Page:A history of Sanskrit literature (1900), Macdonell, Arthur Anthony.djvu/202

 A considerable time elapsed before the Atharva-veda, owing to the general character of its contents, attained to the rank of a canonical book. There is no evidence that even at the latest period of the Rigveda the charms constituting the Atharva-veda were formally recognised as a separate literary category. For the Purusha hymn, while mentioning the three sacrificial Vedas by the names of Rik, Sāman, and Yajus, makes no reference to the spells of the Atharva-veda. Yet the Rigveda, though it is mainly concerned with praises of the gods in connection with the sacrifice, contains hymns showing that sorcery was bound up with domestic practices from the earliest times in India. The only reference to the spells of the Atharva-veda as a class in the Yajurvedas is found in the Taittirīya Saṃhitā, where they are alluded to under the name of angirasaḥ by the side of Rik, Sāman, and Yajus, which it elsewhere mentions alone. Yet the formulas of the Yajur-veda are often pervaded by the spirit of the Atharva-veda, and are sometimes Atharvan even in their wording. In fact, the difference between the Rigveda and Yajurveda on the one hand, and the Atharva on the other, as regards sorcery, lies solely in the degree of its applicability and prominence.

The Atharva-veda itself only once mentions its own literary type directly (as atharvāngirasaḥ) and once indirectly (as bheshajā or "auspicious spells"), by the side of the other three Vedas, while the latter in a considerable number of passages are referred to alone. This shows that as yet there was no feeling of antagonism between the adherents of this Veda and those of the older ones.

Turning to the Brāhmaṇas, we find that those of the Rigveda do not mention the Atharva-veda at all, while