The Atharvaveda

The Atharvaveda is the fourth of the four Vedas. The first three are the Rigveda, the Yajurveda and the Samaveda. The word veda means knowledge. The name Atharvaveda means “knowledge of the Atharvan”.

Who was the Atharvan?

Atharvan is an old word for a priest. One tradition links it to a priest known as a healer. No one can say for sure who first composed these hymns.

How is it different from the other three?

The first three Vedas are built around the fire sacrifice. The Atharvaveda looks at everyday life. It has spells to ward off danger. It has hymns, prayers and rites for marriage and funerals. It also has verses about daily worries. People often call it the Veda of charms.

What is the memory hook?

Think of the Atharvaveda as the Veda of daily life.

Its verses fall into three broad groups. Each group answers a different need.

What are the three groups?

• The first group cures diseases and drives away harmful forces.
• The second group asks for peace, safety, health, wealth, friendship and long life.
• The third group asks big questions about reality, time, death and immortality.

What kind of spells are there?

Some verses cure bodily and mental illness. Others protect people from snake bites and harmful insects. Some guard the harvest from animals. A few even curse a rival. These show the worries of ordinary Vedic families.

Which hymns are famous?

The Bhumi Sukta in book 12 praises the Earth. The Vivaha Sukta in book 14 is about marriage. Both are often named in notes. The Atharvaveda is like an encyclopedia of Vedic life.

What is the memory hook?

Cure, protect, wonder.

The Atharvaveda has about 730 hymns. They are spread over 20 books. Each book is called a kanda.

How many verses are there?

The best known version holds 5,987 mantras. A mantra is a sacred verse or chant. Round it to about 6,000 for exams. About 1,200 of these verses come from the Rigveda.

Is it all poetry?

Most of it is. But about one sixth is prose. Books 15 and 16 are wholly in prose. Their style is close to the Brahmanas, the books that explain rituals.

What is the memory hook?

730 hymns, 20 books.

The first three Vedas are together called the Vedatrayi, or “the three Vedas”. The Atharvaveda stood outside this group. Notes often call it a later addition.

Why the doubt?

Its content and style differ from the other three. It is about spells and daily life, not the big sacrifice. Some scholars even doubted it was a true Veda. Today some Hindu groups accept it and some do not.

What does new research say?

Older notes call it the latest Veda. Newer research dates it to about 1200–1000 BCE. That is close to the time of the Samaveda and the Yajurveda.

Did the sacrifice use it?

Yes, in a small way. A priest called the Brahma supervised the whole sacrifice. He usually represented the Atharvaveda. So the book is also called the Brahmaveda.

What is the memory hook?

Fourth by count, not always by date.

A recension is a separate version of a text. Patanjali said the Atharvaveda once had nine schools. Only two versions survive today.

What are they?

• The Shaunaka version is the one usually meant when people say Atharvaveda.
• The Paippalada version is the older of the two.
• Each has 20 books.

What happened to the Paippalada?

For many years only one damaged manuscript from Kashmir was known. In 1957 a scholar named Durgamohan Bhattacharya found much better manuscripts. They were with Brahmins in Odisha. Scholars now think both versions come from an older text that is lost.

What is the memory hook?

Shaunaka is standard. Paippalada is older.

Many notes say yes. The claim needs a careful reading.

What do the sources say?

The Vedic Heritage Portal calls it the oldest literary monument of Indian medicine. It names herbs and medicines. Lex.dk calls it one of the oldest examples of folk medicine. It says the Atharvaveda may have inspired later Ayurveda.

Where should we be careful?

The Atharvaveda holds both spells and herb remedies. So it is an early source of medical ideas. It is not a full textbook of Ayurveda.

Does it have deep thought too?

Yes. The portal says some hymns ask who made the world. They talk about ideas such as Brahman and Prana. The portal says the chief ideas of the Upanishads were already known then.

What is the memory hook?

Herbs and spells, side by side.

Exams like small firsts. This CAPF question asks which Veda first used a word.

How do you answer it?

The word gotra appears in the Rigveda, but only for a cattle-pen. The Atharvaveda is the first to use it for a clan. The answer is (b).

What else do exams ask?

Remember two facts for any question. The Atharvaveda is the one outside the Vedatrayi. It has about 730 hymns in 20 books.

What is the memory hook?

Gotra grows from cattle-pen to clan.