Page:The Religion of the Veda.djvu/56

 The Religion of the Veda "blessings "; the latter with "witchcraft charms," or "curses." In addition to this name, and the later more conventional name Atharva-Veda, there are two other names, used only in the ritual texts of this Veda. One is bhrgvangirasah, that is, Bhrigus and Angirases. In this the Bhrigus, another ancient family of fire priests, take the place of the Athar- vans. The other is Brahma-Veda, probably "Veda of the Brahman," that is the Veda of the supervising fourth priest at the Vedic (grauta) sacrifices.' The latter name may, however, be due to some extent to the fact that the Atharva-Veda contains a surprising number of theosophic hymns which deal with the brahma, the pantheistic personification of holy thought and its pious utterance. This, as we shall see later on, becomes in time the ultimate religious conception of the Veda. The Atharvan is a collection of 730 hymns, con- taining some 6000 stanzas. Aside from its theo- sophic materials, which look not a little strange in a collection of charms and exorcisms, and some hicratic stanzas which were employed by the Brahman or fourth priest, the collection is almost entirely of a popular character. It consists of hymns and stanzas 40 1 Cf. Caland, Vienna Oriental Journal, vol. xiv., p. 115.ff. 2 See below, p. 273. See Caland in the article just cited.