reserved for the priests conversant with that Veda. The position of these texts may be stated under three heads. First, they are not content with the rather vacillating attitude of the non-Atharvanic texts which refer in general to a threefold Veda, reserving, as we have seen, the honorific mention of the fourth Veda to more or less well-defined occasions, especially to moods when it is felt desirable to call into requisition the entire range of Vedic literary composition in addition to the trayi vidya (e, g. itihasa, purawa, gatha, &c). Secondly, the office of the Brahman, the fourth priest at the irauta-ceremonies, who oversees and corrects by means of expiatory formulas (praya^itta) the accidents and blunders of hotar, udg&tar, and adhvaryu, is said to belong to an Atharvavedin, and the Vaitana-sutra in fact exhibits the bh/7gvangirovid in possession of that office. Thirdly, a similar claim is advanced in respect to the office of the purohita. Again and again it is stated that the purohita, guru, or brahman of a king, the chaplain or house-priest, shall be conversant with the Atharvan writings, shall be an Atharvan priest, and this claim, as we have seen above (p. xlvi), is supported to some extent by later Brahmanical treatises not derived from Atharvan schools. Cf. also below, p. lxvii.
The Gopatha-brahma/za, in its opening chapters I, 1,4-
io, describes the cosmogonic origin of the universe and
Exaltation ^e Vedas from the lone brahma. Unlike
of the AV. other texts, which as a rule ignore the Athar-
m genera . ^^ .^ ^tse creative accounts, the atharvan
and the ahgiras texts are placed at the head ; the other
Vedic texts (rzk, yaguk, and saman, I, 1, 6), as well as the
subsidiary compositions (the five Vedas, called sarpaveda,
pua/£aveda, asuraveda, itihasaveda, and purtoaveda, I, 1,
INTRODUCTION. lix
10), are relegated to the rear. At Vait. Su. 6, 1 the Atharvan is again placed at the head of the four Vedas. Gop. Br. I, 3, 4 lauds the Atharvan compositions as the greatest religious manifestation, etad vai bhuylshtkam brahma yad bhr/gvangirasa^, and at I, 2, 1 6 (cf. I, 2, 18) the Atharvan figures as the fourth Veda by the name of Brahma-veda, being here correlated with the service of the Brahman-priest as the overseer at the ^rauta-ceremonies 1. At I, 1,9 there is quoted a stanza, thoroughly Upanishad in character, which shows that the Atharvanists correlated their Veda with the knowledge of brahma, -the higher and subtler religious conception, which at all times is raised above any special knowledge of the constituent parts of the Vedic religion : ' The highest Veda was born of tapas, it grew in the heart of those that know the brahma V The Atharvan ritual texts never cite the trayt vidya in formulary order without including the fourth Veda 3, differ- ing in this regard even from the text of the Sa;^hita and the Atharvan Upanishads (see pp. xxxii, xliii). The first half of the Gop. Br. (I, $, 25) ends with the assertion that they who study the trayi reach, to be sure, the highest heaven (trivish/apa//z tridiva;^ nakam uttamam), but yet the Athar- vans and Angiras go beyond to the great worlds of Brahma (ata uttare brahmaloka mahanta/z).
As regards the Brahman, the overseer at the ^rauta- performances, the Vait. Su. 1, 1 states that he must be
^ conversant with the Brahma-veda, and in 1, 17.
The office o 1 • • 1 -i 1 1 1 1 r 1 •
of Brahman Jo this priest is described as the lord of beings,
ln \extntUal *orc* °^ t^ie wor^> &c- These expressions
seem to indicate that he is the representa-
tive at the sacrifice of the personified god Brahman. At
11, 2 (cf. Gop. Br. I, 2, 16) the Brahman is again ordered
to be conversant with the atharvangirasa^, this time in
1 £atasro va ime hotra, hautram adhvaryavam audgatraw brahmatvam.
2 Thus according to the version of Saya?za, Introduction to the AV., p. 5, sxtshtho hi vedas tapasoxdhi^ato brahma^anaw hrzdaye sa;//babhuva. Ra^en- dralalamitra's edition, sresht/10 ha vedas tapaso * dhi^ato brahmfi^yanaw kshitaye sa;/zbabhuva, 'it was created for the destruction of the oppressors of Brahmans.'
3 See especially Gop. Br. II, 2, 14, where the atharvangirasa^ are added every time in liturgical formulas to the rik&h, ya^uwshi, and samani.
lx HYMNS OF THE ATHARVA-VEDA.
expressed contrast with udgatar, hotar, and adhvaryu (samaveda, rzgveda, ya^urveda). At Gop. Br. I, 2, 18 (end) the Brahman is described with the words, esha ha vai vidvan sarvavid brahma yad bhrzgvangirovid. The last statement is of especial interest as indicating the identifi- cation of the Atharvan with the sarvavidya which stands above the trayi vidya (cf. below, p. lxiii). Especially at Gop. I, 3, 1.2 the futility of the sacrifice without a Brah- man skilled in the bhrzgvafigirasa^ is described vividly: a cow, a horse, a mule, a chariot cannot proceed with less than four feet, therefore the sacrifice, in order to succeed, must have four feet : the four Vedas, and the four priests. Especially characteristic is the following : At Tait. S. Ill, 5, 2, 1, &c. (cf. Ind. Stud. X, 34), the well-known legend is told, according to which Vasish///a ' saw Indra clearly, though the i^zshis (in general) did not see him clearly.' Indra makes Vasish//za his Brahman (purohita), and con- fides to him moreover a mystery, the stomabhaga-verses. Since then men have Vasish/^a for their purohita : there- fore a descendant of Vasish//za is to be chosen as Brahman. The same legend is repeated almost verbatim Gop. Br. II, 2, 13, but the text demurs at the last clause. The Gop. Br. cannot say tasmad vasish//zo brahma karya/z, because it has previously stated emphatically that a bhr/gvangirovid is the only person fitted for that exalted office (I, 2, 18 ; 3, 1 fi\). At Vait. Su. 6, 1 the garhapatya-fire is personified as a steed which is prepared by the four Vedas for the Brah- man, and by Pra^apati for Atharvan : the equation brah- man = atharvan is implied. The passage, Vait. Su. 37, 2, a brahmodya or theological contest between the Brahman and the Udgatar, betrays perhaps a certain insecurity and touchiness on the part of the Brahman in his assumed superiority to the other priests : ' Not art thou superior, better than I, goest not before me. ... Thou speakest these words that are worthy of being learned, (but) shalt not become equal to me.' The superiority of the Brahman was occasionally disputed1, and possibly the Atharvanic
