Concept

Atharvaveda

Overview

The Atharvaveda or Atharvarna Veda (Sanskrit: अथर्ववेद, IAST: Atharvaveda, from अथर्वन्, "priest" and वेद, "knowledge") is the "knowledge storehouse of atharvans, the procedures for everyday life". The text is the fourth Veda, and is a late addition to the Vedic scriptures of Hinduism.

The language of the Atharvaveda is different from Rigvedic Sanskrit, preserving pre-Vedic Indo-European archaisms. It is a collection of 730 hymns with about 6,000 mantras, divided into 20 books. About a sixth of the Atharvaveda texts adapt verses from the Rigveda, and except for Books 15 and 16, the text is mainly in verse, deploying a diversity of Vedic meters. Two different recensions of the text – the Paippalāda and the Śaunakīya – have survived into modern times. Reliable manuscripts of the Paippalada edition were believed to be lost, but a well-preserved version was discovered among a collection of palm-leaf manuscripts in Odisha in 1957.

The Atharvaveda is sometimes called the "Veda of magical formulas", a description other scholars consider incorrect. In contrast to the 'hieratic religion' of the other three Vedas, the Atharvaveda is said to represent a 'popular religion', incorporating not only formulas for magic, but also the daily rituals for initiation into learning (upanayana), marriage and funerals. Royal rituals and the duties of the court priests are also included in the Atharvaveda.

The Atharvaveda was likely compiled as a Veda contemporaneously with Samaveda and Yajurveda, or about 1200 BCE – 1000 BCE. Along with the Samhita layer of text, the Atharvaveda includes a Brahmana text, and a final layer that covers philosophical speculations. The latter layer of Atharvaveda text includes three primary Upanishads, influential to various schools of Hindu philosophy. These include the Mundaka Upanishad, the Mandukya Upanishad and the Prashna Upanishad.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

Possible passages

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But by sacred things one must not understand simply those personal beings which are called gods or spirits; a rock, a tree, a spring, a pebble, a piece of wood, a house, in a word, anything can be sacred. A rite can have this character; in fact, the rite does not exist which does not have it to a certain degree. There are words, expressions and formulæ which can be pronounced only by the mouths of consecrated…
Émile Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life
States what Atharvaveda is.
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Other methods of deliverance from evil are in the excessive acts of penance performed by the Indians, to which a retreat within themselves is added. Now when the Indian thus internally collects himself, and retreats within his own thoughts, the moment of such pure concentration is called Brahma, the one and the clearly supersensuous state, which the understanding calls the highest possible existence. When this is so…
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Hegel's Lectures on the History of Philosophy
States what Atharvaveda is.
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And these parts or divisions are made in a similar manner in the year--in Spring, in Summer, in Autumn, and in Winter. And it is the same in the day even to the third hour, and then even to the ninth, leaving the sixth in the middle of this part, or division, for the reason which is understood, and then even to vespers, and from vespers onwards. And therefore the Gentiles said that the chariot of the Sun had four…
Dante Alighieri, The Banquet
States what Atharvaveda is.
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Related ideas

Place in the tradition

Part of Dharma.

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