O Thou of the Dark Belly and the Red Back! I stand upon the unploughed earth, In the shadow of the village and its rising smoke. I wear the skins of the wilderness; I carry the bow that needs no string.
Lord of the Blue-Neck, Towering Archer of the Clouds, Behind me the priests pour ghee into the pit, But I look to Thy face, divine and terrible in the heights. Turn Thy fierce gaze toward the horizon, Thou who art the Master of the Hounds and the Lord of the Sky.
Healer of the Wild, Drinker of the Poison, With the Vratya heart, I speak Thy name into the calm. I stand where the fence ends and the world begins, O Rudra, Great Bull of the Heavens! Give us the thousand medicines of the forest, And let us walk the path of the sun, Unbound, unburnt, and wild.
-Composed by invoking an unnamed Vratya Mendicant from 2000 BCE as described in the Atharva Veda
