Page:A history of Sanskrit literature (1900), Macdonell, Arthur Anthony.djvu/204

 who practise it—places yātuvidaḥ or sorcerers by the side of bahvṛichas or men skilled in Rigvedic verses. Just as the Rigveda contains very few hymns directly connected with the practice of sorcery, so the Atharva originally included only matters incidental and subsidiary to the sacrificial ritual. Thus it contains a series of formulas (vi. 47-48) which have no meaning except in connection with the three daily pressings (savana) of soma. We also find in it hymns (e.g. vi. 114) which evidently consist of formulas of expiation for faults committed at the sacrifice. We must therefore conclude that the followers of the Atharva to some extent knew and practised the sacrificial ceremonial before the conclusion of the present redaction of their hymns. The relation of the Atharva to the çrauta rites was, however, originally so slight, that it became necessary, in order to establish a direct connection with it, to add the twentieth book, which was compiled from the Rigveda for the purposes of the sacrificial ceremonial.

The conspicuous way in which çrauta works ignore the Atharva is therefore due to its being almost entirely unconnected with the subject-matter of the sacrifice, not to any pronounced disapproval or refusal to recognise its value in its own sphere. With the Gṛihya or Domestic Sūtras, which contain many elements of sorcery practice (vidhāna), we should expect the Atharva to betray a closer connection. This is, indeed, to some extent the case; for many verses quoted in these Sūtras are identical with or variants of those contained in the Atharva, even though the Domestic, like the Sacrificial, Sūtras endeavoured to borrow their verses as far as possible from the particular Veda to which they were attached. Otherwise, however, their