The History of Indian Literature c8.424

c8.424

some ninety. The division into *parvans*, mentioned in the thirteenth book of the Śatapatha-Bráhmaṇa, does not appear in the manuscripts; neither do they state to what school the existing text belongs. As, however, in one of the Pariśishṭas to be mentioned hereafter (the seventh), the ṛichas belonging to the ceremony there in question are quoted as *Paippaládá mantráḥ*, it is at least certain that there was a Saṃhitá belonging to the Paippaláda school, and possibly this may be the Saṃhitá now extant.¹⁵⁹ Its contents and principle of division are at present unknown¹⁶⁰ in their details. We only know generally that “it principally contains formulas intended to protect against the baneful influences of the divine powers,∗1 against diseases and noxious animals; cursings of enemies, invocations of healing herbs; together with formulas for all manner of occurrences in every-day life, prayers for protection on journeys, luck in gaming, and the like”†—all matters for which analogies enough are to be found in the hymns of the Ṛik-Saṃhitá. But in the Ṛik the instances are both less numerous, and, as already remarked in the introduction (p. 11), they are handled in an entirely different manner, although at the same time a not inconsiderable portion of these songs reappears directly in the Ṛik, particularly in the tenth *maṇḍala*.∗2 As to the ceremonial for which the hymns of the Atharvan were used, what corresponds to it in the other Vedas is found, not in the Śrauta-Sútras, but with few exceptions in the Gṛihya-Sútras only; and it appears therefore (as I have likewise already remarked) that this ceremonial in its origin belonged rather to the people proper than to the families of priests. As in the Shaḍviṅśa-Bráhmaṇa and in the Sáma-Sútras we actually meet with a case (see p. 78) where an imprecatory ceremony is borrowed from the Vrátínas, or Aryans who had not adopted the Brahmanical organisation, we may further reasonably conjecture that this was not a solitary instance; and thus the view naturally presents itself that, though the Atharva-Saṃhitá originated for the most part in the Brahmanical period, yet songs and formulas may also have been incorporated into it which properly belonged to these unbrahmanical Aryans of the west.[^asterisk] And as a matter of fact, a very peculiar relation to these tribes is unmistakably revealed in the fifteenth *káṇḍa*, where the Supreme Being is expressly called by the name of Vrátya,¹⁶¹ and is at the same time associated with the attributes given in the Sámaveda as characteristics of the Vrátyas. In the same way, too, we find this word Vrátya employed in the Atharva-Upanishads in the sense of "pure in himself" to denote the Supreme Being. The mention of the *mágadha* in the Vrátya-book, and the possibility that this word may refer to anti-brahmanical Buddhist teachers, have already been discussed (p. 112). In a passage communicated by Roth, *op. c.* p. 38, special, and hostile, notice is taken of the Aṅgas and Magadhas in the East, as well as of the Gandháris, Mújavants, Śúdras, Mahávṛishas, and Valhikas in the North-West, between which tribes therefore the Brahmanical district was apparently shut in at the time of the composition of the song in question. Intercourse with the West appears to have been more active than with the East, five of the races settled in the West being mentioned, and two only of those belonging to the