XXXVIii HYMNS OF THE ATHARVA-VEDA. sAmani, atharvangirasaz, brahmavzdni, itihdasdn, purdasani, kalpan, gathaz, narasamsih. The only mention of the Atharvan as a literary type in Sankhayana’s Srauta-sitra is at XVI, 2, 2 ff., again in the _. series, riko vedah, yagurvedak, atharvavedah Awe ae (in connection with bheshagam), angiraso vedak se arse (in connection with ghoram), sarpavidya, ra- kshovidya, asuravidya, itihasavedaZ, puraza- vedak, samavedak. Very similarly in Asvalayana’s Srauta- sitra X, 7, 1 ff., vio vedak yagurvedah, atharvazah vedak (with bheshagam), angiraso vedad (with ghoram), vishavidya, pisdkavidya, asuravidya, purazavidya, itihaso vedak, simavedak. These passages are essentially iden- tical with Sat. Br. XIII, 4, 3, 3 ff, above; their chief interest lies in the differentiation of atharvan and angiras, respectively as representatives of the auspicious (bheshagam) and terrible (ghoram =dabhikarikam) activities of this Veda ; cf. above, p. xviii ff. In the Paskavimsa-brahmamza, XII, 9, 10; XVI, 10, 10, the Atharvan charms are mentioned favourably: bheshagam va atharvavani, and bheshagam vai devaném atharvazo bheshagydyaisvasrishtyai. Cf. also XXIII, 16,7; Kak. S. XI, 5 (cf. Ind. Stud. ITI, 463). The Vagasaneyi-samhita mentions the traividya (or rzk and saman without yaguZ) frequently, IV, 1.9; VIII, 12; ANU, 9/292 OFF DOK, TION MMTV SY GX KML, Ontene Atharvan is nowhere mentioned in connection with the other three.’ Oncé*at XXX t5=Tait) Bre TB 4 Aeris Women that miscarries (avatoka) is devoted to the Atharvans ; the ‘reference, in the light of AV. VI, 17; Kaus. 35, 12 (a charm to prevent miscarriage), seems to be to Atharvan hymns or Atharvanic practices. Otherwise the word athar- van occurs in connections that admit of no special, or at any rate obvious, reference to the fourth Veda, VIII, 56 ; XI, 32. Neither is there, as far as is known, any mention of the Atharvan in the Maitrayawi-samhita, the Aitareya and Kaushitaki-brahmavzas, or Katydyana’s and Léatya- yana’s Srauta-sttras. | The position of the Atharvan in the srauta-literature according to this evidence is what might be naturally
INTRODUCTION. XXXIX
expected: there is no evidence of repugnance or exclu-
siveness. Witchcraft is blended with every sphere of
Steal pie religious thought and activity, and the only the srauta- Sane attitude on the part of these texts must Sie ar be the recognition of the literary products | which are by distinction the repositories of witchcraft. No one will expect rigid consistency: witchcraft blows hot and cold from the same mouth; according as it is turned towards the inimical forces, human and demoniac, or is turned by others against one-_ self, it is regarded as useful, or noxious. The AV. itself takes the same view by implication: the hymn, II, 12, hurls the bitterest invective against enemies that endeavour to thwart one’s holy work; this does not prevent one’s own endeavour to frustrate the sacrifice of an enemy (VII, 70); the hymn, II, 7, ensures protection against curses and hostile plots, but does not prevent the existence of fierce imprecations and curses issued forth subjectively for the ruin of another (VI, 13 and 37). It is a question throughout of my sorcery, or thy sorcery. The flavour of holiness and virginal innocency is necessarily absent, and this want crops out in connection with the performances of yatu even in the RV. (VII, 104, 15. 16), where the writer exclaims: ‘may I die to-day if I am a sorcerer,’ and com- plains against his enemy who calls him, though he is pure, a sorcerer, and against the real sorcerer who pretends that he is pure. Though yatu (sorcery) is regarded here as devilish (cf. e.g. AV. I, 7 and 8), the writer at Sat. Br. X, 5, 2, 20 is not prevented from placing the yatuvida%, ‘ those that are skilled in sorcery, in solemn array with the repre- sentatives of the holiest forms of literature, immediately after the bahvrzkaz, as the characteristic exponent of Atharvanic activity. And on the other hand even bhe- shagam, ‘cure, medicine, the altruistic province of the Atharvan, though well regarded in general, does not come off without a sneer. The Tait. S. VI, 4, 9, 3 (cf. Maitr. S. IV, 6,2; Sat. Br. IV, 1, 5,14) says, brahmavena bhesha- gam na karyam, ‘a Brahman shall not practise medicine,’ the reason that is assigned being that the physician is
x] HYMNS OF THE ATHARVA-VEDA.
