Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 20.djvu/52

* VEDA. 3'2 VEDA. which the sacred fire is built, every act has its stanza or formula, and every utensil is blessed with its own fitting blessing. These formulas are no longer conceived as prayers, but as magic. The words as well as the acts have inherent power. If the priest chants a formula for rain while pouring a certain sacrificial liquid, rain shall and must come. In fact, and in brief, the Yajur-Veda means the deification of the sacrifice in every detail of act and word. The "Sama-Veda is the least clear of all the Vedas. Its stanzas, or rather groups of stanzas, are known as samuni, 'melodies.' The saman stanzas are preserved in three forms. First, in the Rig- Veda, as ordinary poetry, accented in the same way as other Vedic poetry. Second- ly, in the arcikas, a kind of libretto forming a" special collection of s-amam-verses, most of which, though not all, occur also in the Rig- Veda. Here also there is a system of accents, peculiar in its notation, but purely with reference to the unsung samans. In the third saman version, the ganas, or song-books, we find the real sung samans. Here not only the text, but the musical notes are marked. "Still this is not a complete saman. In the middle of the sung stanzas appear exclamatory syllables, the so- called stolhas, such as o»i, ht'iu, hSi, hnyi. or him; and at the end certain concluding words, such as atha, a, Im, nam, and sat. The Sama-Veda is devoted chiefly to the worship of Indra (q.v.). It seems likely, therefore, that it is the civilized version of .savage .Shamanism (q.v.), an attempt to influence the natural order of things by shouts and exhortations, for the Brahmans as a rule blended their own hieratic practices and concep- tions with what they found among the people. The sanioH-nielody and the exclamations inter- spersed among the words may. therefore, be the substitute for the self-exciting shouts of the Shaman priests of an earlier time. The oldest name of the Atharva-Veda is atharvuiigirasah, a compound formed of the names of two semi-mythic families of priests, the Atharvans and Angirases. At a very early time the former term was regarded as synonymous with 'holy charms,' or 'blessings;' the latter with 'witchcraft charms,' or 'curses.' In addition to the name Atharva-Veda there are two other names, practically restricted to the ritual texts of this Veda: hiirgimfu/irasah or 'Pdirigus and Angirases.' in which the Bhrigus, another ancient family of five priests, takes the jilace of the Angirases; and Brahma-Veda, probably 'Veda of the Brahma, or holy religion in general.' (See Brajima.) The Atharva-Veda is a collection of 7.30 hymns, containing some fiOOO stanzas, di- vided into 20 books. About one-sixth of the mass, including two entire books (xv. and xvi.), is written in prose, similar in .style to that of the Brahnumas (sec below), the rest being poetry in tlio usual Vedic metres. These, however, are liandled with great freedom, often lict raying either ignorance or disregard of the metrical canons, as they appear in the Rig-Veda. The Atharva-Veda did not attain to perfect canon- iclty until the period of Classical Sanskrit, simply on account of the nature of its contents, which are somewhat apart from the hieratic worship of the gods and the sacerdotalism of t)ie other three Vedas. The contents of the zVtharva- Veda are popular rather than hieratic, and superstitious rather than religious. It is a pictuie of the lower life of ancient India, painted on a very broad canvas. It exhibits the ordinary Hindu not only in the aspect of a de- vout and virtuous adherent of the gods, and per- former of pious practices, but also as the natural, semi-civilized man: rapacious, demon-plagued and fear-ridden, hateful, lustful, and addicted to sorcery. The themes of the hymns of the Atharva-Veda may be grouped as follows : charms to cure dis- ease and possession by demons; pra}"ers for long life and health; imprecations against demons, sorcerers, and enemies; charms pertaining to women; charms pertaining to royalty; charms to secure harmony, influence in the village assembly, and the like; charms to secure prosperity in house, field, cattle, business, gambling, etc. ; charms in expiation of sin ; prayers and impre- cations in the interest of Brahmans ; and wed- ding and funeral stanzas. Curiously enough, the Atharva has a large number of cosmogonic and theosophie hymns, being in this respect a more significant precursor to the Upanishads (q.v.) than is the Rig-Veda itself. The redactions of these four Vedas, called samhitas b_y the Hindus, have been handed down in various schools, branches, or recensions, which present a given Veda in forms difTering not a little from one another. The school ditferences of the Rig-Veda are of no importance, except as they extend also to the Brahmanas and Sutras. (See below.) There are two Sama-Veda redac- tions, that of the school of the Kauthumas and the Ranayaniyas: and two of the Atliarva-Veda, ascribed to the school of Saunakiyas and the Paippaladas. The Yajur-Veda especially is handed down in recensions that difl'cr from one another very widely. There is first the broad division into White Yajur-Veda and Black Yajur-Veda. The most important difference be- tween these two is that the Black Yajur schools intermingle their stanzas and formulas with the prose exposition of the Brahmana, whereas the White Yajur schools present their Brahmana in separate works. The White Yajur-Veda belongs to the school of the Vajasaneyins and is sub- divided into the Jladhyandina and Kanva schools. The important schools of the Black Yajur-Veda are the Taittiriyas, JIaitrayaniyas, Kathas. and Kapishthalas. Sometimes these schools have definite geographical locations. For example, the Kathas and the Kapishthahas were located, at the time when the Greeks became acquainted with India, in the Punjab and in Kashmir. The ^lai- trayaniyas appear at one time to have occupied the region around the lower course of the river Narmada, and the Taittiriyas. at least in mod- ern times, are in the south of India. The poetic stanzas and the ritualistic formulas of the Vedas collectively go by the name of mantrn, 'pious utterance.' or 'hymn.' These were followed at later periods by a very different literary type, namely, the theological treatises called hrdhmana.'i. They are exegetical and com- mentative, and arc bulky expositions of the sacrificial ceremonial, describing its minute de- tails, discussing its value, speculating >ipon its origin, and illustrating iis potency by ancient legends. Aside from tlic light which these texts