Vedas-A Good Translation

A prayer for riches and general prosperity
Atharva Veda, Chapter 3, Hymn XX (translation by Ralph Griffith, may his soul rest in peace)

1. This is thine ordered place of birth whence sprung to life thou shinest forth.
Knowing this, Agni, mount on high and cause our riches to increase.
2, Turn hither, Agni, speak to us, come to us with a friendly mind.
Enrich us, Sovreign of the Tribes! Thou art the giver of our wealth.
3. Let Aryaman vouchsafe us, wealth, and Bhaga, and Brihaspati,
The Goddesses grant wealth to us, Sūnritā, Goddess, give me wealth!
4. We call King Soma to our aid, and Agni with our songs and hymn,
The Ādityas, Vishnu, Sūrya, and the Brāhman-priest Brihaspati.
5. Do thou, O Agni, with thy fires strengthen our prayer and sacrifice.
Incite thou us, O God, to give, and send us riches to bestow.
6. Both Indra here and Vāyu we invoke with an auspicious call,
That in assembly all the folk may be benevolent to us, and be inclined to give us gifts.
7. Urge Aryaman to send us gifts, and Indra, and Brihaspati,
Vāta, Vishnu, Sarasvati, and the strong courser Savitar.
8. Now have we reached the ordering of power, and all these worlds of life are held within it.
Let him who knows urge them to churn the bounty, give wealth to us with all good men about us.
9. May heaven's five spacious regions pour their milk for me with all their might.
May I obtain each wish and hope formed by my spirit and my heart.
10. May speech that winneth cows be mine, with splendour mount thou over me.
May Vāyu hedge me round about May Pūshan make me prosperous.
(http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/av/av03020.htm)

Note: Atharva Veda has all sorts of charms, for dysentry as well as for constipation, for making a girl or a boy love you, bringing back a deposed king, and what not. You need to chant in Sanskrit for better, faster effect, otherwise Griffith's translation also will do.

Are there still some pundits left in mattan.
veri nag, khir bhawani e.t.c, places i still remember from memorylane of 4 year old.I remember when they wrote my name and other cousins in their register of family tree and told names of my hindu ansestors from NWFP.

Yes, they are there (Kashmiri brahmins have been pushed out of Kashmir seven times, they say, this was the eighth time - by their muslim brotheren who at one time themselves were Kashmiri brahmins, all the Dars, Kauls, Muttoos, Rainas, and Pandits).

We could very well be from NWFP and beyond. My progenitor, Upamanyu, was called a 'Kamboja'. Kamboja extended from South of Hindukush and Tajikistan to Gandhara (Peshawar/Rawalpindi). Kambojas were great horse merchants. Their trade took them to such far-off places like Combodia (the name derives from Kamboja) and Srilanka. As you know the great Sanskrit grammarian, Panini, was a resident of Village Salutara (modern Lahur, Kurram Agency, Federally Administered Tribal Area, Pakistan), near Par Chinar on the Af-Pak border.

Ok, I will put a smiley as this is said in lighter way , however if not then I am booking three truckloads of all the required material and landing at your door...

Ok, this is what the Vedas have been turned to, sad. I am no authority on Vedas but this is not what they would have been written for sure. I once had a conversation with an exceptionally learned man and he told me that Vedas contain all the scientific knowledge that a man can ever achieve but no single person is capable to really understand the whole Vedas. The irony is that we take for granted that if certain hymns are recited, we can achieve the things you say, even when a translation is used ...duh!

My father talks of kurram river eventualy falling in river sindh, how he played there as 5 year old and our lands around kurram.Tribals were not friendly even then, abduction for ransom of city people was rampat that time also and still pak govt has no control of area.

I want to ask a question which some times trouble me, you seem to be authority here on vedas and pundit too.

What do vedas say about eating Non-Vegitarian Food.Is it totaly forbidden or allowed.As Tradition Ahirs and Jats in plains do not eat neither do Jains due to their new religious thoughts.Khatris of Punjab and elsewhere have tradition of having it along with Brahmins of Hills and some other places like bengal and north east.Kashmiri pundits also have no problems here, can you shed some light what vedas say about this issue. I personally feel availability of kind of food in particular region has great affect on our eating habits and bliefs.