1 See Haug, Brahma und die Brahmanen, p. 10.
INTRODUCTION. lxi
Brahman felt that he stood in special need of asserting his dignity.
Even more energetic are the demands of the liturgical
texts in the matter of the office of purohita who is
rp, r, r known also by the name of brahman and
The office of f
purohita in the guru. ' The king who rules the country shall seek a wise Brahman (brahma^am). He verily is wise that is skilled in the bhr/gu and angiras ; for the bhrzgu and angiras act as a charm against all ominous occurrences, and protect everything ' (Kauj. 94, 2-4 ; cf. 126, 2). The equivalence of brahman, purohita, and guru is guaranteed by comparing with this Ath. Pam. 3, r, kulina//z .srotriya;// bhrzgvangirovida7/z . . . guru^ vr/myad bhupati^ ; and 3, 3, tasmad bhrzgvangirovida^ . , . kuryat purohitam. Cf. also 2, 2, brahma tasmad atharvavit. Conversely, ( The gods, the Fathers, and the twice-born (priests) do not receive the oblation of the king in whose house there is no guru that is skilled in the Atharvan ' (2, 3). Cf. Weber, Omina und Portenta, p. 346 fT. ; Ind. Stud. X, 138; Saya^a, Introduction to the AV., p. 6. In Kaui*. 17, 4fT. the king and the purohita (Darila: ra^a, purodha/^) are seen in active co-operative practice at the consecration of the king ; and again (brahma ra^a ka) in 140, 4 fT. at the indramahotsava- festival.
The Atharva-pari^ish/as are not content with these strong recommendations of their own adherents, but they would have the adherents of the other Vedas, yea even of certain branches (^kha) of the Atharvan itself, excluded from the purohiti : ' The Atharvan keeps off terrible occurrences, and acts as a charm against portentous ones . . . not the adhvaryu, not the ^andoga, and not the bahvrzka. . . . The bahvrika. destroys the kingdom, the adhvaryu destroys sons, the ^andoga dissipates wealth ; hence the guru must be an Atharva^a. ... A Paippalada as guru increases hap- piness, sovereignty, and health, and so does a 5aunakin who understands the gods and the mantras. . . . The king whose purodha is in any way a Calada or a Mauda is deposed from his kingdom within the year ' (Ath. Pam.
1X11 HYMNS OF THE ATHARVA-VEDA.
2, 2-5) x. The Paippaladas, Saunakins, Caladas; and Maudas are alike representatives of Atharvan schools (see Kaorika, Introduction, p. xxxiii ff.) : the passage shows how eager the scramble for the office of purohita had become. That the Atharvans finally succeeded in making heard their clamorous demand for this office (see below, p. lxvii) is probably due, as we shall see, to their superior, if not exclusive knowledge of witchcraft, which was doubtless regarded in the long run as the most prac- tical and trenchant instrument for the defence of king and people.
In order to estimate at its correct value the claims of the Atharvanists that their own Veda is entitled to the
name Brahma-veda, and that the so-called
Causes
leading up to Brahman-priests and the Purohitas must be
^fth^AV011 acmerents 0I~ tne AV., we need to premise certain considerations of a more general nature. In the Vedic religious system, or we might say more cautiously religious evolution, three literary forms and correspondingly three liturgical methods of application of these forms to the sacrifice were evolved at a time prior to the recorded history of Hindu religious thought and action. They are the rikzh, samani, and ya^u^shi, known also by a variety of other designations, and characterised to a con- siderable extent by special verbs expressing the act of reciting or chanting them 2. Correspondingly the priests who had learned one of these varieties of religious expres- sion and its mode of application to the sacrifice appear, again for aught we know from prehistoric times, as indi- vidual actors (hotar, udgatar, adhvaryu), in no wise qualified each by himself to shoulder the burden of literary know- ledge or liturgic technique. The Hindus were at all times well aware that these religious forms are fragmentary and parts of a whole. The Rig-veda contains countless expres- sions indicating the insufficiency of the rik&k to fulfil alone
1 Cf. Weber, Ind. Stud. I, 296 ; the author, Journ. Amer. Or. Soc. XI, 378, note.
2 See Max Muller, History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature, p. 489 ff. ; Ludwig, Der Rigveda, III, p. 25 ff.
INTRODUCTION. lxiil
the scheme of religious action, and the interdependence of the three Vedic types. There is a Rig-veda, but no Rig- vedic religion, as even recent writers on the religions of India unfortunately tend to assume : the absence of samans would in principle leave Vedic religion just as much muti- lated as the absence of rzks ; the categories are the three parts of a trio whose melody is carried by each in turn.