Atharvaveda

Atharvaveda
Four vedas
Four Vedas
Information
ReligionHistorical Vedic religion
Hinduism
LanguageVedic Sanskrit
PeriodVedic period (c. 1200–900 BCE)
Chapters20 kāṇḍas
Verses5,977 mantras
Hindu texts
Śruti


Smriti

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The Atharvaveda or Atharva Veda (Sanskrit: अथर्ववेद) is one of the four Vedas in Hinduism. It is known as the “knowledge storehouse of procedures for everyday life." This Veda is the fourth (last) one and was added later to the Vedic scriptures. The language of the Atharvaveda is different from the Rigveda. It has 730 hymns with about 6,000 mantras, divided into 20 books. Some parts of it are taken from the Rigveda. There are two versions of the text - Paippalāda and Śaunakīya. A well-preserved version of the Paippalāda was found in Odisha in 1957.

The Atharvaveda is sometimes referred to as the "Veda of magical formulas," but the description is hardly apt. It has rituals for daily life, such as learning, marriage, and funerals, as well as royal rituals and duties of court priests. It was compiled probably around 1200 BCE – 1000 BCE, concurrently with the Samaveda and Yajurveda. It too carries philosophical texts and three vital Upanishads known as Mundaka, Mandukya, and Prashna Upanishads.

References

  1. ↑ Flood 1996, p. 37; Witzel 2001.
  2. ↑ "Construction of the Vedas". VedicGranth.Org. Archived from the original on 17 July 2021. Retrieved 3 July 2020.
  3. 1 2 Laurie Patton (2004), Veda and Upanishad, in The Hindu World (Editors: Sushil Mittal and Gene Thursby), Routledge, ISBN 0-415215277, page 38
  4. ↑ Carl Olson (2007), The Many Colors of Hinduism, Rutgers University Press, ISBN 978-0813540689, pages 13–14
  5. ↑ Laurie Patton (1994), Authority, Anxiety, and Canon: ys in Vedic Interpretation, State University of New York Press, ISBN 978-0791419380, page 57
  6. 1 2 3 Bloomfield, Maurice (1899). The Atharvaveda. Robarts - University of Toronto. Strassburg K.J. Trübner.
  7. 1 2 Frits Staal (2009), Discovering the Vedas: Origins, Mantras, Rituals, Insights, Penguin, ISBN 978-0143099864, pages 136-137
  8. ↑ Jan Gonda (1975), Vedic Literature: Saṃhitās and Brāhmaṇas, Vol 1, Fasc. 1, Otto Harrassowitz Verlag, ISBN 978-3447016032, pages 277–280, Quote: "It would be incorrect to describe the Atharvaveda Samhita as a collection of magical formulas".
  9. ↑ Parpola, Asko (2015), "The Atharvaveda and the Vrātyas", The Roots of Hinduism: The Early Aryans and the Indus Civilization, Oxford University Press, Chapter 12, ISBN 978-0-19-022692-3
  10. ↑ M. S. Valiathan. The Legacy of Caraka. Orient Blackswan. p. 22.
  11. ↑ Paul Deussen, Sixty Upanishads of the Veda, Volume 2, Motilal Banarsidass, ISBN 978-8120814691, pages 605–609
  12. ↑ Max Muller, The Upanishads, Part 2, Prasna Upanishad, Oxford University Press, pages xlii–xliii