impure, that the practice entails promiscuous, unaristocratic mingling with men: ‘men run to the physician’ (MS. IV, 6, 2, p- 80, 1. 1). And we may trust that the canons of social standing and literary appreciation of a people that had produced the best that is to be found in Vedic litera- ture could not fail altogether, when in the proper mood, to estimate at its right value the wretched hocus-pocus of the bheshagani themselves, though these were the best that the Vedic period had produced for the relief of bodily ailment. Yet the Veda without witchcraft would not be the Veda, and the srauta-texts are not in the position to throw stones against the Atharvan. Moreover it must not be forgotten that the Atharvan contains in its cosmo- gonic and theosophic sections more material that undertakes to present the highest brahmavidya than any other Vedic Samhita (cf. below, p. lxvi); by whatever literary evo- lution this was associated with this sphere of literature and incorporated into the redaction, it doubtless contributed to the floating of the more compact body of sorcery-charms, and its higher valuation among the more enlightened of the people. At any rate, a sober survey of the position of the Atharvan in the traividya yields the result that this Veda, while not within the proper sphere of the greater concerns of Vedic religious life, is considered within its own sphere as a Veda in perfectly good standing; the question of its relative importance, its authority, and its canonicity is not discussed, nor even suggested. The position of the Atharvan in the Upanishads does not appear to differ from that in the sruti in general. Aside The AV in ‘om the Atharvan Upanishads, which are the Upani- naturally somewhat freer in their reference shad; to the AV., and in the mention of more or less apocryphal Atharvan teachers, it is introduced but rarely, and usually in the manner prevalent elsewhere in the srauta-literature, i.e. preceded by the trayi, and
Cf. the contempt for the piigayag#iyah, ye ptigin yagayanti, ‘those who sacrifice for a crowd,’ Manu III, 151; Mahabh. I, 2883, and the gramayagin, Manu IV, 205, and gramaydgaka, Mahabh. III, 13355. See also Vishzu LXX XII, 12; Gaut. XV, 16,
INTRODUCTION. xli
followed by a variable list of other literary types. Thus the passages quoted above from Sat. Br. XIV, 5, 4, 10; 6, Boy: 3). 9 tos: Brth. Ar. Ghiile abort, Qe°5, 11, and the Tait. Ar. II, g and 10, are of Upanishad character, and the Maitr. Up. VI, 32 repeats the list of texts stated at Sat. Br. = Brzh. Ar. Up., just cited, in precisely the same order. The same text, Maitr. Up. VI, 33 (= Maha Up. 2; Atharvasiras 4), has the list rigyagudsamatharvangirasa itihasak puravzam. The Afand. Up. III, 1-4 deals with vik, yaguh, saman, atharvangirasaz, and itihdsapuravani ; the same text at VII, 1, 2.4; 2,1; 7,1, has the same list, ...datharvavas aturthaz itihasapurazak pazkamah, to which are added a lengthy series of additional sciences (vidya). The Tait. Up.=Tait. Ar. VIII, 3, again, presents the Atharvan in a formulaic connection, tasya (sc. 4tmanah) yagur eva sirak, rig dakshivak pakshak, samosttarah pa-. ksha#, adesa Atma, atharvangirasak pukkham'. There is, as far as is known, no additional mention of the Atharvan in the non-Atharvanic Upanishads, and it is evident that there is no marked change in the manner in which the fourth Veda is handled. Very much more numerous are the instances in which the trayi alone appears ; see Jacob’s Concordance to the principal Upanishads, under the words rigveda, riimaya, 77k; yagurveda, yagurmaya, yagus ; samaveda,samamaya,sdman. They show that the draughts upon the Atharvan and the subsequent literary forms are, in general, made under the excitement of formulaic solem- nity ; while on the other hand, needless to say, the Upani- shads with their eye aloft alike from hymn, sacrificial formula, and witchcraft charm, have no occasion to condemn the Atharvan, aside from that superior attitude of theirs which implies, and diplomatically expresses condemnation of the entire Veda that is not brahmavidya.
