Atharvaveda

Atharvaveda
Four Vedas
Information
Religion	Historical Vedic religion Hinduism
Language	Vedic Sanskrit
Period	Vedic period (c. 1200–900 BCE)[1]
Chapters	20 kāṇḍas
Verses	5,977 mantras[2]

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."^[3] This Veda is the fourth one and was added later to the Vedic scriptures.^[4][5][6] The language of the Atharvaveda is different from the Rigveda.^[7] It has 730 hymns with about 6,000 mantras, divided into 20 books.^[8] Some parts of it are taken from the Rigveda. There are two versions of the text - Paippalāda and Śaunakīya.^[9] A well-preserved version of the Paippalāda was found in Odisha in 1957.^[10] The Atharvaveda is sometimes referred to as the "Veda of magical formulas,"^[11] but the description is hardly apt.^[12] It has rituals for daily life, such as learning, marriage, and funerals, as well as royal rituals and duties of court priests.^[13] It was compiled probably around 1200 BCE – 1000 BCE, concurrently with the Samaveda and Yajurveda.^[14] It too carries philosophical texts and three vital Upanishads known as Mundaka, Mandukya, and Prashna Upanishads.^[15][16]

1. ↑ Flood 1996, p. 37 sfnm error: no target: CITEREFFlood1996 (help); Witzel 2001 sfnm error: no target: CITEREFWitzel2001 (help).
2. ↑ "Construction of the Vedas". VedicGranth.Org. Archived from the original on 17 July 2021. Retrieved 3 July 2020.
3. ↑ 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. ↑ Cite error: The named reference maurice12 was used but no text was provided for refs named (see the help page).
7. ↑ Cite error: The named reference maurice13 was used but no text was provided for refs named (see the help page).
8. ↑ Bloomfield, Maurice (1899). The Atharvaveda. Robarts - University of Toronto. Strassburg K.J. Trübner.
9. ↑ Frits Staal (2009), Discovering the Vedas: Origins, Mantras, Rituals, Insights, Penguin, ISBN 978-0143099864, pages 136-137
10. ↑ Cite error: The named reference fritsstaal1362 was used but no text was provided for refs named (see the help page).
11. ↑ Cite error: The named reference lauriepatton383 was used but no text was provided for refs named (see the help page).
12. ↑ 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".
13. ↑ 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
14. ↑ M. S. Valiathan. The Legacy of Caraka. Orient Blackswan. p. 22.
15. ↑ Paul Deussen, Sixty Upanishads of the Veda, Volume 2, Motilal Banarsidass, ISBN 978-8120814691, pages 605–609
16. ↑ Max Muller, The Upanishads, Part 2, Prasna Upanishad, Oxford University Press, pages xlii–xliii