This is not a direct answer to your query but I am sure it will help all readers

The vedas are the most ancient text
beginning of the vedas are are related to the performance of yajna’s
they were transmitted / taught from father to son
the words were never written FOR THE SIMPLE REASON THAT THE LANGUAGE OF THE VEDAS IS THE LANGUAGE OF THE BIRDS hence can not be written in either sanskrit, or roman or english {discovery channel research when they attended the recital in south india}

then comes the knowledge part which is in the form of vedanta mainly the Upanishads they were continously updated

vedas do not belive in the caste system, the so called caste system represent the mentality in a person eg a person who is spiritual and engaged in god conscienceness can be termed as a brahmin, a business minded person a vaishya and so on
“A hymn from the Rig Veda seems to indicate that one's caste is not necessarily determined by that of one's family:
Rig Veda 9.112.3
—I am a bard, my father is a physician, my mother's job is to grind the corn.”

But the so called brahmins for their own selfish motives become the self appointed custodians of the vedas and exploited the masses
Time and again great souls like adi shankara, buddha walked on earth and spoke against the misuse of the vedas

Now in todays day and age the entire knowledge of the vedas is provided to us in the form of stories
The mahabharat and the gita it contains explains the entire jist
In the gita when arjun throws his wepons and declares that he is unable to kill his own.
it has a very deep meaning it represents the inability of a person to kill his own wises

there are certain slokas in the Upanishads which form the core of our life if people are interested we can continue further

o.k, language of birds makes sense.We are more similar to birds, in habits, then to mamals.What do you want to say birds are non vegetarians indirectly.

Let Aupmanyav sir throw some light on this.

Isn't calling another member "sir" against the rules? However erudite or senior they may be!

is it saar!

No... I made the rule up!

But it ought to be a rule

Aupmanyav, I don't know if we'll be buying anything new this year for Divalli, although some presents will be distributed. I'll be lighting lamps, though, and leaving one to burn overnight, as I always do.

BKS: "Language of the birds", . Vedas were composed over many millenia and at locales varying from sub-arctic to North-West India. The language changed many times. Even when Taittiriya Samhita was written around 2,250 BC, the older verses and their meanings were unintelligible. The Samhitakaras (writers of Samhitas) gave their version of what they understood from the verses.

CityMONK: The Aryans were certainly non-vegetarians. They offered cow's meat to their guests and that is why a guest was known as 'go-ghna' (killer of cows). Perhaps in some hoary past, animals or even humans were sacrificed at a 'yajna', though later the sacrifices became symbolic.

Khatris are most probably Aryan warrior clans, who were forced to change their profession by people who defeated them; the scythians, the parthians, the greeks, the kushanas, the hunas, and lastly the muslims. There were no kingdoms to be ruled by them and no states to fight for. Of course, the availability changes the tradition, like the brahmins in certain regions eating fish.

Jats (arattas), Gujars (Kazakh khuzars) and Ahirs probably belong to scythians and not to Aryan tribes. Though the two tribes lived near each other for many millenia. For that matter, even greeks, the 'ionians' were neighbours of Aryans in Kazakh steppes north of Caspian Sea, and the name derives from 'yavanas' (that is how the Aryans knew them). SrimadBhagawat Purana mentions that the eldest son of King Yayati became a 'yavana'.

JITUJI: Kindly do not send me the three truck-loads of the raw material as I would not be able to part with it once it turns into gold. You know, human frailties. Please remember all the riches will bring their own problems. Money itself cannot make a human happy.

I am from Vasishthas who wrote the seventh book of RigVeda. My progenitor, Upamanyu, has a verse in RigVeda. Three thousand years ago, my name-sake, another Aupmanyav (descendant of Sage Upamanyu) was a Vedic commentator (he was a predecessor of Yaska). My grandfather wrote four books on RigVeda and translated two books by Bal Gangadhar Tilak (Orion or the Antiquity of Vedas and Arctic Homes in Vedas, from English to Hindi).

Basically, I know my Vedas well. I am not like some hindus, christians, or muslims, who see all science in Vedas, Bible, or Quran. Vedas are the lore of a nomadic people, perhaps since the ice-ages. For such nomadic people, to believe that chants and charms work, is not surprising. I am not denying what Vedas can teach us, the wisdom about life, the history of Aryan people, and their astronomical observations.

NICK: You are right. I would not like to be 'sirred'. Just Aupmanyav is perfectly OK.

if not sirred, then stirred, perhaps?

Not really, it is a small thing, I hope CityMonk will abide by our wishes.

Give him some good recipe, he will abide by anything . And if you provide the one turning into gold, I will too.