foe and demon-slayer art thou, rival-slayer, likewise the expeller of disease, the healing herb, putudry by name!