A History of Indian Literature v1.c8.s3.123

v1.c8.s3.123

The last class of hymns of the Atharvaveda which have still to be mentioned, are the hymns of theosophical and cosmogonic contents, which doubtlessly belong to the latest parts of the Atharvaveda. Nothing, indeed, seems further from magic than philosophy, and one might well wonder at the fact that the Atharvaveda-Saṃhitā contains, besides magic incantations, spells and benedictions, also hymns of philosophical content. However, if we look more closely at these hymns, we shall soon find that they, like the magic songs, mostly serve only practical purposes.⁵ It is not the yearning and searching for truth, for the solution of dark riddles of the universe, which inspires the authors of these hymns, but they, too, are only conjurers who pose as philosophers, by misusing the well known philosophical expressions in an ingenious, or rather artificial, web of foolish and nonsensical plays of fancy, in order to create an impression of the mystical, the mysterious. What at the first glance appears to us as profundity, is often in reality nothing but empty mystery-mongering, behind which there is more nonsense than profound sense; and indeed, mystery-mongering and the concealment of reality under a mystical veil, are part of the magician's trade. Yet these philosophical hymns presuppose a fairly high development of metaphysical thought. The chief ideas of the Upaniṣads, the conception of a highest god as creator and preserver of the world (Prajāpati), and even the ideas of an impersonal creative principle, besides a number of philosophical terms, such as brahman, tapas, asat, prāṇa, manas, must, at the time when these hymns originated, already have been the common property of large circles. Therefore, too, we must not look upon the theosophical and cosmogonic hymns of the Atharvaveda as representing a step in the development of Indian philosophy. The productive thoughts of the truly philosophical hymns of the Ṛgveda have attained their further development only in the Upaniṣads, and the philosophical hymns of the Atharvaveda can in no way be regarded as a transition-step from the oldest philosophy to that of the Upaniṣads. "They stand," as Deussen says, "not so much inside the great course of development, as, rather, by its side."¹