Even in the Atharvan Upanishads there is sounded in
' ‘This Upanishad belongs to a Yagus-school; hence the pre-eminence of the yagus, The Atharvan is here forced into a position of disadvantage, and it may be admitted that its mention after the adesa (Upanishad) is intentional. But there is really no other course open to the writer. The tenor of the entire passage excludes the notion of disparagement of any of the texts mentioned.
xlit HYMNS OF THE ATHARVA-VEDA.
general neither the polemic nor the apologetic note which characterises the ritualistic writings of the Atharvan. We ; find, to be sure, in the late Prazava Up. a spo-
The AV. in eae ‘ : ee
the radic, if not solitary, assumption of superiority
Atharvan on the part of the AV.!, and an interpolated
Upanishads. ;
passage in the Prasna Up. V, 5 betrays the distinct tendency to secure at any cost the correlation - of the Atharvan with the highest brahma’?®. The authority of Atharvanic teachers, Sanatkumara, Angiras, Paippalada, &c., is, of course, cited with especial frequency in the Atharvan Upanishads, helping to confer upon them an esoteric school character. But in general, all that may be said is, that the Atharvan Upanishads mention the fourth Veda along with the other three more frequently than the corresponding tracts of the other schools, that the Atharvan is quietly added to the trayi, whether other literary forms like the itihdsapurazam, &c., appear in the sequel, or not. Even these Upanishads, however, occasionally lapse into the more frequent habit of the bulk of the Vedic literature, and fail to refer to the Atharvan, whether consciously or not, it seems impossible to tell. Thus the Muzdaka Up. I, 1,5 counts the four Vedas (Atharvan included) along with the Angas as the lesser science, above which towers the science of Brahma: rzgvedo, yagurvedak, simavedo stharvaveda/ siksha, &c. But in II, 1, 6 the list is, rzkak sdma yagimshi diksha yag#aska. The Prasna Up. II, 8 says of the Pravwa, ‘life’s breath’ (personified), 7¢shizam karitam satyam atharvangirasam asi, which seemingly con- tains an allusion to the Atharvan writings, but in II, 6 we have, praze sarvam pratish¢kitam riko yagdmshi samani yag#ah kshatram brahma #a*. See also Mahandrayana Up. 22. This betrays the usual preoccupation with the traividya, which is not quite effaced by the possible allusion to the Atharvan in II, 8. The Nrisimhapirvatapani Up.
* See Ind. Stud. I, 296; IX, 51.
* See Ind, Stud. I, 453, note, and cf. Bohtlingk’s critical edition of the Prasna in the Proceedings of the Royal Saxon Academy, November, 18go.
* It would have been easy to substitute for the last four words, atharvaa- girasas ka ye, or the like. Cf, also Piasna V, 5,\alluded to above.
INTRODUCTION. xliii
I, 2 has, r~gyaguksamatharvanas katvaro vedah; I, 4, rig- yagudsamatharvaripad stryak; II, 1 (=Nrdsimhottarata- pani Up. 3; Atharvasikha Up. 1), r7gbhik rigvedah, yagur- bhir yagurveda, sdmabhiz simavedaZ, atharvavair mantrair atharvavedad; in V,9Q it falls into the broader style of reference, rikah, yagimshi, sdmani, atharvavam, angirasam, sakhah, puravani, kalpan, gathaZ, narasamsih, leading up finally to prazavam, the Om which embraces all (sarvam). But in V, 2 we have rzgmayam yagurmayam samamayam brahmamayam amrztamayam, where brahmamayam ob- viously refers to the brahmavidyda, the holy science, not to the fourth Veda, the Brahmavedat. And thus the Brah- mavidya Up. 5 ff. recounts the merits of the traividya, culminating in the Om, without reference to the Atharvan. It seems clear that even the Atharvan Upanishads as a class are engaged neither in defending the Atharvan from attack, nor in securing for it any degree of prominence. Other references to the Atharvan occur in Atharvasiras 1, rig aham yagur aham samasham atharvangirasoxham; Mu- ktika Up. 12-14, vigveda, yagu/, siman, atharvama ; ibid. 1, atharvavedagatanam . ..upanishadam; Maha Up. 3, gaya- tram khanda rigvedah, traishtubham khando yagurvedah, gagatam khandahk simaveda%, anushéubham khandostharva-
vedah. Cf. also Xdlika Up. 10, 13, 14.
On turning to the Grzhya-sfiitras it would be natural to
anticipate a closer degree of intimacy with the,Atharvan,
and hence a more frequent and less formulaic
The AV. it ‘
os itis reference to its writings. For the subject-
yang matter of these texts is itself, broadly speak-
sutras.
ing, Atharvanic, besides being dashed strongly
with many elements of vidhana or sorcery-practice, i.e.
Atharvanic features in the narrower sense and by dis-
tinction*. Many verses quoted in the Grzhya-sitras are
1 The Upanishads do not designate the fourth Veda as Brahmaveda, unless we trust certain doubtful variants and addenda, reported by Weber, Ind. Stud. I, 301, note. The earliest occurrence of Brahmaveda is at Sankh, Grzh. I, 16, 13, (see above, p. xxvii).